SITKA — On a recent weekday morning, the weather forecast was looking pretty good for Sitka. The breeze was light, and what people in Southeast Alaska call a sucker hole — a patch of blue sky in an otherwise overcast sky — had developed.

The tourist forecast, however, was “orange,” meaning that on this particular Tuesday, cruise ships were expected to deliver between 3,000 and 5,999 humans to this Southeast Alaska town for the day, where they would be shuttled into the historic downtown to wander among charming shops and amble through an old-growth forest dotted with totem poles. The main drag of downtown would be closed to vehicles to accommodate the surge.

Sitka, a city of about 8,300 people known for arts and fishing and hemmed in by ocean and towering forest, has been a cruise ship destination for years. Owing to its isolated location on Baranof Island on Southeast Alaska’s outer coast, it has historically attracted smaller, high-end adventure cruises as well as independent travelers arriving by air and ferry.

Now, that’s changing.

A pair of documentary filmmakers is examining the implications of the rapid growth in cruise tourism projected for Sitka.

Could Sitka’s ‘Cruise Boom’ be a bust? A new documentary explores the impact of rapid growth in cruise tourism

How will next year’s expected 478,000 cruise ship visitors affect Sitka? What are the potential benefits and negative impacts? How can Sitka prepare? Filmmaker Ellen Frankenstein doesn’t know the answers – and maybe no one else does – but that’s not really the point of the new Artchange documentary “Cruise Boom.”