The Skagway ferry terminal is on track to reopen on Thursday, nearly a month after ferry service stopped abruptly due to structural damage at the dock.
The terminal’s closure threw a wrench in regional travel plans, including for seasonal workers planning to leave town and for participants in a running race that draws people from around the region.
The reopening comes after weeks of hurried work on the facility after ferry terminal workers noticed cracks in the concrete abutment that supports the vehicle transfer bridge. Further inspection found that those cracks were spidering, and many of the chains that hold the float in place were damaged.
In a Facebook post onTuesday, the Alaska Department of Transportation said all 19 chains have been repaired, and the vehicle bridge has been reset. The release said electricians were working on Tuesday to restore power to the float.
“Unless there's something that crops up between now and then, it's looking like we will be resuming service on the 10th,” said Gabe Strong, a spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Transportation.
But Strong hesitated when asked if travelers should pivot back to the state ferry system after making other arrangements.
“Something could happen,” Strong said. “And then I'd feel bad if I said, ‘Oh, yeah, cancel your other arrangements,’ and then have it go bad and have people not be able to get there.”
On Wednesday morning, the Alaska Marine Highway website showed availability to travel to Skagway on the Hubbard on Sept. 10.
The reopening was announced just days before the Klondike Road Relay is set to start in Skagway on Friday evening. The event is an overnight relay race where teams run more than 100 miles from Skagway to Whitehorse, in Canada.
When the ferry terminal closed down, out-of-town teams scrambled to arrange other transportation. Some decided to travel to Haines and either drive to Skagway or take a more expensive, private ferry.
That includes Weezin4NoReazin – a team made up of runners from Haines and Juneau. They decided to make the roughly seven-hour drive from Haines to Skagway when the terminal shut down.
“I have to take an extra day off of work in order to make it happen,” said Haines-based team member Marirose Evenden. “You have to have support vehicles, and since we’re all Haines and Juneau people, no one has a car in Skagway, so we can’t just take the fast ferry.”
As far as Evenden’s aware, the team hasn’t changed their plans amid the planned reopening of the Skagway terminal. But Klondike Race Coordinator Ryan Sikkes said he anticipates many teams’ will shift their plans yet again.
“Most teams I think had just plans to get off in Haines and do the long drive,” Sikkes said. “And so I suspect that will always be the fallback if it turns out the Skagway terminal cannot open on Thursday.”
Sikkes says if the terminal does reopen, it could make for much smoother travel in both directions – and that race organizers and participants are pretty good at adjusting for logistical hiccups.
“I always like to say this road relay is as much a feat of logistics for teams as it is athleticism,” he said.
