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A Visit To Alaska
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With Alaska ferries in chaos, island timber and fish businesses wonder who will carry their freight to market
was written by Ari Snider, KCAW – Sitka , 2020-02-14 00:35:01
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The breakdown of the Alaska Marine Highway system has left many towns struggling to bring in building supplies, groceries, and other goods. But for some businesses, the challenge of getting freight out of town is just as urgent — and without ferries, they’re taking a hit.
Even under normal circumstances, shipping logs out of Tenakee Springs is not exactly a walk in the park.
Read our continuing coverage of Alaska’s marine highway breakdown
“We crane lumber off our barge and stack it near the entrance to the Ferry,” said Gordon Chew, owner of Tenakee Springs Logging Company. His company usually relies on the ferry to get their product to market.
“And then with rental trailers or borrowed trailers or pickup trucks sent unattended on the ferry we’d load, load out lumber for buyers in Juneau,” he said.
But these are not normal circumstances. Tenakee hasn’t seen a ferry in months, and, with the town’s dock slated to be rebuilt starting in July, it may not get another sailing until December.
Related: From Ketchikan to Unalaska, a day of protests, anxiety and anger over a dysfunctional ferry system
That leaves Chew without many good options for shipping lumber. And, he says, it’s especially frustrating after spending years tailoring his company’s system to work with the ferries.
“We’re desperately trying to figure out ways to do freight,” he said. “And it’s taken us eight years really to get the logistics all worked out with renting trailers, having them staged on the ferry unattended.”
Now, though, it’s right back to the drawing board. Without any obvious fallback options, and uncertain of when they might see another ferry, Chew is getting creative.
“We’re looking at possibly buying a motorized landing craft,” he said.
He says it’s a similar style to the World War II D-Day boats you’d see in Saving Private Ryan — except this time, it would be transporting lumber, not tanks. Chew says it’s far from an ideal option. The boat itself is down in Washington State, so just getting it here will set them back a lot in fuel costs. Then, there’s all the maintenance — Chew says the boat isn’t in great shape.
Still, he says, there aren’t a lot of other options.
“It’s not the smartest idea that we’ve come up with, in terms of getting our own boat,” he said. “But we don’t know what else to do.”
Related: With no ferry service this winter, Cordova’s economy feels the pinch
Tenakee Logging isn’t the only family business in Southeast looking for alternative ways of moving freight.
“We’re doing well over 100,000 pounds of product out of Pelican in four months,” said Seth Stewart, owner of Yakobi Fisheries in Pelican. Those four months are during the summer. The product: frozen fish, a lot of it.
Like Tenakee Logging Company, Yakobi has worked out a ferry-based supply chain. Fish totes, freezer bags, building supplies, and more come in by ferry, fish goes out.
Also like Tenakee, Pelican hasn’t had a sailing since the fall, and residents were shocked to find their town was entirely left off the ferry system’s summer schedule when the draft was released in late January. Stewart admits it’s not ideal.
“Am I worried?” he said. “Yeah, I would like to not have to worry about how we’re getting product in and out of Pelican, considering that the ferry system was set up you know exactly for these sorts of reasons, so people could build their businesses or build their homes or live their lives with the support- knowing that there’s a highway going to Pelican.”
Stewart is feeling more optimistic than Gordon Chew. At least, he’s not in the market for a landing craft yet. Yakobi won’t start shipping out processed fish until the summer, and Stewart thinks the town might be able to work out some kind of compromise with the state DOT before then. Like perhaps contracting with a private freight company for the summer.
Amid this uncertainty, Stewart says just figuring out a way to get through this summer would buy them time to work out a more durable solution.
“It’s not gonna turn out well,” he said. “It’s gonna cost us more money this summer than I think is profitable in the long run. But if we can just make it through this season, then it gives us time to plan out something that is viable for long-term.”
Either way, Stewart and Gordon Chew should have more information soon — the state plans to release a final ferry schedule later this month.
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A Vacation In Alaska, America’s icebox
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Our advisable spots for everybody visiting Alaska includes
Tongass National Forest. The Tongass is actually the biggest national forest in the United States. It was given its name from the Tongass Clan of the Tlingit native people and goes back to 1902 when President Theodore Roosevelt established the Alexander Archipelago Forest Reserve. In 1908 the forest had been re-named and expanded and these days the 16.9 million-acre Tongass National Forest runs from the Pacific ocean to the large inland ice fields that edge British Columbia and from the southern tip of Prince of Wales Island to Malaspina Glacier 500 miles to the north. About 80 % of Southeast Alaska is in Tongass and with it’s thousands of islands, fjords and bays the national forest has 11,000 miles of coastline. Tongass’ huge coastal rain forest consists of towering hemlock, spruce and red and yellow cedar. The undergrowth underneath thebig conifers is made up of young evergreens and shrubs including devil’s club, blueberry and huckleberry. Moss and ferns cover the ground, and lichens adorn numerous trees and rocks.
Wildlife is abundant throughout Tongass. Sitka blacktail deer and its two main predators, wolf and brown bear, are located here. Black bear are common as well as mountain goats and some moose. Marine mammals spotted along the coast line consist of Dall and harbor porpoises, seals and humpback, minke and orca whales and a growing population of sea otters. The waters teem with fish including halibut and all five species of Pacific salmon. More bald eagles stay in this region than in any other area in the world. Even though home to the world’s biggest temperate rain forest, practically half of Tongass is covered by ice, water, wetlands and rock. It’s most recognized ice floe is the Mendenhall Glacier, Alaska’s “Drive-in glacier” since it is no more than 13 miles from down-town Juneau along a paved road. A boat ride through Petersburg or Wrangell brings people near the face of LeConte Glacier, the southernmost tidewater glacier on the continent. Just 30 miles north of Yakutat is Hubbard Glacier, the longest tidewater glacier in the world and very easily Alaska’s most active. The 76-mile-long glacier has crossed Russell Fjord several times, most recently in 2008. The rip tides and currents that flow in front of the 8-mile-wide glacier are so powerful they lead to Hubbard to calve nearly continuously. The Tongass consists of nineteen wilderness areas, including the 545-sq-mile Russell Fjord Wilderness, in addition to Admiralty Island National Monument and Misty Fiords National Monument. Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve and the general area surrounding Haines and Skagway are not part of the national forest.
A Visit To Tongass National Forest in Alaska, the 49th State
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