Kaktovik Polar Bear Boat Tours Return After Six-Year Pause

Polar bear boat tours are returning to Kaktovik after a six-year absence, with community leaders, the Kaktovik Inupiat Corporation, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service working toward a plan to reopen the Barter Island village to wildlife tourism.

The tours shut down in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to suspend all commercial polar bear viewing permits on refuge waters. Community opposition kept them from coming back. As of January 2022, ANWR was still operating under FWS orders not to issue permits, and the village remained closed to non-essential travelers. The tours never reopened.

The economic toll on the Iñupiat village of about 250 residents has been significant. Before the shutdown, hundreds of tourists traveled to Kaktovik each fall to view the bears that gather along the Beaufort Sea coast. "There was booming during the fall time," said Gordon, a community member quoted in recent reporting. "The whole three months would cover the other nine months of money that was made at the hotel."

Now leaders want that revenue back. "I'm excited for the tour season to be back, both for the community and those who work for it," Gordon said. "Let's get this place back to making money, and it'll be great for everybody."

Kaktovik sits on Barter Island on the Beaufort Sea coast, just offshore from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and in late summer and fall up to 80 polar bears come on land near the village. The concentration has been growing as sea ice diminishes, pushing bears ashore in numbers that long-time resident Robert Thomposn said would have been unimaginable when he arrived four decades ago. When Thomposn moved to Kaktovik about 40 years ago, he rarely saw a polar bear unless he hunted for one on the sea ice. Over the years, he witnessed more and more bears coming to shore.

That shift turned Kaktovik into what was widely called the polar bear capital of the United States, drawing visitors who boarded small open-air boats, each carrying no more than six passengers, to watch and photograph the animals from the water. Tour operators like Akook Arctic Adventures ran morning and afternoon sessions from the village harbor, where guests descended rustic planks to board boats and received briefings from local guides on bear etiquette before setting out. Visitors stayed at the Marsh Creek Inn, the village's hotel, which bore the economic weight of the season Gordon described.

Planning for the restart has involved formal community input. Native Village of Kaktovik officials completed a study on polar bear tourism from a community perspective in 2024, meeting with residents to hear their concerns and consulting local air carriers. Charter flights emerged as a key logistical solution, one that tour operators had already adopted before the shutdown to avoid straining the transportation options that Kaktovik's 250 residents depend on daily.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has been working with the city and village of Kaktovik and the Kaktovik Inupiat Corporation on a polar bear viewing plan, though the current permitting status has not been publicly confirmed beyond the community's active efforts to reopen. Whether permits will be issued in time for the fall 2026 season remains an open question as of mid-March.