How to relieve congestion and make the Chilkoot River corridor more safe and enjoyable to visitors – and accommodating to brown bears – has been a borough issue since the mid-1990s, when brown bear sows and cubs started fishing there during daylight hours.
Fortunately, the bears have been patient with us.
In the late 1990s, the Haines Borough established a task force and approved a Chilkoot Corridor management plan. The State of Alaska and Haines Borough at one point collaborated to fund “bear monitor” positions aimed at educating visitors to reduce run-ins between grizzlies and people.
A group of residents created the Alaska Chilkoot Bear Foundation with the stated purpose of reducing bear-people conflicts at the site by promoting education, safety infrastructure, and responsible wildlife-viewing practices.
Former State Rep. Bill Thomas of Haines held an hours-long community meeting on Chilkoot that considered long-range options such as creating a one-way loop road into the lake. The Haines Borough Assembly in 2019 approved a moratorium on new tours in the corridor, which effectively is still in place, with the apparent exception of Lutak Bridge. Last year, the borough closed its riverside property opposite the road in order to create some sanctuary for stressed bears.
Rep. Thomas eventually found about $2 million to address the corridor, money that paved the river road and created some designated parking and pullouts but sidestepped the larger issue of crowding on this narrow strip of land that must be shared by brown bears, anglers, state park users, ADF&G fisheries workers, tour guides, tourists and residents.
The borough recently launched another round of education efforts targeting Chilkoot visitors. Along with promised strict enforcement by our state park ranger, some progress may be made, but an underlying issue is that many people go ga-ga at the sight of a bear in the wild.
Here’s a way we can help those folks and state wildlife managers, and make the corridor a more sensible place.
The borough should request the state to use a new gate and booth the state placed on Chilkoot River Road. After the first pink salmon passes the weir, or 5,000 sockeye, limit vehicle traffic on the river road to campsite permit holders, permitted tours vehicles and a limited number (10 perhaps) of private vehicles at one time.
Once vehicle capacity has been reached, no other vehicles can enter the road until one departs. Place no limits on the number of visitors who can walk in. For people not ambulatory, establish a public-use shuttle.
Much of the dangerous behavior at Chilkoot is owed to a sense of security provided by having one’s car nearby. Visitors on foot would necessarily be more respectful of a bear’s space. Using the gate would curtail “bear traffic jams” that happen when crowds and cars stop in place to watch a bruin.
There are many options and ideas to address the Chilkoot corridor. Use of the gate to limit vehicle traffic is a sensible place to start.