Tourism

Unalaska is preparing to spend tens of millions of dollars to upgrade the aging Port of Dutch Harbor. The hope is to serve bigger ships and more of them — but the companies that use the dock right now aren’t so sure that big changes are needed.

On Wednesday night, Unalaska’s city council chambers were full of the dock workers, fuelers and cargo companies that have worked in Dutch Harbor for 25 years, exporting seafood and importing freight.

They were there to weigh in as the city gets ready to remodel the port for the future. The $44 million plan involves replacing rotten pilings under the dock that serves container ships, barges and catcher-processors — and adding anything new that those companies want to see.

That might include a setup for a bigger cargo crane — one to reach further across wider ships. The current crane is on 50-gauge rails, meaning spaced 50 feet apart. Some ports, including Anchorage, have upped that to 100 feet.

Marion Davis is a vice president for Horizon Lines, the main domestic shipper in Dutch Harbor. They own the current crane, and Davis called into Wednesday’s meeting to say the 50-foot spacing works just fine.

“A lot of ports are huge ports. So they might have six, eight, ten lanes of trucks underneath the crane. Therefore, you need the room underneath the crane. Dutch will never have that,” he said. “So a 50-gage crane should be sufficient no matter what you do.”

He did suggest bringing in a new 50-gage crane built for a wider reach. But that’s not part of the city’s project — any new cranes would have to come from the users, like Horizon.

They were the city’s official shipping partner when the dock was first built. But that contract fell apart a few years ago. In March, the city council voted not to seek a new one — from Horizon, or anyone else.

Horizon still gets a guaranteed spot for their weekly mail and grocery delivery, according to a recent letter from the city. But otherwise, the dock space is up for grabs.

That means power is an open question, too. Right now, the port runs mostly on diesel — but Doug Leggett, the president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in Unalaska, asked if the city’s electrical grid could handle more ships or cranes plugging in.

“I’ve spent plenty of time watching and breathing that exhaust, and I think most of us don’t realize how much pollution they pump into town when they’re sitting there,” he said. “The wind’s blowing, and you don’t see it, but it’s a lot.”

Other dock workers brought up cosmetic issues — like bad drainage, bumpy concrete and safety issues that need repairing. And they talked about the best spot for a new warehouse that barges and seafood companies could share.

All that helps the companies at the dock right now — but much of the plan still centers on the idea that more, bigger traffic is on the way. Longshoremen like Jeff Hancock were skeptical.

“I mean, you’ve got an outline of a gigantic, large, 1,200-foot vessel there at the dock,” he said, indicating a concept drawing showing different sizes of ships. “In what realistic thinking would we ever have a vessel of that size here, that we needed … to work the number of containers that that would be? … In what reality would we ever need that much capacity at this port?”

“No ice in the Arctic,” answered Dennis Robinson, a longshoreman and former city councilor.

Robinson is talking about the biggest unknown in upgrading Dutch Harbor: Will melting Arctic ice — and more Arctic infrastructure — really create that much demand from new shipping companies?

If it will, they didn’t show up on Wednesday to say so. But city ports director Peggy McLaughlin says she heard enough to move the designs forward — and to keep working on a funding plan. She needs to break ground by 2017 for permitting reasons.

“We’re building and replacing a deteriorating facility for the current users,” she said after Wednesday’s meeting. “And there certainly are users that are being turned away because of timing issues and dock schedules that will be able to utilize this proposed design.”

For now, the port’s oldest tenants will drive that design — and McLaughlin hopes it’ll leave room for those waiting in the wings.

The city and PND Engineers are taking public comment on the preliminary designs through May 29, and will hold a follow-up public meeting later this summer. You can catch a rebroadcast of Wednesday’s planning meeting on Channel 8 this Sunday, May 3 at 5 p.m.

A new report from the National Parks Service says Alaska parks brought over 2.5 million visitors, $1.1 billion and 17,000 jobs into the state economy last year.

National Park Service spokesman John Quinley says restaurants, air taxi services, and local shops across the state see economic benefits from the parks.

