Banner photo: Brendan and Rachel Jones with their three daughters and pup Bandit.
Regenerative Tourism is a holistic approach to tourism that proactively works to improve ecosystems, elevate local economies, and promote meaningful and responsible visitor experiences. Authentic local representation, deep community involvement, and practical and innovative steps for conserving and enhancing the environment are central to this approach. Regenerative Tourism reveals how the industry can protect, enable, and grow strategies that benefit communities, cultures, and ecosystems of Southeast Alaska.
Mary: Can you please tell me about yourself and your business?
Brendan: First off – it’s such a pleasure to do this article with you Mary! We love the work you’re doing with regenerative tourism, and we’re so eager to be part of this vision for Sitka, and Southeast.
I first arrived in Sitka in 1997, at the age of 19. I spent close to a year living in the woods, in a tent that I quickly burnt down due to ineptitude, then in a hut of my own making. I worked for the salmon hatchery, then the Daily Sitka Sentinel, before starting to commercial fish.
Rachel and I met in 2012. I was her Cuban salsa teacher at the Hames Center – I believe you took a couple classes!
Right around then I started fishing with Karl Jordan, then Eric Jordan. Each night, after long days fishing, we’d each have a beer, and think about what it would mean to give folks the experience of working as a deckhand on a troller. We later learned the name for this – pescatourism. While it existed in Italy and France, it had yet to come to Alaska. There were a couple folks doing something similar in Massachusetts, but nothing too compelling.
A salmon troller on Sitka Sound
Rachel and I, along with Karl, got together, and chatted about how commercial fishermen are largely kept out of the tourist income stream so critical for Sitka – and yet they create the heartbeat of town. People are so eager to experience what it’s like on a boat, fishing sustainably – and yet there’s no way.
And so – with the help of Spruce Root – we brought Finn Alley Fishing into existence.
Mary: The memories of salsa dancing make me smile! Pescatourism is not a commonly known word here in the United States. How does your pescatourism business fit into Regenerative Tourism?
Brendan: Finn Alley Fishing is wholeheartedly committed to being a triple bottom line business. We employ only local folks in an effort to share with visitors the environmental challenges experienced by Alaska fishermen. We give ten percent of our profits to ongoing efforts of stream restoration, thus helping salmon populations spawn while also experiencing what it means to fish responsibly. We allow people insight into an Alaskan island community as it struggles with being on the front lines of climate change, while simultaneously contributing to the economic infrastructure of that community.
Finally, we move away from the model of charter fishing, which focuses on catching as many halibut, salmon, and rock fish in a very small window, with no regard for environmental consequences, and little awareness of the local economy, as so many of these lodges fly in chefs, have their own island ecosystems, and leave come fall.
Mary: According to the shared definition of regenerative tourism, it is broken down into elements that really make it regenerative. In your business, how do you elevate your local economy?
Brendan: Our business allows trollers – a gear class historically locked out of tourism funds – the opportunity to engage with visitors to Sitka. Through donating ten percent of our profits to the Sustainable Southeast Partnership, we create a way for visitors to give back to the wild, as well as to the community, by engaging in stream restoration.
Our labor comes from locals. From Sitka High School kids, to local cleaning crews, to Sitka businesses – Pure Sea Salt, Sweet Sisters Caramels, Yellow Jersey – we engage Sitka’s economic community on so many levels. We have found that this is something our guests want – to meet folks who grew up in Sitka, who understand a subsistence lifestyle, and who can speak easily about what it means to be an Alaskan. Our visitors feel proud to be given this insight into the fabric of a community, while also understanding that they’re contributing to its economic well-being.
Mary: Wow! Thank you for contributing to our communities in a financial way. What practical steps has your company taken to protect, conserve and improve our ecosystem?
Brendan: We give ten percent of our profits to programs like SSP, which work directly on stream restoration and creating sustainable local communities. As we mentioned before, we create experiences where the goal isn’t to go out on boats and kill as many fish as possible in a short period of time, but rather to speak to local fishing captains about how they make their fishing decisions, why they prefer fishing certain grounds, why certain winds, tides, or currents, preclude fishing in certain spots.
Through site visits to Sitka Salmon Shares and Seafood Producers Cooperative (SPC), we also inspire our visitors to buy directly through fishermen. These visits are coupled with a biology lesson explaining how trees eat fish, and how salmon have been critical for the Tlingit nation, here on this island for over ten thousand years. We explain how our trucks run on biodiesel, how we only use locally-sourced wood for our Airbnb apartments, and that we have six bikes available for us around town because bikes don’t pollute – and also, it’s a better way to really see Sitka!
Mary: Has your company taken any innovative steps to really making a difference in the health of our oceans, and our forests, or worked towards combating climate control?
