The Ketchikan Gateway Borough is using the Trump administration’s ongoing trade war with Canada as leverage to restore ferry service to British Columbia.
A delegation of borough leaders made a trip this month to Washington D.C., where they discussed the ferry to Prince Rupert, British Columbia with Canadian leaders. Then during a “State of the Borough” address last Wednesday, Borough Mayor Rodney Dial elaborated on the talks at the Canadian embassy. He said the goal was to use “current events” to help advance the borough’s policy interests.
“The bottom line with this is that we’re interjecting ourselves into national and even international discussions to get things done for this community,” Dial said. “And we are killing it, figuratively speaking.”
For residents of Ketchikan and surrounding island communities, the Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS) ferry to Prince Rupert once offered a convenient connection to the North American road system. But it’s been out of service for years. Aside from a brief return in 2022, that six-hour ferry service has been offline since 2019 due to regulatory disagreements. Current hurdles include the sourcing of steel for necessary repairs to the dock in Prince Rupert. The state still offers service to Bellingham, Washington, but that trip takes almost 40 hours and is much more expensive.
The Alaska Department of Transportation last week announced a separate effort to restore a ferry connection to the road system. The state said it will study the feasibility of building a new ferry terminal in Hyder, a small Southeast town on the Canadian border.
Mayor Dial said another priority of the D.C. trip was providing an automatic exemption from the Passenger Vessel Service Act if Canada closes its ports. That would allow cruise ships traveling from the Lower 48 to bypass Canadian ports on the way to Alaska. Dial said while meeting with U.S. leaders, they came up with a plan to achieve that through an executive order.
“We received broad support for this idea, and Senator Sullivan has already used this in discussions as leverage, should Canada begin imposing tolls on commercial trucks entering Alaska through Canada,” Dial said.
On a radio show on March 7, U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan did float the idea of repealing that act, two days after he met with the Ketchikan delegation.
Dial said the borough’s national advocacy sets it apart from other communities.
“I take a lot of pride in how we’ve elevated our advocacy in the last several years to the absolute highest of any community in the state of Alaska,” Dial said. “The mindset has been that if we make our problems the President’s problems, then they become everybody’s problem.”
