Westerdam visits Nome

By Laura Robertson

Last Thursday, the cruise ship Westerdam returned to Nome after having visited the Gold Rush town last year for the first time. The eleven-deck ship seemed to dwarf town as it lay anchored in Nome’s roadstead.
Like last year, the ship timed its travels to touch the Arctic Circle around the time of the summer solstice, meaning tourists landed in town right as Nome’s Midnight Sun festivities were beginning.
“Everywhere I went, people were smiling,” said Robin Johnson with Nome Discovery Tours, the organizer of the land activities for the cruise ship visitors.
Johnson wasn’t sure how many people had gotten off the ship, but she said that a total of around 550 people did organized tours, with many others walking around town throughout the day.
Around 270 people went on a two-hour city bus tour which involved panning for gold, seeing a dog mushing demonstration with an Iditarod musher and a stop at the Carrie M. McLain Memorial Museum. About 100 people went on hikes around town to Newton Peak or Dredge No. 5. Another 120 took in the cultural and NYO presentations, a sort of cultural camp, put on by Katirvik. About 70 people participated in a historic walking tour around Nome.
It was a warm, sunny day. On Front Street, the Bering Sea Lions Club prepared their Midnight Sun Chicken Feed and kids set up fundraising shops in colorful bus stops—selling salmonberry pies, Nanook mugs, and more. Educator’s Rising students sold qiviut as part of their fundraiser. By noon, they were almost sold out. 
At the Rec Center, Nome’s artists sold earrings, kuspuks, spoons, jams, and more.
Throughout the day, small tenders ferried people to shore and supplies to the ship. Four school buses picked up tour-goers at the small boat harbor while five shuttles carted tourists around between Front Street, the craft fair at the Rec Center, the museum and Old St. Joe’s.
“They were so busy,” said Johnson of the shuttles. “We could have used five more but there were no more vans.”
Inside the Mini Convention Center, Kiminaq Alvanna-Stimpfle and Kunaq Marjorie Tahbone told tourists about Nome life and Native cultures. Tahbone told the gathered audience about traditional tattooing, explaining that it had been reclaimed and become more popular in recent years. She told them the legend of the sea goddess whose fingers had been cut off, and the hand tattoos some Inupiaq women have to commemorate her. As she described legends about little people and whistling at the Northern Lights, Tahbone joked, “We sure love to teach our children by scaring them.”
Later in the presentation, Parker Kenick demonstrated NYO games, including the One-Foot High Kick and the Two-Foot High Kick. Tahbone and Alvanna-Stimpfle explained that they were once symbols of whether a hunt had been successful or not. Now when her husband has a successful hunt, Alvanna-Stimpfle joked, he sends her a text.
As Kenick landed a One-Foot High Kick far above his head, the crowd oohed and ahhed.
At the east end of town, Augie Krutzsch, who runs AKAU Gold and Resort, showed a group of tourists how to pan for gold and talked a bit about Nome’s history.
“Nome has been created by what?” Krutzsch called out, and the tourists response in tentative unison: “Gold!”
As he demonstrated how to use water ripples to push lighter sand out of a pan, leaving red dirt behind, he told the tourists that his family had been mining in Nome for generations before he decided to switch to gold tourism.
At Icy View, Iditarod veteran Nils Hahn gave presentations on dog mushing, explaining the care and feeding of the sled dogs before hooking a team up to a four-wheeler and taking them on a short run.
Many tourists didn’t know much about Nome when they got here, but they expressed generally positive opinions.
“I’ve done a lot of cruising but this is the first time I ever came up north,” said Philip Harden of Atlanta. His wife, Carolyn, said that stress seemed way down here.
Kathy Myers said that Nome seemed like “a quaint place to live.”
“I like Nome. It’s pretty nice for where it’s at,” said Allan Campbell, saying that it was “pretty far from civilization.” Campbell added he had been hanging out on  Front Street for an hour while his wife explored Maruskiya’s.
At least one tourist had come into town with clear expectations.
“I’m a fan of Bering Sea Gold,” said Joy Stolzmann of Prescott, Arizona. “So, I was hoping to see Shawn or Emily or, you know, have a drink with Verne.” She laughed and gestured at the dredges out at sea. “But I think they’re all out there. I can see all the dredges doing their work.”
At 5 p.m., the tourists got back onto their boat and headed North to the Arctic Circle.
“I heard so many times, ‘Everybody’s so friendly. This is such a nice town,’” said Johnson. “’We feel like we’re welcome here instead of invading here.’”
The Westerdam’s sister ship is scheduled to arrive in Nome in 2026.
The next cruise ship scheduled to arrive in Nome is the Roald Amundsen, arriving Tuesday, July 8.