Brendan: Like we said, we build with all reclaimed wood from deconstructed houses in the community. We’re proud of this, and strongly believe that using wood from the island, and Southeast, is a critical part of making Sitka a sustainable community. Our truck uses biodiesel, and we’re in conversations with entrepreneurs around town about how to use fish oil in trucks. A smelly prospect, but one that would save us shipping biodiesel into town! Finally, we have bikes for our guests – this reduces the taxi/carbon footprint.
Mary: On a local level, do you think you have authentic local representation and if so, how?
Brendan: Absolutely. Our Property Manager Candace Rutledge often says that she wouldn’t be able to live in Sitka if it weren’t for Finn Alley Fishing, and Finn Alley Abodes. We have cultivated important relationships with the Jordan family, along with the Sitka Tribe of Alaska, and tour operators. Renee Pierce at the Beak cooks salmon for our guests. Essentially all of our subs live here on the island. This is a critical point of our business – and one that we’re incredibly proud of.
Mary: Southeast Alaska is home to the Tlingit, Tsimshian and Haida people, how do you incorporate indigenous knowledge systems or values in your business?
Brendan: This is an incredibly important aspect of Finn Alley Fishing. We recognize that we are visitors on this island and that the Tlingit have been here exponentially longer than we have. And that we’re here, essentially, illegally, or at the very least, on borrowed time.
Our property manager is an archaeologist and will share with visitors in the summer of 2021 her experience working on digs for Tlingit bidens during the road expansion to Katlian Bay. We see this as a good intro into the history of the island. We have also been working with Tammy Young, at the Sitka Tribe of Alaska, to figure out how best to share the deep Native history of this island, and all of Southeast Alaska. This is a point our visitors were excited to learn about, before Summer 2020 was canceled because of Covid.
This summer we will also be employing Keeley Larose, a Tsimshian high school student, to help coordinate our experiences. She will be able to speak to the history of the Tsimshian tribe in Metlakatla, as well as to indigenous knowledge systems on the island.
Mary: What values does your company uphold and how does this contribute to the good of our communities?
Brendan: First off, we will be paying a living wage. This is incredibly important to us. We value the people we work with, we convene socially with them, and we’re acutely aware – raising three kiddos – of the cost of living in Sitka. We deeply value our subs, we regularly convene socially, and we want them to be able to live without worrying if they can buy milk, or pay rent. Our workers – and Sitkans – truly come first for us.
A close second is our care for the environment. As someone who first came to Sitka to take care of baby salmon, I’ve been invested in raising healthy stocks of salmon for over two decades. I’ve written for national and international papers on the importance of standing up to transboundary mining, efforts like Pebble Mine, and for our forests. Quite simply, the Tongass is our last chance to get it right with temperate rainforests, and doing this is a critical pillar of Finn Alley Fishing.
Lastly, we believe in doing right by all creatures – human and otherwise – and that this effort will eventually bring us into balance with the ecosystem around us.
The Tongass National Forest
Mary: When talking about Regenerative Tourism, one of the positive outcomes is really being able to offer meaningful and responsible visitor experiences. Are you able to accomplish this through your business?
Brendan: Yes. People who have stayed with Finn Alley Abodes often book for the following year the day they leave us. This is what we want to do – create meaning over the course of a visit. Because, we have found, that people never forget how you make them feel. To be able to walk into a rainforest, and feel the shush of the hemlock branches, to smell the citrus-scented spruce – these are the experiences that push people to stand up for trees, to stand up for salmon. No amount of articles read in the New York Times or lectures from environmentalists will have the same effect. We want to create experiences, which in turn create indelible moments that will push people to change the way they act, and perhaps their value systems generally.
Mary: Thank you for taking the time to do this interview with me today. Moving forward, what is one message you would like to leave with aspiring or fellow tourism businesses?
Brendan: Our message would be that folks, especially following the COVID outbreak, are so eager to see and experience something new. Sitka and Southeast have something that virtually no place in the Lower 48 has – the wild. And also our deep Tlingit heritage. There is a way to share these woods, this ocean, and this cultural heritage, in a way that deepens our commitment to the woods, and continues to allow the Tlingit nation to grow stronger, and back control of the island’s economy. We believe in this possibility – and you should too!
Mary: Can visitors learn more about your company and book a tour? Can you share your best deal for those who are reading this message, or is there any special you can offer our readers?
Brendan: Visitors can check out www.finnalleyfishing.com. We would love to curate experiences for readers – call us, book for the upcoming summer with a fishing captain, and we can give you a stunning deal on a Sitka experience.
To sign up for regional Regenerative Tourism news and updates, email mgoddard@allenmarine.com.
