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A state Senate subcommittee had asked the Department of Transportation what it could do if it had more money to cover some of the gaps in the Alaska Marine Highway schedule. Part of the answer would be improved winter service to Wrangell - if the Legislature appropriates the money and the governor accepts it. An additional $4.5 million in state dollars - separate from passenger and vehicle revenues - could improve service for "those communities that were struggling this winter," Matt McLaren,...
By Sentinel staff As proposed in the draft schedule a month ago Wrangell will see two ferries a week, one southbound and one northbound, under the Alaska Marine Highway System summer schedule, which opened for reservations Feb. 24. The summer schedule runs May 1 to Sept. 30. The Matanuska is scheduled to stop in Wrangell southbound early Monday mornings and northbound on Friday afternoons on its weekly run between Bellingham, Washington, and Southeast Alaska. That's a shift from the schedule for...
Independent travelers and passengers aboard small cruise ships are vital to Wrangell's tourism season, and they're exactly what the community is focusing on - regardless of Canada's decision to keep its waters closed to the larger cruise ships that come to Alaska. "We're moving forward with marketing to independent travelers ... it's huge for us," said Carol Rushmore, the borough's economic development director and head of the Wrangell Convention and Visitor Bureau. "The fact that we don't rely...
A month ago, the draft cruise ship schedule for Wrangell showed 50 stops in town, with the two largest vessels able to accommodate 1,100 and 1,300 passengers and crew. But now, there's not much the community can do but wait to see whether or not smaller ships still come to town, said Stephanie Cook, executive director of the Wrangell Chamber of Commerce. A Feb. 4 decision by the government of Canada to keep its waters closed to cruise ship traffic through February 2022 blocks the larger vessels...
Cruise ship companies serving Southeast Alaska are taking reservations for the summer season after losing all of last year to the pandemic - but not all cruise lines will return this year. Windstar Cruises, which brought a 208-passenger ship to Wrangell about 10 times in 2019, had originally planned its first 2021 cruise out of Vancouver on May 20, an 11-day voyage scheduled to stop in Wrangell, Ketchikan, Juneau and Haines. The sailings would have continued throughout the summer with a larger...