KHNS - Haines

White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad will resume service this summer to Fraser, British Columbia, and Carcross, Yukon after three years of pandemic-related shutdowns. The railroad is Skagway’s largest employer, with about 170 workers.

White Pass Executive Tyler Rose says they have a lot of infrastructure work to finish before the season starts, but that should be completed in time.

“You know, we’re very pleased. I mean, obviously, coming off 2022 and 2021, and before that, things look very positive right now,” Rose said.

The official schedule shows one-way passenger service to Fraser will run daily from early May through early October with continuing or return service being fulfilled by bus companies. Service to Carcross and Bennet will begin at the end of May and wrap up in mid-September.

Carcross-based business owner Bonnie O’Connor, who runs the Matthew Watson General Store with her husband, says they are excited to see the increase in visitor traffic.

“I think we all enjoy seeing that train rumble into town every day. You know, when you hear the whistle up the lake, you will see people rush out to the street, buy popcorn, sit on the bench, and watch it come in. It’s a nice moment that we all share. So yes, from a business standpoint, it’s, it’s really great to be for us and great for all of the businesses in Carcross,” O’Connor said.

She says her business met its goals for last year, but it was still only a third of what they saw in 2019. She says finding employees this summer is going to be extra difficult.

“Staffing is one of the biggest hurdles for all of us. Yeah, every business in town, and you know, that, it, it just gets wrapped up in a whole load of lack of available housing. The price of gas, you know, for people who might have considered commuting from Whitehorse to work in Carcross it’s — it’s unthinkable the way things are now,” O’Connor said.

Skagway Mayor Andrew Cremata says White Pass returning to Canada will also be good for his community.

“Being able to take thousands of people over the border into Canada on the train is going to alleviate a lot of the congestion here in town. I also think it’s wonderful for people living in Carcross. And for people living in the Yukon. It’s going to be a big boost to their economy,” said Cremata.

He says he expects a return to pre-pandemic cruise ship visitor numbers, or possibly more this summer.

The railroad will offer a combination train and bus service to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory from the end of May through the middle of September. They also plan to offer daily round-trip summit tours all summer. It is still unclear when they will offer Chilkoot Trail return trips as the trail remains closed due to extensive flooding last fall.

Margaret Piggott, a local author and one of the original deejays on KHNS public radio, has died.

Originally from Scotland, Piggott was living in England at the outbreak of World War II. During the London Blitz, she was one of many children evacuated to the countryside as major cities were bombed. After the war she became a competitive hiker in the UK and trained as a physical therapist before coming to the United States.

In 1969 she made Haines her home, the population being less than 500. A lover of nature, she continued hiking and wrote “Haines is for Hikers,” the first pamphlet for Haines tourism aimed at those who enjoyed hiking. In 1974 she published her first book, “Discover Southeastern Alaska with Pack and Paddle,” chronicling dozens of hikes and a near two-week paddle trip between Juneau and Angoon.

Most recently, she published “No Place To Pee,” a memoir of her time in the mid-70s as one of the only women working on the Trans-Alaska pipeline.

Throughout it all, Piggott maintained a deep appreciation of classical music. She would share this appreciation with the Upper Lynn Canal as the first classical presenter on KHNS public radio.

“I do recall Margaret, as a very dedicated and enthusiastic presenter, I guess, for all things classical,” said KHNS founder Debra Schnabel. “And what made her I think so, popular, I guess you could say that about a classical player. You know, her accent, her British accent”

The classical show begun in the 1980s continues to this day as Allegro Ma Non Troppo. Despite suffering a stroke in 2010, Piggott continued to travel and adventure, alone and with friends such as Melissa Aronson.

“The last time that she and I traveled, we went to the Panama Canal together. And she was 85,” Aronson said. “At that time, she was one month after having had hip replacement. And she went ziplining in Colombia, of all things, kind of gives you some idea. This is a person whose life was full. She was intellectually sharp. She loved classical music and of course, did the program on KHNS. She had adventures. And may we all just live our lives to the fullness that Margaret found in hers. She was a dear, dear friend and and I miss her greatly.”

Piggott touched the lives of many people during her decades here; through the sharing of music, her writing, and blazing trails in the Upper Lynn Canal. Through all of it, was her love of nature.

“Her relationship to nature, I think was very important to her,” Schnabel said. “And I do think that also established her personality in a lot of ways. She was a quiet, but very forceful person.”

Piggott was diagnosed with leukemia on Christmas eve and passed away before the new year. She was 90 years old. She died surrounded by friends who held her hand while the music of Johann Sebastian Bach played.

Skagway is home to an internet sensation — a wife-and-husband dog-walking team that makes videos of their daily routines. On New Year’s Eve they hit the lofty benchmark of over 1 million social media followers.

They call themselves Mo Mountain Mutts, and the videos they make of their operation have gone from viral posts to national news. Based in Skagway, Mo Thompson started small, taking friends’ dogs out on walks during lunch breaks from her job.