“You know, replace the fishing rod that got lost on their flight to Philadelphia or something,” Quinley said. “It’s that local spending is well that cumulatively creates jobs, it’s not one person creating one job with their spending, but 30,000 people sort of spending bits of money in a lot of different places.”

Alaska parks in 2014 had the highest visitation on record.

Unalaska will get a big population boost this weekend, with the first cruise ship of what’s shaping up to be a busy summer.

On Sunday, the 781-foot Crystal Symphony will tie up at the Coast Guard dock and offload the most passengers Unalaska has ever seen — around a thousand people, as many as a quarter of the town’s residents.

Normally, the state ferry marks the start of summer in the Aleutians. But this year, the aging ferry Tustumena is in shipyard for repairs — its first scheduled stop in Unalaska is now May 23. And state budget cuts could mean fewer sailings overall after that.

Unalaska visitor’s bureau director Cathy Jordan says a shorter ferry season will have a big impact on the Aleutian Chain — for tourists and residents alike.

“A lot of people like to come out on the ferry, stay for a day or two, maybe fly back on [PenAir], or they’ll take the ferry back the same day,” Jordan says. “But also important for the Chain is for the smaller communities that get on the ferry along the way and come out here and shop, and then bring goods back to their hometown. And that also impacts our businesses.”

But she’s hoping more cruise ships might help fill the gap. 2015 will be Unalaska’s longest, busiest cruise season ever — the Crystal Symphony is the first of eight ships with scheduled stops. One, in September, will bring 2,000 passengers to town.

“I’m a little concerned about how we’re going to be able to accommodate that many people on the island for that amount of time,” Jordan says. “They don’t always all disembark, so hopefully we’ll be able to scatter them throughout the island at one time. You know, our tourist destinations can’t hold but 150, 200 people. So we’ll try to keep them busy with some other alternatives.”

She’s calling in extra buses and working with the town’s few restaurants and museums to organize special events. She’ll also have volunteers on hand to help guide explorers. Jordan says that small-town feel is one advantage Unalaska has over bigger ports.

“I’ve seen many people stop and talk to cruise ship passengers and give directions, or give an idea of what to do next,” she says. “Or even when we have a group of birders in from a cruise ship, they’ll ask, ‘Where can I find this bird?’ And I’ve seen local people [say] ‘Oh, go down this road and take a right,’ you know, so it’s really great.”

Of course, Unalaska’s main draw is as a fuel stop. It’s the first big port of call for ships crossing the Pacific from Asia.

The Crystal Symphony is one of those. It’s en route from Tokyo to Vancouver, with stops in Kodiak, Seward and Ketchikan after it leaves the Aleutians.

With a little over a week until the first ship arrives in Juneau, the head of a cruise industry group in Alaska says 2015 should be strong year for tourism in the state.

Former state lawmaker John Binkley is now president of Cruise Lines International Association Alaska. He told the Juneau Chamber of Commerce today that he anticipates about 1 million passengers this year. That’s up more than 3 percent from 2014.

“2015 is going to be a great year. We’re excited about that,” Binkley said. “I think the merchants can see in just, what, two weeks? The ships are going to be pulling in here. People are going to be pouring off with money in their pocket, looking for places and ways to leave it here in Juneau. It’s great news for us.”

But Binkley warned Alaska faces challenges as the cruise industry expands globally. Already, he says the state is losing market share, as newer ships are deployed to ports in Asia and other parts of the world. He also says the state and local governments need to be careful with how they spend cruise ship passenger fees.

He said the industry is concerned about two multi-million dollar projects in Juneau: An extension of the seawalk north of Marine Park, and a long-planned dock expansion to allow more Panamax ships to tie up downtown.

“It would be one thing if the local community were paying for the dock. But they’re not,” Binkley said. “It’s the visitors that are paying for the dock and the cruise companies that are paying for the dock.”

Panamax ships are up to 1,000 feet long and carry thousands of passengers.

University of Alaska Southeast Chancellor John Pugh challenged Binkley, saying the industry is sending mixed signals about how it wants passenger fees to be spent.

