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 March and April of northbound sailings on Sundays and southbound stops on Wednesdays.
The weekly runs are one-third the level of service Wrangell saw from 2017 to 2019, before the pandemic significantly cut into ferry runs last year. Passenger and vehicle traffic continues far below past levels, and the Alaska Marine Highway System budget is down about 25% from two years ago, with several ships held out of service to save money.
The summer schedule includes no service to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, which the ferry system stopped in 2019 over multiple issues, including federal security requirements. Meanwhile, the Canadian border remains closed to travelers during the pandemic.
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