ALASKA'S RURAL PORTS SPUR ECONOMIC GROWTH.

Ports take center stage in rural communities across Alaska.

In tiny Atka (pop. 99), at the western end of the Aleutian chain, people look to the sea for sustenance--both as traditional fishermen and hunters, and now, with a good stake in the cash economy. Since the early 1990s, Atka residents have been buying fishing vessels and building processing facilities to develop their community's allotted share of the halibut and black cod fisheries. There's also work from servicing crab vessels that use the new 120-foot city dock that juts 300 feet from shore.

"(The maritime business) has had incredible economic impact; it has been a real positive situation for the whole community," says Bill Shaishnikoff, who manages the six fishing vessels owned by the Aleutian/Pribilof Island Community Development Association. "We have people who work in the (processing plant) --they're all local. We have people running the boats and fishing on the vessels--they are probably 75 percent local. Prior to the plant and the vessels, Atka was a pretty sleepy little town. You might say it has woken up."

Archeological evidence has indicated that people have lived in Atka since prehistoric times. During World War II, Atka residents were evacuated to Ketchikan and the city was burned to the ground to deter the advance of Japanese troops. The community was later rebuilt and the people returned for the same reasons their prehistoric predecessors did: to take advantage of Atka's natural port--its protection and respite from the sea.

Atka is only one of many rural ports in the state that provide economic benefit to their surrounding communities.

Westward Giants

About 500 miles to the east of Atka, giant Dutch Harbor has, for more than a decade, topped the list as the number one fishing port for seafood volume in the entire United States. The International Port of Dutch Harbor serves both fishing vessels and international freight--the massive facility lies only about 50 miles north of the Great Circle Shipping Route from major U.S. West Coast ports and the Pacific Rim.

There are 10 major docks in Unalaska-Dutch Harbor-and more than a mile of wharfage and another 1,200 feet of floating dock. Everything from bulk fuel to repairs of all ships' systems is available in dockside facilities that stretch for miles. Unalaska-Dutch Harbor's (pop. 4,300) economy is almost totally defined by the community's access to, and protection from, the sea.

The Port of Adak (pop. 100), only 90 miles west of Atka, should play a key role in Alaska's future. Adak played such a role as a staging area for U.S. forces to mount their successful World War II recapture of the islands of Kiska and Attu from the Japanese. After the war, the U.S. Navy poured billions of dollars into building a base so complete it had its own McDonald's-along with extensive moorage facilities. Adak has three deep-water docks. The Aleut Corp. is in the process of taking over the facility and developing its awesome potential as the westernmost deep-draft commercial port in the U.S. Already, fish is being processed, fuel sold and crew changed out at Adak.

Railroad Ties

The Aleutian communities' reliance on their ports goes along with what Seward Harbormaster James Beckham says-that, for many communities, port facilities are the bedrock on which the entire economy rests.

First, Beckham says, a protected moorage attracts a fledgling fishery. Then the state builds harbors and before long, there is a town. Or, as Beckham puts it, "basically cities built up around the harbors and ports all over Alaska.

"People have kind of lost sight of that history a little bit, how we got where we are today--as far as the importance of ports and harbors," Beckham says. "It's important to remember what was here before."

Beckham is the president of the Alaska Association of Harbormasters and Port Administrators, but he also runs the harbors in Seward (pop. 3,100). Those varied facilities are shared by cargo ships and barges, commercial fishermen, Prince William Sound tour boats, fishing charters and cruise ships. Until recently Seward was the only ice-free harbor with both rail and road access to Southcentral and the Interior.

But just last summer, the unique-even-for-Alaska town of Whittier (pop. 300) was connected to Anchorage by road for the first time, when the 2.5-mile Alaska railroad tunnel was improved to allow highway access. Traffic runs one way only, in timed intervals, when a train is not using the tunnel.

Whittier was developed as a port by the military in World War II, with the population during the early days of the Cold War reaching as high as 1,200. But everyone in town then-and now-lives in one of a few high-rise buildings. There is no single-family residential housing in the city of Whittier.

With the highway in place, the ice-free Whittier port is poised to become another Seward. Already, "almost all the freight that comes into the northern part of the state comes through Whittier," notes City Manager Matt Rowley.

Now, Rowley said, the city wants to develop tourist businesses and recreational home sites on land being opened up for that purpose. Whittier is only 75 miles southeast of Anchorage and offers all of Prince William Sound's recreational splendor. Already, 300 vessels fill the town's small boat harbor-nearly all owned by people from out of town--and the waiting list is at 700, says Rowley. Rowley also hopes to lure cruise ships back--they stopped visiting about a decade ago. Whittier, like Seward, can now offer cruise ship passengers their choice of bus or rail travel for their connections to the north.

Southeast's Tourism

Skagway (pop. 800) has got cruise ship passengers--plenty of them. About 600,000 cash customers disembarked from vessels of all major cruise lines over the summer of 2000.

