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Switched Over to Cruise Control by Carol Schirmer Richard piped up. "That doesn’t bother me. They can have all the false-front stores in town they want. I quit driving to town in the summer, years ago." Click to read Essay Profile of Author Bio of Author from ETG Essay, Late-breaking Developments Author's Comment on the ETG Experience Updated Bio Click to Purchase Send email to the author (The copyright on this essay is held by the author.  For permission to duplicate: copyright@cunepress.com)

Switched Over to Cruise Control
"This ferry’s runnin’ late. No way are we going to make it to the dock in time," mused my brother Richard. We stood inside the enclosed observation deck.

"Yeah." Enormous goose-feather snowflakes illuminated a dark dawn sky. "If they hadn’t forced the ferry terminal to move to Auke Bay for those blasted cruise ships . . . floating plastic cities . . . ." I stopped. I knew Richard would assert his opinion that a town needs a solid economic base, and for Juneau to be the capital of Alaska was not enough. Yet I felt our city leaders had sold out, allowed the town to be trashed and overrun by the cruise ship industry.

There was no point in arguing. We were both tired. Heavy snow and low visibility had prevented our return flight from landing in Juneau, a southeast Alaska town only accessible by airplane or boat. The plane diverted to Sitka, a few hundred miles away, and scores of us had scrambled to catch the twice weekly ferry back.

David, our brother and a captain on a fishing tender, had planned a brief January call into Juneau to take on more fuel. Our rendezvous was stymied by our flight cancellation, and now our ferry would arrive at one harbor as David’s boat departed from another. I silently prayed to see him before his risky passage across the Gulf of Alaska to Chignik. The waters south of the Aleutian Islands conjure up fishermen’s winter death nightmares of howling gales, sub-zero temperatures, and unforgiving ice. Crabbers and fishing boats capsize every year.

Mountains completely encircle Juneau, save for a narrow water passageway—Gastineau Channel. The state ferries had always had first rights to dock at Juneau’s town harbor. Increased tourism in the 1980s, however, created ship overcrowding. Cruise ship demands for more time at the docks had delayed ferry schedules, inconvenienced regional businessmen, and angered local residents.

Juneau, a borough of 29,000, stood to gain over $100 million every summer in tonnage fee collections from sixteen separate cruise lines. The city elected to rebuild an expensive dock, whitewash buildings, relocate the drunk and disorderly of wino’s alley, and move all ferry traffic to Auke Bay fifteen miles north of town.

"Cruise ships?" A bearded schoolteacher dressed in a gray halibut jacket overheard me. "Did you hear? Lyle’s Hardware and the Imperial Cafe are closing."

"What? No way." I bought my first bread bowl at Lyle’s twenty years ago. I duplicated my cabin-in-the-woods key there when I thought I should start locking my door. Local shop owners couldn’t compete with resort gift-store chains originating in the Virgin Islands, snaking through the Mexican gulf, and infiltrating Alaska coastal towns. Commercial rents had skyrocketed.

Several ferry riders edged in closer.

"Yep. We’ll be seeing more Little Switzerland shops and Columbia Emerald boo-tweaks this summer." A few laughed, which only encouraged him to continue. "Jeez, where do you buy a light bulb, nails, work boots? I can’t caulk with moose shit jewelry . . . though maybe we should try it on the City Assembly walls!"

Richard piped up. "That doesn’t bother me. They can have all the false-front stores in town they want. I quit driving to town in the summer, years ago." Everyone nodded in agreement.

"But try and get away from all the helicopter flightseeing and floatplane noise," I said. "You can’t hike out by the glacier anymore without running into twenty tour buses. You can’t have a peaceful trek up Salmon Creek Trail without feeling like a militia of helicopters will strafe you every
twenty minutes." I was shaking. "There’s a plan to create thirty more landing sites in the Tongass Forest."

No one said anything. Snowflakes were thinning out. Our faces reflected in the ferry window. Summer solitude on a mossy rainforest trail was becoming rare. I hoped that the camaraderie of the townspeople would rekindle each winter.

The previous summer, a friend and I observed mass bewilderment as cruise ship passengers disembarked the Legend of the Seas, the Sun Princess, and other mega-ships. Many were elderly gentlefolks who at last were realizing a dream, The Alaska Experience. They were shuttled to cruise-line buses by the hundreds, slammed into floatplanes for a rapid flightsee, and hustled by Tijuana hawkers on the dock.

"Auke Bay," the loudspeaker announced. I glanced at my watch—one o’clock in the morning. The few taxis waiting at the ferry terminal would be overwhelmed by the extra passengers. Richard and I would try to reach town before David’s boat pulled out, but it wasn’t looking good for anyone.

Profile
Carol Schirmer is an oxymoron in the flesh. She is a rebel in conservative skin . . . soft-spoken and resolute. She is not the kind of girl you would imagine being suspended for breaking high school dress codes or choosing to live with a man in a tepee in Juneau, Alaska. She is full of wonderful surprises and an interesting juxtaposition of a Nordstrom wardrobe packing through the southern tip of Thailand. I am never sure where the other end of the line is on any phone call—I am sure she is calling to jog my now domesticated travel bug . . . looking for a playmate.

Carol has acquired her education in a series of short stints. Some of these in my company. She sort of jolted her way through those college years and then decided that taking all her money and moving to Anchorage would be a sound decision.

Carol has had her life tempered in a certain amount of pain. A marriage come and gone, other loves won and lost along the way. And in the same juxtaposition, a real vulnerability mixed with grit.

—Chris Cocklin Ray

Bio
Carol Schirmer
Place of residence: Juneau, Alaska.
Birthplace: Anchorage, Alaska.
Grew up in: Seattle area.
Day job: Airline ticket agent.
Education: University of Alaska and University of Washington.
Serial publications: Explorations. Inside Passages. Short stories, poetry.
Award: A. Shields Award (University of Fairbanks) for "Unjust Desserts," a short story.
Current projects: One of Us Probably Shouldn’t Be Here—a novel. Also a collection of short stories. Both are set in southeast Alaska .
Favorite book: Child of the Dark: The Diary of Carolina Maria de Jesus by Carolina de Jesus.
Cravings: Mangoes and raspberries, my own chocolate-espresso brownies, and Droste chocolate oranges (I used to own a dessert catering business).
Pastime: Learning Portuguese.

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