On Last Trip on the Mali - Story

 On Last Trip on the 'Mali'

(published in the Ketchikan Daily News 12/2/19)

When the Motor Vessel Malaspina arrived in Prince Rupert on January 31, 1963, more than 500 cheering residents were on hand to greet the new Alaskan Marine Highway System ferry on its first run down from Ketchikan.

But when the Malaspina made what is likely its last stop in Canada on November 25, 2019, the terminal was mostly empty and the only sound was the cranes and trucks rumbling away at the nearby  Fairview Container port. The nearly 60-year-old mainline state ferry needs some $16 million in repairs and the state is putting  her in "layup" indefinitely, after she returns in early December from one last trip up the Panhandle from Ketchikan to Skagway and back. After traveling more than 4.5 million miles and carrying some 2 million passengers, it would appear that the faithful Malaspina, the oldest of the mainliners,  is done

When the Alaska Marine Highway system was created in the early 1960s and three large mainline ferries were built for around $4.5 million each, state officials estimated that the three ships, the Malaspina, Matanuska and Taku would have useful lives of about 30 years. Nearly six decades later, the Malaspina and the Matanuska are still operating. The Taku was taken off line three years ago and sold for scrap last year.

The Malaspina was the first of the ships to arrive in Southeast. It was not the official first "Blue Canoe," that was the much smaller Chilkat, which was built by the territorial government in late 1950s and operated primarily in Lynn Canal before being used in some of the region's smaller communities after the "mainliners" where built. But the arrival of the Malaspina in January of 1963 heraldws a major step forward for transportation in the Panhandle, which had been without regular year-round regular steamship service since 1954, when the Alaska Steamship Company had ended passenger service.

Yes, there was still seasonal passenger service from Canadian steamships, but the lack of year-round passenger and vehicle service was behind the formation of the Southeast Conference shortly after Statehood in 1959. Southeast communities recognized the crucial need for a marine "highway" to connect its communities, because traditional roads could never be built to connect the towns and villages of Southeast to each other or - with rare exceptions - to the Outside world.  They banded together and forced the state to address access to and transportation within Southeast. Eventually, the state expanded the service to Prince William Sound, Kodiak and the Aleutian Islands.

How big a deal was it when the Malaspina arrived in 1963?

In Ketchikan, the Daily News estimated that more than 3,000 residents turned out to greet the ship, blocking Tongass Avenue for several miles in either direction. Alaska's first Governor, Bill Egan, was on hand in the First City to welcome the ship and Mayor Louis Glatz proclaimed Jan. 23 as "Alaska Marine Highway Day." An even bigger crowd, estimated at 4,500 by the Juneau Empire,  was on hand when the Malaspina reached the Capital City later in the week, just in time for Egan's second inauguration. 

The unanimity of excitement then was a far cry from today, when political wrangling and cost concerns have the state downsizing ferry runs and scrambling to find the money to repair the aging fleet. Currently the state is waiting for a consultant's report with options for future operation. The Southeast Conference if pushing for a state corporation to operate the ferry system, separate from the Department of Transporation. Some in state government would like the see the system assets sold to the private sector allowing it to provide the service. They point to such operations as the Inter-Island Ferry as models, but - in doing so - disregard the fact that IFA requires a healthy state subsidy to operate.

Only one the mainliners, the Kennicott, is less that 40 years old. Two of the smaller - even older - ferries designed serve towns and villages in the state, the Aurora and the LeConte, are both facing large repairs and that caussed the caused the state Department of Transportation to perform a triage last month in which it was decided the LeConte would be repaired and the Aurora would be put in "layup" like the Malaspina. Also in "layup" are two fast ferries that cost the state tens of millions of dollars to build in the 1990s and never achieved the cost savings and operational efficiences that were promised. Like the Taku, they are destined to be sold for pennies on the dollar.

The largest ferry, the Columbia, is also in "layup." The cost to operate the biggest ferry has been a concern of the DOT for many years and it was expected the state would try to sell it as well, but with the Malaspina going out of service, it increases the chance the Columbia may have some life left on the Alaska run.

