Sustainability
At Adventure Sitka, our commitment to sustainability is woven into every aspect of what we do—from creating a collaborative, transparent work environment to emphasizing responsible ecotourism practices. We believe that our team’s success hinges on open communication, ongoing education, and a collective investment in protecting the environment and cultural integrity of Sitka. In doing so, we strive not only to enrich the experience of our guests, but to uplift our local community, preserve cherished traditions, and responsibly steward the vibrant wildlife and natural resources we share. The following statement outlines our approach to sustainability through practices that minimize single-use waste, honor cultural heritage, engage our community, and support long-term ecological balance for generations to come.
Working Environment
Adventure Sitka believes that sustainability is a team effort, from managers and ownership to our valued front line tour delivery staff. We are committed to providing a supportive, transparent, accountable, and communicative working environment that inspires seasonal employees to come work with us for multiple summer seasons. This increases our entire team’s sense of buy-in to our sustainability mission, ownership of our practices, and sense of accomplishment through community. Our documented practices and policy manuals provide a clear path forward with detailed information and guidelines on Leave No Trace best practices and cultural awareness / stewardship among other important core values. Our preseason training programs reinforce these concepts, and throughout the operating season and calendar year, we engage with our team members, hold each other accountable in a constructive way, and frequently revisit our core sustainability values.
Community
At Adventure Sitka, we realize the importance of our role in our local community within the context of sustainability. We strive to improve Sitka as a destination port not only for visiting guests, but (equally importantly) for the local community. This includes the local economy, the life experience of our fellow community members, and the local environmental impact. One of Adventure Sitka’s core missions is to provide more ecotour capacity and options to the Sitka market to reduce the congestion of shuttle bus traffic from the Sitka Sound Cruise Terminal to downtown Sitka. Since 2021, we have added four new tour products that sustainably highlight the ecological, historical, geological and cultural features of our wonderful destination, doing our part to reduce the number of daily shuttle buses on the road.
Responsible Wildlife Viewing
We feel very strongly about ecotourism as a renewable resource, and a key component of that is striking the balance of showcasing our vibrant marine life without disturbing the animals and affecting their presence in the future. We strictly follow all NOAA guidelines for responsible marine wildlife viewing, and we consider ourselves in the important position of educating our guests on the reasoning behind these guidelines, as well as the importance of following them.
Elimination of Single Use Plastics and Paper
Single-use plastic terminates in our ocean ecosystems and is harmful to both the environment and marine mammals. Adventure Sitka has worked to minimize and eliminate single-use plastics. We have switched from distributing single-use water bottles on our kayak and sightseeing tours to sustainably packaged water from Alaska Pure Mountain Spring Water, an Alaskan-owned company that sources water locally near their headquarters in Juneau. We are working to, wherever possible, switch to biodegradable single-use items such as hot cups, napkins, and coffee stir sticks. Adventure Sitka has also gone almost completely paperless/electronic with our documentation and forms, and we are continuing to look for ways to eliminate and minimize paper use.
Cultural Stewardship and Awareness
At Adventure Sitka, we take cultural stewardship very seriously, and are continually looking to listen, self-assess, and take feedback from the appropriate channels. We frequently attend Sitka’s annual Heritage & Cultural Tourism Conference, and have then implemented what we learn into our Policy Manual and training programs. A key principle that has guided us is being aware of what stories are or aren’t ours to tell – this has framed our training, but we’ve also had to follow through with accountability, communication and feedback throughout the operating season. We also include land acknowledgements in our narration. We focus on not just doing a land acknowledgement to “check a box” but going further by actively listening and learning to make sure we are communicating the acknowledgement in the most appropriate and respectful way. In 2025, we plan to include brochures for Sitka National Historical Park and Sheldon Jackson Museum as a visual on each of our sightseeing tour vessels as an addition to training our staff to recommend both locations to guests heading into town.