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As the state ferry system ages, the Alaska Department of Transportation is turning to new technologies to update its fleet. The department is implementing diesel-electric hybrid power on its upcoming Tustumena replacement vessel, which is slated to set sail in 2027. By then, the Tustumena will be 62 years old. In addition to its diesel engines, the new ferry will feature a “room for housing batteries” that could cut fuel consumption by 1%, according to a Juneau KTOO radio report. At an Oct. 14 meeting, Brian Jennings, a projects staffer wit...
Alaska House District 1 candidates Dan Ortiz and Jeremy Bynum took turns at a Ketchikan community forum on Oct. 13 promoting why they deserve to win the Nov. 8 election for the district that represents Ketchikan, Wrangell, Prince of Wales Island and Metlakatla. About 50 people attended the forum, which was moderated by Ketchikan Gateway Borough Attorney Glenn Brown. Ortiz, the incumbent, drew nearly all of his answers and arguments back to his experience and accomplishments; his experience...
I urge your newspaper to raise hell about the fact that the new Alaska Marine Highway System winter ferry schedule provides no service between Juneau and Haines between Jan. 4 and Feb. 4. How are legislators to get their cars and trucks to Juneau from Haines for the January legislative session? How are Greens Creek and Kensington miners who live in Haines to get back and forth? Don't blame the commissioner of the Department of Transportation — he inherited this mess when the governor started getting rid of vessels. As a result, Southeast A...
A Republican Ketchikan Gateway Borough assembly member is challenging the four-term incumbent to represent Ketchikan, Wrangell, Metlakatla, Coffman Cove and other communities of southern Southeast Alaska in the state House. In Jeremy Bynum's first time running for state office, he got 44% percent of the votes in the August primary to Rep. Dan Ortiz's 52%. Both live in Ketchikan. About 4% of voters chose Wrangell resident Shevaun Meggitt, who has since withdrawn and will not appear on the...
Wrangell will be without ferry service from Jan. 10 to Feb. 3 under the fall/winter schedule released by the Alaska Marine Highway System last week. The rest of the seven months covered by the schedule includes a weekly stop in each direction in Wrangell, with the bonus of a second northbound and southbound sailing one week a month when the ferry travels only as far south as Prince Rupert, British Columbia, instead of the longer round-trip voyage to Bellingham, Washington. The three-week break in service to Wrangell in January is scheduled as...
The Sentinel often criticizes state ferry system management for bad decisions. But now it’s time to praise them for a good decision. Dropping the “dynamic pricing” structure for ferry service this fall and winter, October through April, is the right thing to do. There was nothing dynamically well-liked about the 3-year-old pricing system that added a surcharge of 5% to 50% on passenger, vehicle and stateroom ticket prices on popular sailings. The state was trying to run the ferry system like an airline, charging more as the ships fill up. Unlik...
The three candidates for U.S. Senate in November’s general election shared familiar political stances on Southeast Alaska issues during an hour-long forum at the Southeast Conference in Ketchikan on Sept. 13. Incumbent U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, emphasized accomplishments such as securing billions in federal infrastructure funds largely designated for ferries; Republican challenger Kelly Tshibaka attacked President Joe Biden in nearly every answer and called less federal intrusion the path to regional growth; and Democratic c...
Three years after adopting a pricing plan that adds a surcharge for passenger, vehicle and stateroom fares on popular sailings, the Alaska Marine Highway System has decided to suspend the program for its fall/winter schedule. The ferry system’s “dynamic pricing” added 5% to 50% to ticket prices, depending on the percentage of a ship’s capacity already booked — similar to airlines raising prices as flights fill up. The Alaska Department of Transportation announced the decision last Friday to suspend the surcharges. “Dynamic pricing works when...
Less frequent service and the loss of about 6,000 ferry travelers a year over the past decade has cut deeply into Wrangell’s visitor industry. “People view Wrangell as hard to get to,” and the significant cuts to state ferry service perpetuate that image, said Marjy Wood, owner of Tyee Travel. After ferry service dropped from several port calls a week 10 years ago to one a week and developed dependability issues, travelers have booked ferries less frequently, she said. “It’s hard to schedule (trips) very far in advance and feel comfortab...
Wrangell would get pretty much the same service it has in recent years under the draft fall/winter state ferry schedule released last week — one stop in each direction per week, October through April. Fortunately, unlike the past two years, when the community endured almost a two-month span each fall without any ferry service, the draft schedule shows no interruptions in service. That assumes ships return to service from winter overhaul on schedule, which has been inconsistent, particularly as supply-chain issues delay the delivery of needed p...
People vote their pocketbook, or so the old adage says. And certainly more so in this year of high inflation, painful gas prices at the pump and fears of a global recession. It’s understandable that Wrangell voters will think about their household finances when they select which candidates they support. In Alaska, particularly in the past few years, that support has gone to the candidates that promote loudly, promise passionately and pledge sincerely that they will deliver the largest Permanent Fund dividend to voters. OK, I get it. This y...
The state will receive about $36 million less in federal funding than expected for this year’s Alaska Marine Highway System operating budget, requiring the use of state dollars to cover the gap. No reduction in service is expected because of the budget shuffle, state officials said. But it could mean that legislators next year will need to approve additional state funds to fully make up for the loss of federal aid, exposing the ferries to another vote in the political process. The governor had looked to federal infrastructure money to r...
