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What I said was ... the tenor of posters' attitude, in this thread, towards visitors stinks to high heaven. And I don't visit places with locals like that. The pomposity of it turns me off.
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I trust I won't be seeing you around POW then, though you'd probably like it better and see more of the "real Alaska" than in the port cities. we're actually sometimes nice to tourists here...not because they're bringing money or buying trinkets though (there aren't any trinkets to buy). They mostly come here to sports fish and that's something we can all relate to here, and many of them have been coming back year after year...so we develop a better relationship with them than in the port cities.
What do you think the reason behind the attitude that you mention might be? I do think it's a pretty prevailing one in communities that have been plagued with ships to the extent that Ketchikan, Skagway, and Juneau have been.
Last summer in Skagway, I never encountered so much rudeness in my entire life, and almost all of the perps were white sneakered American tourists. Just going around town as an average citizen is enough to totally turn you off of the ships and their passengers.
One of them approached me last summer as I was sitting on a bench in a rather out of the way area while trying to get away from the swarms and demanded to know if I grew my own vegetables and whether a coat she'd seen in a *cough* "local" store was made out of polar bear skins. She told me I was a Native; I told her I wasn't and she again told me that I was. Quite strange. And I've seen them trample through people's yards with no understanding that they were on private property (even when it was posted), literally yell at store clerks and restaurant personnel. And don't even get me started on the tourists who were lifting the spawning salmon out of one of the local creeks. One couple was allowing their offspring to poke at the fish with sticks...when I pointed out to them that such activity could earn them a $1000 fine, their response to me was less than cordial---how dare someone tell them that their little darlings couldn't break the law?
I was actually shocked by much of the behavior I saw because it barely even existed among the tourists that I dealt with in the interior.
I think, Enrico, that your statement about those who bring their money up was the motivator for some of the responses you got here. Personally, I don't need your money. And if you'll ask around on your next trip, provided there is one, you'll notice that most of the people you come into contact with in port don't live here. And if you'll investigate further and take a look at the delinquent taxes, you'll notice a preponderance of offshore jewelry companies on that list--so much for the sales tax revenue they bring in. What they do actually bring is goes to maintain the cruise docks, by the way.
We do see quite an attitude here among the tourists that indicates their strong belief that our communities wouldn't exist without them. Again, I urge you to take a look at the economics of Petersburg and then compare that to Skagway, and then tell me which community is financially healthy.
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03-26-2008, 05:29 PM
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