_{Mr. Alaska, Chuck West}

_{Mrs. Alaska
Marguerite West was Chuck West's wife and companion for 62 years. She has links to Alaska that go back a century. Her parents owned gold dredges in Nome and she herself was Miss Alaska in 1937.} 

_{Dick West}

_{Cruise West Chairman & Managing Director}

^{In 1946, a young man just back from piloting the Hump between India and China during World War II was serving as a bush pilot in Alaska. As Chuck West flew over some of the most spectacular terrain on earth, his dream was born. And his goal was to share these wonders with the rest of the world.}

In 1945, Chuck West completed his military service as a pilot in World War II and returned to join his wife, a gold miner’s daughter and first Miss Alaska, in Nome, where he worked as a bush pilot. The spectacular terrain of Alaska inspired him to share this beauty – his dream became a reality when he founded Arctic Alaska Travel Service in Fairbanks in 1946. Initially West offered local sightseeing tours and the first flightseeing tours above the Arctic Circle. The business skyrocketed, and West expanded by opening the first hotel chain in Alaska, starting the first motorcoach line, and initiating the first small-ship cruises. The company was renamed Westours, becoming a dominant tour operator in Alaska. West earned the affectionate title "Mr. Alaska" from his peers in honor of his pioneering tourism in Alaska.

In 1971, Chuck sold Westours to Holland America Line. His pioneering spirit was undaunted and in 1973 West came back strong when he and his family founded West Travel, now known as Cruise West. Initially the company operated motorcoach and sightseeing tours on the Alaska-Yukon highway and in major cities in Alaska. The company’s offerings expanded into selling cabins on the Alaska state ferries and other lines' ships, creating packaged tours combined with their highway tours. In the mid-1980s West started experimenting with multi-night daylight-only yacht cruises in Alaska's Inside Passage and Prince William Sound. In 1986, the company acquired the 70-guest Sheltered Seas operating five-, six- and nine-day tours between Ketchikan, Petersburg and Juneau.

Growth in Small-Ship Cruising

In 1990 Chuck and his son Dick, now Chairman & Managing Director of Cruise West, acquired a 52-guest cruise ship and renamed her the Spirit of Glacier Bay. Two-night cruises were offered sailing from Juneau into Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. This program proved so successful that in 1991 the company acquired the Spirit of Alaska to inaugurate the first cruises between Seattle and Alaska for nearly 40 years.

The public enthusiastically welcomed Cruise West's style of up-close, casual and personal cruising and the company grew rapidly, adding new vessels annually. In the early 1990s, Cruise West expanded its cruise operations to lower British Columbia, the historic Columbia & Snake Rivers, and the California Wine Country. In 1996 the 102-guest Spirit of Endeavour was added to the fleet, and in December 1998, cruises to the spectacular Sea of Cortés and Baja California were added to Cruise West’s cruise offerings. In 2001, Cruise West acquired its flagship, the 120-guest, all-suite Spirit of Oceanus. Equipped with stabilizers, the Spirit of Oceanus is able to cruise all seas. The first itinerary offered was the exploration of the remote Aleutian Islands and the Bering Sea in Alaska. 

Cruise West added small-ship explorations of Costa Rica & Panama in 2002 aboard the 100-guest M/V Pacific Explorer.  Many of the pristine national parks and tropical offshore islands visited in this region are accessible only by small ship. Having more than 800 identified species of birds, Costa Rica has an incredible biodiversity to explore.

Always striving for innovative and new experiences for their guests, in 2004 Cruise West enhanced the Alaska's Inside Passage itinerary by becoming the first cruise line to venture up the Portland Canal to the community of Hyder, known for its close proximity to black and grizzly bears feeding on seasonal spawning salmon. Cruising in the Kenai Fjords and Bering Sea was added to the Voyage to the Bering Sea itinerary, offering guests the opportunity to observe sea and bird life including puffins, orcas, whales, seals and sea lions. Small excursion craft were added to each vessel to allow up-close exploration and access to wilderness waterways and beaches.   

The Cruise West Experience

The guest is always top-of-mind at Cruise West. Through interaction with guests and surveys, Cruise West continues to create thoughtful itineraries to distinctive and unique destinations, many difficult to reach by other modes of transportation. Guests tend to be intellectually curious and yearning for an enriching experience in a casual environment. Small-ship cruising offers the flexibility to stop the ship at a moment’s notice to observe a passing pod of whales or bears feeding on shore or to observe the locals fishing in places like Ha Long Bay, Vietnam. With excursions offered at every port, guest experiences are personalized and enriched through onboard and on-shore lectures by naturalists and historical experts

Small-ship cruising is infinitely flexible, and demand for such high-quality life experiences is ever growing. Watch this site for future developments!