At the town's Economic Development Commission, Coordinator Candice Wallace says Wednesdays were the day not to be caught in town; that's when 9,000 tourists jammed Skagway's few downtown streets. That's after smiling about the $60 million-plus pumped into town by those same visitors who are enchanted by this Gold Rush town.

Skagway lies at the northern end of the Inside Passage and is the gateway to Whitehorse and the Yukon. Skagway owes its origins to the Klondike Gold Rush, as the jumping off point to traverse White Pass. Memorandums of Understanding have recently been signed--both at the state and city levels--with appropriate Canadian authorities to clear the way for the smoother movement of people and goods over the border, under the terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Wallace says development groups have formed to encourage transnational partnerships and cooperation.

"And if there is a gas pipeline and if it is the Alaska Highway route--which is looking more and more like it is going to be--then it is reasonable for us to plan for what we will receive in freight," Wallace says. She says port facilities are already jammed with cruise ships, cargo vessels, barges and local fishermen and recreational boaters. The waiting list for the 165-slip small boat harbor "is astronomical," Wallace says. Needless to say, the city this winter was looking at plans for a major new dock.

In Sitka (pop. 8,800), port expansion was dealt a blow when a private drive to build a cruise ship dock was rejected by voters. Sitka expects about 200,000 cruise ship passengers in 2001 and more than half that again in independent visitors and conventioneers.

Situated on the outer coast of Southeast Alaska, Sitka residents can access both rich, open-water fishing and protected waters for recreational boating. The result is the largest small boat harbor in Alaska at more than 1,400 slips and another mile or so of side-tie moorage, says Sitka Harbormaster Ray Majeski.

Although there was a dock to deep water from downtown Sitka in the past, the city's only deep water moorage can be found at the new Sawmill Cove Industrial Park, which is rising from the old pulp mill site several miles out of town. For now, trinket- and tour-seeking visitors will have to make use of lighters--small boats launched from the cruise ships to ferry passengers to shore.

Close to the Center

But one need not stray far from the state's population heart to find port development giving wings to the economy. This summer the new Port MacKenzie facility--less than two miles from the Port of Anchorage--will begin what Matanuska-Susitna Borough planners think will be a shot in the arm to natural resource production for anyone within road or rail link. A 500-foot-wide dock has been built 850 feet from shore, offering moorage to vessels requiring 20 feet or less of draft.

Timber, for instance, is "an untapped resource here in the (Mat-Su) Valley," says Port Director Marc Van Dongen. Long-term plans include a conveyor belt to deeper water, to directly load massive Panamax-size ships with wood chips. Besides jobs, both at the port and in the field harvesting, the borough will receive more than $400,000 in fees from that one operation alone, Van Dongen says. Already, a pre-manufactured home company has shipped some of its modules to lots in the Interior and plans to do so again this summer.

Van Dongen said $20 million in state and federal funds is available to cover access road improvements and to bring utilities to the 5,000-acre port district slated by the borough for business and industrial development.

North to the Future

It is the northern ports that present both engineering challenges and the chance to open whole new territories to development.

The northernmost functioning port in the state is connected with the Red Dog mine near Kivilina--a rare privately developed port. There, zinc concentrate and other ores are loaded onto cargo ships during the three- to four-month period when the ocean is not frozen.

Kotzebue (pop. 3,000), 26 miles above the Arctic Circle, sits at the confluence of three river drainages and thus plays a major transshipment role for the entire region. During the 100day shipping season, deep draft cargo vessels must anchor 15 miles offshore. Cargo is lightered to warehouses or shallow-draft river barges for shipment to scores of villages. The city is looking at developing a deep-water port.

At Nome (pop. 3,600), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is currently designing a new harbor channel and 900foot breakwater, a $25 million project which will give a huge boost to the local and regional economy. In St. Paul (pop. 585), an $18 million breakwater is hoped to contribute to the growth of a local fishery, as well as more service available to at-sea fishing boats--once that industry bounces back from Steller sea lion protection-induced cutbacks in available harvest.

And as reliable an economic development tool as ports are, sometimes the numbers just don't add up. Like Kotzebue, Bethel (pop. 5,500) is a transshipment point between ocean-going ships and the barges that deliver goods along the mighty Kuskokwim River. Government analysts studied whether a new port developed at Mekoryuk on Nunivak Island (pop. 200), 150 miles west of Bethel, would seriously lower shipping costs to coastal villages.

Jolene John, the director of economic development for the Coastal Villages Region Fund, says a major port at Mekoryuk was found to make too small of an impact because of the primitive nature of receiving facilities at the village ends. Not being able to achieve grander dreams was painful for village leaders, but at least the residents of Mekoryuk can continue to access a maritime boost to their economy with the smaller breakwater and small boat harbor they now enjoy.