Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 126
Education Funding To the Editor: Article VII of the Alaska Constitution requires the Legislature to “maintain a system of public schools open to all children of the State.” Alaska Statute (Alaska Students’ Educational Bill of Rights (3)) states “A quality education for students of all ages is a concrete investment that vastly improves the future prosperity, welfare, productivity, and vitality of society.” The indisputable, mathematical fact is that at least for the last 10 years (years in which I served in the Alaska State House), the Legis...
March 13, 1925 – Talking to fish buyers and others the outlook for the halibut trade is none too flattering this year, although no man can tell what might happen before the season ends. One thing is certain, the closed season did not seem to boost prices, as was expected. It is claimed the cold storage plants were loaded up with fish. Some even claim that the Japanese helped to stock up the cold storage plants, but we can hardly believe that can be true. Word comes that more strict rules have been made in Seattle in grading, in weights and for...
March 6, 1925 – The Alaska salmon pack aggregated 5,285,210 cases for the past year. Southeastern Alaska led in the number of cases packed with 2,783,742 cases, which is more than the total output for the year. Central Alaska’s pack was 1,604,418 and Western Alaska 897,650. The Alaska pack was larger than for all of the rest of the world. March 3, 1950 – The increase in travel volume to Alaska in 1949 was greater than that to 47 of the states and was exceeded on the domestic travel scene only by travel to Puerto Rico, according to a surve...
Veterans, our heroes To the Editor: Flying the inverted American flag is a recognized distress signal. Recently we hung our flag in this manner to sound the alarm as a wake up call to the seriousness of all that is happening since January 20, 2025. Musk is creating chaos and catastrophe, and it’s hurting veterans who put their lives on the line for the country we love. Veterans are 30% of the federal workforce. The DOGE’s illegal firings of these brave men and women has been cruel. Veterans’ groups are raising the alarm about what they call ind...
The Alaska Marine Highway System has added Wi-Fi service for passengers aboard the state ferry Columbia - with other ships in the fleet to follow. The service, which initially will be free on the Columbia, started last month when the ship came out of a yearlong layup to take over the weekly run between Bellingham, Washington, and Southeast Alaska when the Kennicott was pulled for its own yearlong layup for new generators. It's the first Alaska Marine Highway vessel "to provide free Wi-Fi access...
Joey Chang says he was getting ready to depart the Hubbard state ferry after it docked in Kake on Saturday when suddenly the ship was no longer at the dock. "We are getting ready to get into the vehicle and we saw the opening of the ramp, and suddenly the whole ferry was moving away from the dock, and everybody got shocked and pretty much everyone froze up," he said. "The north wind was blowing so hard it pushed the ferry away from the dock." "And then I was looking at the rope, because the...
The proposed summer 2025 Alaska Marine Highway System schedule shows the same level of service to Petersburg as in the past several years: one ship serving the mainline route, with one stop northbound and one southbound each week. The Columbia will stop in Petersburg northbound on Sundays, on its run from Bellingham, Washington, through Southeast, then turn around in Skagway and stop on its southbound route on Wednesdays. It’s the same schedule as the Kennicott is running this year. The state ferry system is scheduled to pull the Kennicott out...
In early August an ad-hoc meeting was held in Ketchikan by a group consisting of knowledgeable residents who had followed the Alaska Marine Highway Service (AMHS) since its inception in the early 1960s. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss how to revise the system. We addressed AMHS maintenance: when vessels are taken out of service, why can’t they be promptly repaired? They could then be made ready for service. We discussed using money made available to AMHS through the Infrastructure Legislation to restructure the system. Finally, we d...
In the middle of her voyage from Sitka to Pelican, Alaska State Rep. Rebecca Himschoot called into the Pilot from West Chichagof Island to talk about her first term and her upcoming repeat bid where she is running unopposed. With the weight of the campaign off her shoulders, while the legislature is out of session, Himschoot is boating through the district – visiting each of the 21 communities she represents in the State House including Petersburg – with fresh eyes, as she reflects on the hig...
The recent dictate that our Governor sent to our legislature as well as the residents of Southeastern Alaska was clearly the wrong message. The Governor proposed replacing the Alaska Marie Highway System (AMHS) board with members of solely his own selective choosing. His action lacks a certain sensitivity that is clearly contrary to the advantage of having local community participation in advisory groups. It has been said that true leadership is not done by the one who proposes to do great things, but rather by one who motivates the people to...
With the rusty Matanuska out of service pending repairs, the Kennicott scheduled for tie-up due to lack of crew and the Tazlina in the shipyard to add crew quarters, the state ferry system’s draft summer 2024 schedule is limited by the number of vessels in service and looks about the same as this past summer. The Columbia would make a weekly northbound stop in Petersburg on Sundays and a weekly southbound visit on Wednesdays on its run between Bellingham, Washington, and Southeast Alaska. The marine highway system released its draft schedule D...
Thank you To the Editor: Thank you to Hammer & Wikan for re-establishing the footpath from the grocery store to the post office. Right now, the path is better than it ever was. Good job!, Sam Bunge Change the ferry LeConte’s name To the Editor: Do you believe in equality? Do you believe in human rights? Please sign the petition in the link below asking the Alaska Marine Highway System to change the name of the ferry LeConte. Joseph Leconte was a slave owning Georgian who believed in racial superiority and never once stepped foot in the state of...
