Tag Archives: Alaska

News from the Alaska Geotourism Initiative

Posted on by
3

[Above: Lake Naknek, gateway to Katmai National Park. Photo courtesy Bristol Bay Borough]

Fall 2014 Update

The Alaska Geotourism initiative is a collaboration convened by University of Alaska faculty and program specialists and now includes rural tourism business and community leaders focused on identifying viable rural economic development management strategies that maximize beneficial tourism for their communities and seek to further good destination stewardship. Another outcome is to provide a source of information to re-introduce Alaska gateway communities to the US and international geotourism communities.

The following is a brief overview of Alaska geotourism projects currently underway.

1. Community Familiarization – Alaska Geotourism is looking at strategies to promote rural Alaska for those regions/villages that see geotourism as a viable approach to maintain community health and community viability. The communities of Naknek and King Salmon in association with the Bristol Bay Native Association will be hosting a familiarization tour for some small tour operators to visit the Bristol Bay region (Salmon Capital of the World and also gateway to Katmai National Park)

Bears feed on salmon, Katmai National Park. Photos: Adelheid Hermann

to participate in a planning session with village leaders to help plan the geotourism strategy for their communities. (See also http://www.bbna.com/NewsLetters/June2014NewsletterWEB.pdf)

BearFalls1

Local communities want to grab more bear-watching tourists flying into Katmai.

2. New Educational Curriculum – The University of Alaska Fairbanks Department of Alaska Native Studies and Rural Development faculty member Cathy Brooks, Assistant Professor & Faculty Advisor for Festival of Native Arts Advisor (cabrooks2@alaska.edu) is currently developing a geotourism class for undergraduate students. It will be offered both campus-based and distance. Jonathan Tourtellot and Larry Dickerson of University of Missouri have been project advisors.

3. OLE in cooperation with the UAF Cooperative Extension Service is presenting a non-credit 4-part course entitled Geotourism: Preserving a Sense of Place at the Anchorage Extension Center with hopes to introduce the geotourism approach to a wider Alaskan audience.

4. Cultural Exchange – The Asian Alaskan Cultural Center representing 8 Asian communities www.aaccus.org is working with the communities of Seward, Fairbanks and Wasilla to bring the story of 1890s Japanese Alaskan pioneer, Jujiro Wada, back to Alaska in 2015 via a musical play/cultural exchange in those communities. Wada, from Japan, was an early Alaskan adventurer, early explorer, and marathon runner and much much more ( http://www.cityofseward.us )

For more information, contact: Alaska Geotourism Chair Willard Dunham via info@destinationcenter.org

Statewide Collaboration: “Alaska Geotourism”

Posted on by
6

The Alaska Geotourism initiative is a collaboration convened by University of Alaska faculty and program specialists and involves rural tourism business and community leaders focused on identifying viable rural economic development management strategies that maximize beneficial tourism for their communities and seek to further good destination stewardship. Another purpose is to provide a source of information to re-introduce remote rural Alaska to the US and International Geotourism communities. See Alaska Geotourism Charter.

Alaska Geotourism is a geotourism initiative, which is a statewide rural tourism collaboration that is now undertaking discussions to identify and promote projects currently underway as well as identify future collaborative endeavours.

Geotourism is very much a theme that is currently ongoing in several rural Alaskan communities well before the formal organization of Alaska’s geotourism efforts. Future Alaska Geotourism endeavors look to several Alaska communities to provide models for other Alaska communities interested in the geotourism approach. These pioneering communities are: the city of Craig, located on Prince of Wales Island in southeast Alaska http://www.craigak.com ; Seward, located on the shores of Prince William Sound at mile “0” of the Iditarod Trail http://www.cityofseward.us ; and communities in southwest Alaska.

Alaska Geotourism is looking at strategies to promote rural Alaska for those regions/villages that see Geotourism as a viable approach to maintain community health and community viability.

For more information, contact: Alaska Geotourism project co-chair Corey Hester via info@destinationcenter.org

New Geotourism Activity on Canadian Border, Alaska, & Philippines

Posted on by
1

Above: Glacier National Park, Montana, part of the
Crown of the Continent. Photo: Jonathan Tourtellot

On the Border

The destination-based geotourism approach may be a way to join back together what the 9-11 attacks tore asunder 13 years ago: an easygoing U.S.-Canadian border. You still need passports to cross, but these geotourism projects focus on the destination as a whole, regardless of bisection by the political boundary.

Canoeists especially may welcome the latest entry: “Heart of the Continent. This new National Geographic Geotourism MapGuide program just launched in the border lakes region of northeastern Minnesota and adjacent portions of western Ontario, as reported on the U.S. side and the Canadian side. Supervised by the international Heart of the Continent Partnership, the project will create a cobranded geotourism printed map and website for the triangular area reaching from Thunder Bay, ON west to International Falls, MN and south to Duluth, also including Isle Royale.

This marks the third U.S.-Canada transborder geotourism project, following Crown of the Continent (Montana-Alberta-B.C.) and Lakes to Locks (N.Y.-Quebec). Exploration is now underway for yet a fourth, the Okanagan Valley (B.C.-Washington). Notably, one of the earliest MapGuide projects bridged a different, tougher border: Arizona (U.S.) and Sonora, Mexico. It yielded an excellent (I think) detailed print map of the Sonoran Desert but lacked a strong supervisory geotourism stewardship council that would keep the program going.

And in Alaska

Elsewhere in geotourism developments, a statewide group convened by the University of Alaska has launched a geotourism initiative and posted an Alaskan Geotourism Charter. The group is now reviewing ideas for bringing tourism benefits to Alaskan gateway communities. Many feel bypassed by tourists either on cruise-line package tours or transferring by charter flights to high-end wilderness lodges. We expect you will be hearing more about this effort.

And in Philippines

And I myself just finished a geotourism speaking tour in the Philippines, invited by a Manila-based event planner who believes Philippine tourism has lost a sense of identity. Two lectures in Manila and one each with press coverage in Baguio and Legazpi introduced the geotourism approach to some 3,500 Filipino university students and a variety of professional practitioners.