Cruise Boom

This is not a film I intended or wanted to make.

I’ve made this island town, of Sitka, Alaska home for over 25 years and covered a lot of topics in Alaska and outside, from grief and healing to teens and border crossings, but tourism is not one that drew me. I was baited and provoked to think about it with lines like “You have the skills to show the place before the Cruise Boom, to document and reflect on the growth that will drastically change the community."

I took the bait, but we started out making Cruise Boom, as shorts, like we did with a series called “14 Miles" (see 14miles.org). Then we realized there were two things we wanted to cover, that couldn’t be done in a 2-5 minute film: show a passage of time and portray a place within that passage. We ended up filming for over a year, creating a documentary where the town, not individuals are the character, the protagonist.

We want Cruise Boom to be useful in the classroom and with communities, talking about globalization, boom and bust economies, community self-determination, balancing the need for economic opportunity with maintaining the health and well-being of the environment and the community. The documentary also raises questions about what “good tourism,” is, who benefits from the cruise ship industry and how the travel experience can work for both visitors and locals.