During a virtual public open house last Tuesday evening, Alaska Marine Highway System Marine Director Craig Tornga gave a brief update on the status of the agency's capital improvements as well as its operating challenges. Operating challenges "Crewing is still a big struggle for us," Tornga said. The system operated six ferries all summer, though it had hoped it would be able to recruit enough crew to run the Kennicott as a seventh vessel. But "we have crews for about five and a half (ferries). There is a large shortage across the national...
The night before my team and I were scheduled to fly from Juneau to Haines on Seaplanes with the U.S. Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, I did something I’ve never done before when traveling in Southeast. I wished for rain and wind. I secretly hoped our flights would be grounded so the secretary would get a real taste of transportation in our state, where we often have to pivot to Plans B and C to get where we’re going. As luck and weather would have it, my prayers were quickly answered when we got the updated forecast at 4:30 a.m...
After the past few years when resignations and retirements far outpaced new hires, the Alaska Marine Highway System was able to hire as many new onboard crew as it lost in the first six months of this year. It showed a net gain of two workers, adding 47 and losing 45, though most of the new hires were in entry-level jobs and not the critical experienced positions that remain vacant. The lack of enough crew to fully staff the state ferries has been a problem, keeping the Kennicott tied up this summer and creating spot shortages the past couple...
Join the Volunteer Fire Department To the Editor: Now that we have seen the ugly damage to the church that a structure fire does so quickly, it should be obvious why Petersburg needs a fire department. But a fire department is not just big red trucks, air packs, hoses, and axes. It needs volunteers — people who have the skills to deal with the serious problems that lesser mortals run away from. PVFD always needs more volunteers to learn to serve as firefighters, emergency medical technicians, search team members, and non-tactical supporting w...
Petersburg will go without any southbound ferry service in alternating weeks from Oct. 1 to mid-November under the Alaska Marine Highway System's draft fall/winter schedule. The town is on the schedule for its usual weekly northbound stop during that period. The rest of the winter schedule shows once-a-week service to town in each direction, with the bonus of two stops in each direction the second week of each month from mid-November through February when the Kennicott will shorten its...
The Alaska Marine Highway System, which five months ago embarked on improving its hiring process to address chronic crew shortages, is unable to say how many new employees it has hired since then. The push started after a consultant’s report in January determined the state had hired just four out of 250 job applicants the over prior 12 months. The crew shortage forced the state to pull the Kennicott, the second-largest operable ship in the fleet, off this summer’s schedule and keep it tied up at the dock in Ketchikan. Asked how many new emp...
The Columbia state ferry has cancelled its sailings for at least a week due to a mechanical issue, affecting stops at ports between Haines and Bellingham, Washington, according to a service notice by the Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS). The primary interruption to service is a seven-day period starting Wednesday, with a sailing from Ketchikan to Bellingham and back through Southeast Alaska cancelled, the AMHS notice issued Monday notes. The decision is due to a "mechanical issue with the ves...
Just eight weeks before the start of the summer timetable on May 1, the Alaska Marine Highway System has released its schedule and opened its online reservations system for bookings. The schedule, which was announced March 7, came later than usual this year as the state continues to wrestle with crew shortages that will keep a couple of ships tied to the dock for the summer. Petersburg will see a weekly ferry stop in each direction May through September. “The Kennicott and Tazlina will be off-line for the time being due to skilled crew s...
March 9, 1923 – The Standard Oil Company and the Sitka Wharf and Power Company have signed a contract for three tanks with meters to be installed on the City Dock. E.J. McClanahan, assistant district sales manager for the Standard Oil Company arranged the final details of the lease with the local company. The tanks will be put in place in time for the fishing fleet this summer. There will be a gasoline tank, distillate, and another for refined oil. Heretofore the supply of oil was given from drums, a rather slow process during the busy f...
The Alaska Marine Highway System is working faster to hire more crew, trying to fix problems that slowed the process so much the past four years that the state failed to keep up with retirements and resignations. The hiring process was so cumbersome and excessively choosy that the state brought aboard just a few new workers out of 250 applicants forwarded by a search agency over the past year, according to a January report from the recruitment contractor. “Since 2019, AMHS has lost more staff annually than recruitment efforts can replace. F...
Washington, DC — U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, both R-Alaska, announced Wednesday that the Federal Transit Administration is awarding more than $285 million of investments to improve the reliability and service of Alaska’s ferry system, which serves more than 30 communities across 3,500 miles of coastline. The funding, all awarded to the Alaska Marine Highway System, is designated to replacing an aging vessel, upgrading ferry dock infrastructure in rural communities, modernizing four vessels, procuring an electric ferry, des...
It’s past time for the Southeast and coastal Alaska communities to be heard regarding the collapse of our ferry system. It’s time to more forcefully make our Alaska Marine Highway needs known by energizing the Southeast Conference, the Southeast Conference of Mayors, and other organizations. Southeastern and coastal Alaska are entitled to have a highway functioning just like our roaded neighbors to the north. The newly passed Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill provides the federal funding to make this happen if we don’t let it slip away The AMHS...
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...