More than 6,700 passengers a year boarded a state ferry in Wrangell 2010 through 2015, and more than 6,900 a year walked or drove off the ships during that six-year period. In calendar 2021, those numbers were down to 690 passengers boarding a ferry and 771 getting off a ship, a drop of about 90%. Those 2021 passenger counts are up from the pandemic-worst travel year of calendar 2020, when just 264 boarded in Wrangell and 274 arrived, but the decline in ridership has been constant since 2014, according to statistics provided by the Alaska...
The state ferry Tustumena was tied up in Homer for several days last week, lacking enough crew to operate. Due to crew shortages, the Tustumena’s sailings were canceled as of July 26, and were scheduled to resume seven days later on Tuesday, according to an announcement from the Alaska Marine Highway System. “A critical crew shortage required the vessel to stay in port for safety reasons,” the state reported July 28. “We ran out of stewards,” Alaska Department of Transportation Commissioner Ryan Anderson said during a presentation to the Junea...
The top employees of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. are some of the highest-paid public workers in Alaska, but with wages rising across the country and employers competing for skilled labor, even the $80 billion Permanent Fund is struggling to keep employees from leaving. Nine of the corporation’s 66 employees have quit this year, including the manager of the corporation’s highest-earning investments and the entire three-person team in charge of finalizing trades. Seven other positions are new, and filling them is expected to be difficult. The...
July 20, 1922 Tuesday was a red-letter day in the lives of the children of Wrangell. The arrival of the “Kandy Kings” on the Spokane was like a midsummer visit from Santa Claus. The visitors were distributing samples of high-class confectionery products. The youngsters followed the visitors around until their tummies as well as their pockets were full of sweets. The vessel is under charter to 150 members and their families of the Western Candy Association. The voyage is a novel one in that a convention is being held on board the steamer. Bus...
Beer and wine have been available at the bars on board the state ferries Matanuska and Kennicott since late May after the amenities were closed seven years ago, reportedly to save money. The ferry system “has collected feedback on the bar reopening through customer surveys answered by Kennicott and Matanuska passengers — all positive comments,” Sam Dapcevich, Department of Transportation spokesman, said last week. “I’ve also heard from a few Southeast Alaska residents who are happy to see the bars reopened.” There is no additional staff expense...
The Alaska Marine Highway System has enough crew to operate its summer schedule, though it still lacks a sufficient cushion to handle worker illnesses, injuries and personal leave without holding over staff for extra shifts. “We have been holding people longer than they would like,” Transportation Department spokesman Sam Dapcevich said last week. And the state ferry system is far short of the additional staff that would have been needed to bring the Columbia back to service after a three-year absence for maintenance and a money-saving tie...
Alaska state ferry service between Ketchikan and Prince Rupert, British Columbia, resumed on Monday afternoon. The last state ferry voyage to the Canadian port city was in late fall 2019. The Matanuska made a quick round trip Monday and is scheduled for another voyage on Friday. “(The) Matanuska made a test sailing to Prince Rupert about a week ago and all went to plan,” state Transportation Department spokesperson Sam Dapcevich wrote in a Friday email. This summer’s service is limited, with two round trips scheduled the third week of July,...
The Alaska Department of Transportation works hard to serve the public that uses the state’s airports and roads, but it is running at half-speed with public information about the ferry system. Management needs to steer itself toward a more open channel of communication. Almost a year ago, the Alaska Marine Highway System reported the Columbia could return to work this summer after being held out of service since 2019 for repairs and to save money. “Could return” as in “would return” if the state could hire enough crew to restaff the vessel. The...
The recent news that the longtime Alaska Marine Highway System ferry Malaspina will be officially retired and will remain in Ketchikan's Ward Cove as a privately owned and operated museum and a training vessel is good news to its fans who had feared that the "Mal" would suffer the same fate as its sistership, the Taku, which was sold in 2018 and scrapped in India. The Malaspina, along with the Taku and the Matanuska, were the first mainline ferries in the fleet, all going online in 1963. They...
After 56 years of service in the Alaska Marine Highway System fleet and almost three years tied up at a Ketchikan dock, unused and in need of costly repairs, the Malaspina is headed to another career as a privately owned floating museum and employee housing. Plans also call for using the ship as a classroom for maritime industry jobs. The state last week accepted $128,250 for the 408-foot-long passenger and vehicle ferry from the recently formed Ketchikan company M/V Malaspina. The company is a...
There were multiple positive outcomes for our ferry system this past legislative session, including a bill protecting Alaska Marine Highway System funds, the restart of the Prince Rupert route, and more ferries sailing. House Bill 322, which I had the honor of carrying on the House floor and I am particularly pleased passed, protects multiple important funds: the Higher Education Investment Fund (HEIF), and the AMHS Fund and Vessel Replacement Fund. The HIEF pays for our student state scholarships. The AMHS Fund is where revenue generated from...
The largest of the state ferries, the 499-passenger Columbia, was still listed as inactive on the Transportation Department website as of Monday, with no indication it will go back to work this summer as was planned nine months ago. Last August, the department’s draft summer 2022 schedule included the ship “penciled in” to run May 11 through Sept. 14, with weekly sailings to Southeast from Bellingham, Washington, “pending crew availability.” The run would have included weekly stops in Wrangell. After months of nationwide advertising for crew,...
Just as other communities, Wrangell is enduring a springtime bloom of COVID-19 cases. As of April 20, the state health department reported 79 new cases in the community in the past 30 days. Most of those were reported to the state in late March and early April, with new infections declining in the past week. The spread of the highly infectious disease is of particular concern at the schools. “We have had an increase in COVID and other illnesses during the past month and the schools have been struggling to find ways to stay open,” Sup...
