Jacob SamPayenna, subdeacon for St. Michael's Russian Orthodox Cathedral, played the cathedral’s bells at 10 a.m. today as cruise ship passengers wandered down Lincoln Street for the first time this year.
The cathedral extended its visitor hours from its usual noon to 2 p.m. to the new 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. schedule that will be in effect on days that ships are in town, SamPayenna said today.
Almost 600,000 passengers visited Sitka last year. A similar passenger count is scheduled to disembark here this cruise season, which runs through mid-October.
The first cruisers of 2025 arrived today on the Norwegian Joy, which tied up at the Sitka Sound Cruise Terminal around 8 a.m., and the small National Geographic Sea Lion that docked at Petro Marine around 7 a.m..
The Norwegian ship has a lower berth capacity of almost 4,000 people, while the latter ship's capacity accommodates just 60 guests.
By 10:30 a.m., downtown Lincoln Street was beginning to fill with sightseers from the two ships.
Across from the cathedral, volunteers at Sitka Lutheran Church were selling popcorn and bottled water, raising funds for the church. Joy Miller, a Lutheran volunteer from Kent, Washington, said this was her first day on the job as a popcorn machine attendant.
She'll be here for two weeks, she said, to be followed by about 15 volunteers from Kent working different stints throughout the summer to help with the concessions, free tours, and public restrooms at the church.
Inside the Lutheran church, tourists admired Harvey Brandt’s model replica of the Shee Atika/New Archangel townsite in 1845, an 1843 chandelier from a Finnish Lutheran Church, the pulpit original to the 1840s and an organ from Estonia inside the fourth Lutheran church built in Sitka.
Pedestrian traffic flowed down Lincoln Street to Sitka National Historical Park, which was open today despite bear activity in the area – sightings of at least three bears have been reported in the last few days, including today.
At the cruise terminal on Halibut Point Road, a crowd of passengers sported round green stickers indicating that they were heading for a pre-arranged walking tour. Some lined up to board deep blue Sitka Dock Company buses headed for downtown, and others wandered among the kiosks and stores scoping out offerings at the terminal.
Passenger Mike Savage from Lincoln, California, asked shopkeepers about sightseeing tours of the town.
Speaking to the Sentinel, Savage said that he would be looking to sign up for an independent tour because tours sold on board the ship can cost about twice as much.
He said that, overall, cruising appeals to him because “it’s a good deal.”
“You can have one of these for $100 a day -- I mean, you could live like this for a few thousand dollars each month and have your food and everything," he said, quickly adding, "but you’d have no life.”
His wife, Lois, said she grew up in Juneau, and was excited for the chance to show her old hometown to her husband and also her brother-in-law and sister-in-law, who live in Utah and were with them on the cruise.
The Norwegian Joy originated in Seattle and visited Ketchikan, Juneau, Skagway, Glacier Bay and Hoonah before docking in Sitka today.
Townspeople at the terminal were happy to see the start of the busy cruise season,
Rachel Roy, executive director of the Chamber of Commerce, said she’s “excited to see everyone dust off the winter and open up today.”
Chamber staff will spend the summer manning their downtown visitor center, and a kiosk at the cruise ship terminal. The city-funded visitors bureau gave out 200,000 maps to visitors last year, Roy said.
Inside the Fair Winds shop at the cruise terminal, Jake Trierschield and Aleehya Cullum chatted with customers purchasing sundries, keychains, ornaments, shirts and hot sauce.
Trierschield is the fifth-generation of his family operating their downtown store, Sitka Bazaar, which opened in 1919.
The family launched an offshoot at the cruise terminal when the deepwater dock opened four years ago. Working the shop's front counter today, he said "it’s “incredible to get the season going again.
"The life that it brings to town makes me feel so much better," Trierschield said.
Cullum, a seasonal worker from North Carolina, said that business at the cruise terminal is “why I get to come up here."
She said she enjoys interfacing with the tourists, and returned for her second season of work this summer to “show people why we’re here in Sitka.”
The story that ran in the April 29, 2025 edition of the Sitka Sentinel inaccurately stated that cruise ship visitation is scheduled to increase in 2025.
Sitka Dock Company expects a slight dip in visitors this year, with about 568,000 scheduled to disembark. The Sentinel regrets the error.
