Kaktovik Leaders Push to Revive Polar Bear Tourism

Leaders in the remote Alaska Native village of Kaktovik are pushing to revive polar bear tourism, a once-thriving industry that drew hundreds of visitors each year to witness the animals gathering on the Arctic coast. The effort, centered in the only settlement within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, aims to restart boat tours as early as 2027, following a pause prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic and federal restrictions over concerns for community safety and bear behavior.

Kaktovik, home to about 250 Inupiat residents far above the Arctic Circle, has long been a unique vantage point for observing polar bears in late summer. The bears congregate on barrier islands near the village to scavenge whale remains from subsistence hunts and await the return of sea ice for hunting seals. Tourism peaked in the years after 2008, when federal officials listed polar bears as threatened due to rapid Arctic warming that erodes their sea ice habitat. Scientists warn that most populations could vanish by century's end without intervention.

The influx of visitors, sometimes numbering in the hundreds during the six-week viewing season, strained the tiny community. Local boat operators initially...