A new tourism business, recently launched on Kodiak Island, hopes to provide intimate cultural experiences for visitors this summer cruise ship season.
Old Harbor Native Corporation formed subsidiary Alaska Nuna Adventures earlier this year, on Feb. 5 according to business records.According to the company’s website, potential tours in Kodiak include meet and greets with Alutiiq dancers and artisans, an Alutiiq cooking demonstration, and an intimate conversation with an Alutiiq Elder.
Shurina Gronn, the Kodiak operations manager for the corporation, said the company will start by offering walking tours for visitors coming off Kodiak’s first cruise ship of the season later this month on April 24.
“We have the tour set up to run cruisers to Fort Abercrombie, so all of that is good to go," she said. "We have the permitting from the state and two of our vans are here, our buses, and we have drivers, and we’re working out the schedule for that day specifically.”
Gronn said part of the reason the corporation created Alaska Nuna Adventures is to fill a gap in the local tourism industry. She said it can be hard to find culturally immersive Alutiiq experiences in Kodiak outside of the Alutiiq museum.
“In the past I know it was kind of Kodiak on your own. So, the tourists had to navigate where to really get the culture," she explained. "And there was nothing really ever set up for like an intimate activity where they learn the beading and why the beading was done that way in the Alutiiq culture.”
Alaska Nuna Adventures will also offer cultural tours in the community of Old Harbor, about 70 miles south of Kodiak.
Old Harbor is slated to host at least two cruise ships this summer according to Gronn. These aresmaller excursion cruises that are expected to bring a few hundred passengers to the village rather than the ones that bring a few thousand to Kodiak.
Kristina Woolston, the CEO of Old Harbor Native Corporation, said in a press release that this new company is an investment in “a future where cultural tourism is led by our people, rooted in our values, and built to benefit our community for generations.”
Woolston alsotold Alaska Business magazine that the community’s ongoing hydroelectric project will help sustain more of these smaller “more curated” cruises.
In the meantime, Alaska Nuna Adventures is hiring multiple bus drivers and tour guides with the goal of having a total of 30 staff this summer. Gronn said in June the company will also hold a tour guide training in Old Harbor, similar to the one OHNC held in Kodiak from March 30 – April 2.