“I started working with some teachers at the school. And it just kind of was a ripple effect of ‘Hey, I heard you’re really good with dogs. Can you help me? Hey, I heard you’re really good with dogs. Can you help me?’ And then I needed a second pack walk because I started grouping dogs together by their personalities. So we had our morning crew and our afternoon crew. Then it just grew to the point where I needed some help from Lee,” said Thompson.

Lee is her husband. The couple has an 8-month-old boy named Vern who also goes on walks every day, unless the weather is too cold. Mo says she loves those days, too.

“We usually have everything to ourselves. Nobody’s usually outside. And we can play the in and the out game. I usually leave my vehicle running and the dogs can kind of come and go and warm their little toes up in their seat and come back out,” said Thompson.

The couple bought a passenger bus from a local business last winter, but their passengers are all dogs.

“Lee and I together are just a couple of goofballs. So Lee just started pointing the camera at me or he would have a silly idea on the bus. And that’s really what went viral,” said Thompson.

They hit a million TikTok subscribers on New Year’s Eve, so they popped some champagne and a new bag of treats for their dogs.

One video has captured more attention than the others. It’s received over 45 million views on TikTok alone.

@mo_mountain_mutts You guys asked to see the dogs getting on the bus #foryou #dogs #puppybus #alaska ♬ original sound – Mo_Mountain_Mutts

“That’s the dogs getting on the bus. It’s like, Jake, he walks in and gets in his own seat. Amaru’s outside sitting on the curb waiting for the bus. Bama just gets in lets the dog sniff her mingles back to her seat and then Slade just comes like flying on jumps in his seat, and starts making out with Otis,” said Thompson.

People have started making fan edits and placing themselves on the bus. They both admit how lucky they are to do something they love for a living.

“I look in the rearview mirror of the bus as I’m driving sometimes. And I see all the dogs back there. And I can’t believe we do this for a living,” he said.

The couple operates their puppy bus year-round and doesn’t plan to expand operations. But they do hope to make a bit of extra money through Tik Tok and expand into monetizing YouTube videos. Mo is also hosting web-based training sessions.

They’ve recently done a national interview with CNN and were contacted by the Rachel Ray Show.

Skagway’s hopes of berthing up to four cruise ships a day in 2023 took a full step backward this week as results from a simulation project steered at least one major cruise line company away from agreeing to use a reconfigured Ore Dock.

At its last regularly scheduled meeting, Skagway’s Assembly agreed to a walkaway deal with White Pass and Yukon Route that would allow the municipality early access to start improving the Ore Dock prior to the expiration of the 55-year waterfront lease with the railroad company next March.

The deal allows for White Pass to leave the infrastructure in place at the Ore and Broadway Docks while the municipality takes over the contaminated Ore Basin remediation project for costs of up to $15 million.

But this week the alternative mooring plan to expand the Ore Dock to allow post-Panamax size cruise ships — built too large to pass through the Panama Canal — to dock there in 2023 no longer looks viable.

At a special budget meeting on Wednesday night, Borough Manager Brad Ryan told the Assembly that Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines was the first company to say they won’t use the Ore Dock Alternative Mooring Plan as it’s currently designed.

“It’s not that they can’t come in and dock it, they did it in the simulation, they just don’t like the clearance distance between the wings of those larger ships and the Broadway ship,” said Ryan.

RCL has suggested adding another 132 feet of dock length to extend the Ore Dock further south than the Alternative Mooring Plan suggests. But that means installing a deep-water dolphin that could drive the cost of the project from the original estimate of $6 million to upwards of $26 million.

“That puts piles in 155 feet of water. And we believe that’s about a $10 million dolphin out there,” said Ryan.

Without permits or sourced materials, Ryan doesn’t believe that’s something that can be achieved by next season. So that could leave the chance for Skagway to host four cruise ships a day next year dependent on the rockslide mitigation project above the Railroad Dock.

A special Assembly meeting was held Friday afternoon. Audio of that meeting can be found at Skagway.org.

In an effort to reduce the hazard from rockslides that barraged Skagway’s busiest cruise ship dock during the 2022 cruise season, the city has contracted with a design firm to develop mitigation strategies that could allow at least partial use of the dock next season.

This year’s slides caused partial shutdowns of the dock, resulting in a loss of more than 100,000 visitors to the community. The vast majority of the town’s economy relies on cruise ship traffic.

Seattle-based geotechnical engineering firm Shannon and Wilson have developed two different mitigation proposals for Skagway’s large rockslide chute officials are calling the South Slide area. It’s located above the north end of the Railroad Dock and clearly visible from the waterfront.

One plan is a large-scale, long-term effort costing nearly $40 million. A smaller short-term effort would cost a little over $3 million. The municipality is seeking grant funding for the long-term project but is moving ahead with the short-term project in the meantime.

Municipal officials hope that the short-term project can be done prior to next year’s cruise season. That project will include the installation of two attenuator nets. One of those, at the bottom of the slide area, was destroyed during a slide late last month, it was the large netting designed to guide falling rocks into the water below the dock. It will need to be replaced.

Another attenuator net will be installed in the mid-slope area.

“I’d say a third of the way down or maybe just over a third of the way down, there’s a bump on the hillside, and that kicks rocks off and launches them outward,” Borough Manager Brad Ryan explained during last Thursday’s assembly meeting,.