Meanwhile, the two newest ferries, Alaska Class day-boats Tazlina and Hubbard are also in a holding pattern. Built specifically for the Lynn Canal run between Juneau and Haines/Skagway, they lack staterooms and crew accomodations meaning they are not well suited for some of the longer runs they may be needed for in Southeast Alaska if either the LeConte or the Aurora (which has been mostly in Prince William Sound in recent years) go completely out of the service. The vehicle loading doors on both ships would also have be retrofitted to make them function at some ports besides Haines and Skagway. Recently, it was announced the Tazlina would be used to provide stop gap service in several small southeast towns hurt by the unavailability of the Aurora and LeConte

With trade wars driving up the price of steel, the AMHS is faced with repair costs soaring past the money in the budget. At the same time, political decisions have cut the state subsidy to operate the Marine Highway to half of what it was a decade ago. Lower subsidies and schedule cut backs have reduced ferry ridership by significantly in the past decade, further putting more budget pressure on the AMHS. Communities throughout the state are facing long period of no service this winter because of the lack of ships and the money to operate them.

So the mood was somewhat muted when the Malaspina pulled out of Ketchikan at noon for the half-day run to Prince Rupert and back on Nov. 25. There were only 40 some passengers heading to Rupert, and a similar number coming back, which was not surprising, since the state had officially ended service to Prince Rupert  in September, but then later added two additional runs, one in October and one in November.

Political differences have cut off the regular service between Ketchikan and its nearest neighbor. Over the years, thousands of Ketchikan residents have used the "Rupert Run" to make a quick connection to the North American road system. These days, taking a vehicle all the way to Bellingham costs more than $1,200, but service has been suspended to Prince Rupert as the two governments argue over the need for Canada to provide police staffing for the US Border Patrol officers and whether or not American or Canadian steel will be used to make necessary repairs to the nearly 60-year-old Alaska Marine Highway dock.

Lack of a Prince Rupert connection also leaves Ketchikan, and other towns in Southern Southeast, pretty much entirely dependent on barge lines to stock the grocery shelves and provide other life essentials. With uncertainty facing the marine highway, regional barge lines have announced price increases.

Taking a last run on the Malaspina belied the impression that she is an "old ship" ready to be retired and scrapped. The public spaces and staterooms were well maintained and had clearly recently been updated. There were only a few areas that needed painting. The engines still had the deep, consistent thrum of a ship once described by a former captain as .....  Nothing is more inducive to naps in the staterooms, lounges and solarium than the rumbling engines of a state ferry. The crew bustled about busily taking care of the sparse passenger load, Food in the cafeteria was basic but tasty and recent movies ran in one of the lounges.

The Malaspina - and the other mainliners - remain their own separate, mobile communities and in the past ships that were not in service where brought out of dry dock and used to provide extra housing in emergencies or when a town's own capacity was stretched by a major event. It seems almost incomprehensible that in a time where nearly every community in coastal Alaska is crying for affordable housing and homeless shelters, that it is not better to put the old state ferries to that use rather than to sell them for scrap.

It is also hard to rationalize the idea that $16 million is too much to spend to repair a state ferry and keep it in service. Replacing ships like the Malaspina will cost 10-15 times that, even if the ships have long since passed their 1963 life expectancies.

It was only when you looked a little closer, on the Malaspina, that you saw the passage of time. A good example was the empty lounge area that used to hold the Malaspina's bar and now was empty, except for chairs and a piano.

Once, the bars on the ships were the constant heatbeat, the places where residents from Ketchikan, Wrangell, Petersburg and elsewhere met and shared stories about how their far flung lives were not that different from each others. Financial and social pressures eventually led the bars closure by 2015.  Passengers still mix somewhat in the cafeterias and the viewing lounges, but even there they are more often seen staring at computer and cell phone screens rather than talking.

In their heyday, ferries were indeed the great mixing zones of Southeast Life, but that connection has been lost in more fast paced world that values jet flights over the slow, measured form of travel that ferries allow throughout the region. Ferries were also the relatively inexpensive ways that students went back and forth for sports, music and other events, another way that the region's communities were glued together back in the days before statewide classifications meant that Ketchikan would no longer compete with Wrangell, Petersburg, Haines and even Sitka and Prince Rupert.

Also blasting from the past are the historic displays lining the halls of the ship. You can read the front pages of the newspapers when the ships were new. You can learn the history  and see a collection of handprints by former crew members. There are commemorations of times the Malaspina, like nearly every ship in the fleet, was called on to rescue boaters in distress.

In general, the Malaspina had a fairly run of the mill life in the AMHS, certainly compared to the star-crossed adventures of the Taku. But it was at the center of one major story.

In 1997, angry gillnetters in Prince Rupert blockaded the ship for three days in Prince Rupert to protest American fishery policy, At the time, Alaska threatened to end service to Prince Rupert altogether.

But cooler heads prevailed. Until now.