“We were told we needed docks for Panamax. We worked on that,” Pugh said. “And so I guess, I’m just sending a message back to you having been a citizen who had some involvement in it. How do we actually talk to the industry? Is it the local people who are here? Is it the people who are in Shanghai?”

Binkley says the cruise lines wanted an entirely new dock built as opposed to an expansion of the existing facilities.

Assemblywoman Mary Becker told Binkley the Juneau Assembly is not considering an increase to the city’s local passenger head tax in response to a proposal by lawmakers to take away Juneau’s share of state passenger fees in 2016.

The first two cruise ships of the year are due in Juneau on Monday May 4.

State budget-writers have reversed one of cuts made to the Alaska Marine Highway System.

A conference committee negotiating the operating budget over the weekend restored $1.7 million cut by the Senate. But it let stand an $8 million reduction made by the House. When the governor’s cuts are added in, the total is about $15 million, plus lost revenue from canceled sailings.

Capt. Mike Neussl is the state Department of Transportation’s deputy commissioner overseeing ferries.

“It was reassuring to see that some of those cuts the Senate had made were restored. But until the final bill is done and we do a final analysis of that final funded amount, in terms of the operating schedule and how much service we can provide, we don’t know exactly what the cuts will be,” he says.

Lawmakers may further increase funding during last-minute negotiations.

Neussl says marine highway staff will revise the next fiscal year’s schedule, which begins in July, once the budget becomes final. That will take about a week.

He says earlier projections will be fine-tuned to make sure all port communities continue to receive service.

“We made the cuts with a fairly blunt instrument. We had short notice and large amounts of cuts to make. So we made cuts that were probably less strategically thought out than they would have been if we had more time to make them,” he says.

Once the schedule is done, reservations staff will contact those who booked tickets on canceled sailings. The online reservations system will be shut down to keep it from crashing as travelers try to rebook tickets.

An effort to create a statue honoring the architect of the Alaska purchase received a boost with the Juneau Assembly recently committing funds to the project.

U.S. Secretary of State William Henry Seward negotiated the purchase of the Russian America territory for $7.2 million on March 30, 1867. The purchase is commemorated with Seward’s Day, a state holiday every March 30. Alaska Day on October 18 marks the day in 1867 when the United States formally took possession of the territory.

At its March 16 meeting, the CBJ Assembly committed to using $25,000 from the Parks and Recreation Department’s capital improvement budget for a proposed statue of Seward. Public and private donations are expected to cover the $120,000 estimated total cost for the statue’s creation and installation.

The bronze statue will feature a more-than-life-size Seward wearing his cape, and holding his hat and a set of purchase documents.

Architect Wayne Jensen is one of the co-chairs of the Seward Statue Committee. He believes there’s still time to have the statue constructed and erected in time for what he calls the sesquicentennial of Seward’s Folly.

“2017 will be the 150th anniversary of the purchase,” Jensen says. “So, we started planning some event that would commemorate that date.”

As Jensen tells it, Russia was interested in selling the far flung Russian America territory to the United States, one of its closest allies at the time, as early as 1850. Russia had expenses from losing the Crimean War and Russian America was hard to control. The abolitionist Seward was preoccupied with preventing European countries from recognizing the Confederate States of America as a legitimate government. Once the Civil War ended, though, Seward resumed pursuing the major expansionist doctrine of the 19th century.

“He was a person that believed in Manifest Destiny,” Jensen says. “He would like to have seen the United States include all of North America.”

Seward negotiated the purchase of Russian America sight unseen, but he visited the territory two years later and then died about three years after that.

Ketchikan artist David Rubin will create the bronze sculpture of Seward.

“He suggested that the base of the statue be Tokeen marble from Prince of Wales Island, which is the same marble that’s used for the columns at the front of the Capitol,” Jensen says.

Rubin is currently working on the design and he’ll acquire the marble for the pedestal this spring. A clay model may be completed by this fall and a foundry in New York will do the casting.

Jensen says they would like to dedicate and install the statue in the round plaza in front of the Dimond Courthouse, just across the street from the Alaska State Capitol, in July 2017. The statue could become another point of interest for tourists on the downtown walking tour.