The smell of buttered popcorn wafted through the Skagway School as dozens of people streamed inside. They were there to watch a new documentary — one about their own community during one of its darkest periods in recent history.
The film depicts life in Skagway between 2020 and 2022, when the cruise industry shut down amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It's named "Last Call in the North."
Andrew Cremata was Skagway’s mayor at the time. He said the ordeal forced what may have been the community’s first serious reckoning over its complete dependence on the industry.
“I don't think there's ever been any real meaningful conversations about it as a community, either on a governmental level or on a social level,” he said.
That conversation was the film’s throughline, said Stan Bush, who wrote and directed the film.
“What happens when your main economic driver is completely shut off?” Bush said in an interview last week.
In many ways, COVID-19 was Skagway’s worst nightmare. With the town’s tourism-based economy shuttered for one full season and much of a second one, families and businesses went without income for an excruciating 22 months.
Bush went to middle and high school in town, but he hasn’t lived here since then. He said he was developing a project idea in Skagway before the pandemic, focused on the struggling local newspaper.
But Bush pivoted when COVID-19 hit the community in earnest, and the industry that had fueled the town for decades disappeared overnight.
“We've seen that when things are going great, they're going really great. And when things go bad, here, they go really bad,” Bush said. “I think that's a conversation for the community to have. Can you survive another crisis like this?”
The film follows a few key characters, including Cremata, the former mayor. In an interview after the screening, he raised questions about the long-term sustainability of the town’s economy.
“My fear was that when things got back to normal, people would kind of just go back to normal, right? Go back to the way things were before the pandemic,” Cremata told KHNS. “That's really exactly what's happened.”
The film also focuses on struggling small businesses — a jeweler who had to leave town, the owner of an outdoor guiding company who eventually shut his doors, and the former co-owners of the Skagway News. That includes Melinda Munson, the current KHNS news director.
Another key voice was Jaime Bricker, Skagway’s tourism director and the president of the Skagway Traditional Council, a local tribe.
After the premiere, Bricker said she was impressed by the videography and storytelling. She added that she could imagine how difficult it would be to tell the full story in just 90 minutes.
“I think I've heard different observations from just about everybody I've talked to, and rightfully so,” Bricker said. “We're all a bunch of individuals in this community, and there were so many pertinent stories of that period of time that, you know, weren't showcased.”
Bricker added that she thinks the film presents an opportunity for renewed reflection.
“Are there opportunities to plan as we look towards the future, given this particular COVID experience?” Bricker said. “Are there things that we can be doing differently in the future, to better prepare for an economic stop?”
Bush said prompting conversation was one of his main goals – not only locally but in similar communities across the state, country and world. As he sees it, what happened in Skagway could happen anywhere where the presence of one industry is the difference between economic survival and economic collapse.
Disclosure: This film features KHNS News Director Melinda Munson and her family, when Munson was co-owner of the Skagway News. Munson did not review this story before publication.