Those launched rocks can gain speed and miss the attenuator net at the bottom of the slope causing damage to the dock below. The plan also calls for a draped mesh at the top of the slope much like what is used along stretches of the South Klondike Highway between Skagway and Carcross in Canada’s Yukon Territory. The concept is that if you can slow the speed at which the rocks fall, the impact won’t be as damaging.

Heavy scaling will also be done to the top of the slide area. That will theoretically bring down any loose rock or vegetation that’s in danger of falling now. The scaling will be done with hand tools such as pry bars and airbags.

But Ryan doesn’t expect that the Railroad Dock will be used at full capacity upon completion of the mitigation effort.

“I think we have to be prepared that we’re going to try to limit as many people on that dock as possible,” he said.

That means most likely cruise passengers will continue to be tendered from the ships that are able to berth on the Railroad Dock south of the slide area next season.

Ryan said funding for the project will likely come from a variety of sources. Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy declared a disaster emergency in Skagway last month, and the state made at least $1 million available for Skagway in the wake of the declaration. There could be more funds available but those aren’t guaranteed.

Another potential source of funding could come from the per-passenger fees collected by the State of Alaska and then distributed back to communities that host cruise ships.

“Can we cover it? I believe we can,” Ryan said. “The revenue bond has to go through and the expenses that would go to the development of the (Ore) dock would have to all go through that revenue bond, which we intend to do anyway. And then we’d have to cover it with our other municipal funds.”

A $65 million revenue bond was approved by voters last Tuesday. Those funds are supposed to be used for port development and are expected to be available early next year. The use of that money to reconfigure the Ore Dock to allow large-class cruise ships next year would allow other money to be available to help pay for the rockslide mitigation plan instead of the emergency Ore Dock redesign project.

Shannon and Wilson expect the hand scaling to take two weeks, with building the attenuator taking eight weeks and system tests taking one week. Ryan named Oregon-based contractor Rock Supremacy as the firm that will execute the plan. The White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad will continue to share geotechnical data and remove debris from the bottom of the slide area as needed.

The busy cruise ship town of Skagway is looking for a solution to the rockslides that continue to pepper its largest cruise ship dock. It also hopes to prevent a major rockslide that experts are calling inevitable. And as winter approaches, the window to execute a workable solution gets smaller and smaller.

The forward berth of the town’s largest cruise ship dock was shut down earlier this summer, about a week before a large slide hit the area. The town has been operating only three out of four berths ever since. That’s resulted in the loss of about 125,000 passengers this season.

If the community wants to return to hosting four ships at a time in 2023, it has less than seven months to fix the problem.

National geotechnical engineering firm Shannon and Wilson made its initial pitch to address the slides at the borough assembly’s Sept. 1 meeting. Anchorage-based Geotechnical Engineer, Kyle Brennan’s tone was hopeful but realistic.

“It’s a complicated issue, and time is not helping,” he said.

He said there are about 40,000 – 60,000 yards of rock that need to be moved off the mountainside to prevent both major and minor rockslides. The process would involve mechanically removing the rock, lifting it up over the top of the hillside and depositing the material out of the way of the view shed of Lower Dewey Lake, then repeating the process down the slope until it is completed.

Brennan says there are two problems. One is the ongoing smaller rockslides, of which there have been several over the past few weeks. The other is the large unstable mass at the top of the slope that he says will eventually release and destroy the area below the slide zone — and potentially much more if left untouched.

“What we’re trying to do is twofold. One, remove this very large hazard. But also, by doing so, we should greatly reduce the amount of rock fall that’s produced along the slope because we no longer have that moving rock mass,” Brennan said. “The rock fall hazard will never go away completely because you have a steep rock slope, and steep rock slopes over time generate rock fall occasionally, but the frequency of those rockfalls should be reduced dramatically.”

The most recent calculations say that the large rock mass is separating from the mountainside at a rate of 2.5 inches per year, up from between 1 and 1.5 inches just a few years ago.

Brennan said his firm will have preliminary design plans for mitigation completed by Sept. 16. Without those, permits can’t be applied for, grant proposals can’t be made and a contractor can’t be hired. But even if those plans are ready by mid-September, it’s not likely that permits would be approved before mid-winter.

“If we can get that contractor on early, you know, there are certain components of the project that maybe they can start that don’t really rely so much on the permitting: staging equipment, establishing access, maybe doing some work to prep the upslope disposal site for the rock,” he said.

That may include improving road access to Lower Dewey Lake to get large excavators and dump trucks to the construction site.

Assemblymember Orion Hanson suggested progress needs to start on those developments immediately.

“Any suggestion of a helicopter getting a 70,000-(pound) excavator up that mountain seems completely impossible to me,” Hanson said.

And without helicopter-assisted access, road work would need to begin before the winter freeze.

“You’re saying we can’t really do any excavation until sometime in the winter. We have to mobilize well before that if we have any chance of pulling this off before next year,” Hanson said.

For now, the company is only focusing on the north slide area above the railroad dock. Project cost estimates and funding options were not discussed in detail.