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Ferries? WHAT ferries...
by June Allen

 

July 16, 2004
Friday


I was just watching the 6 o'clock state news on Anchorage's CBS Ch. 11. One of the lead stories was about one of the state ferry unions getting raises. For the background art work, they showed two shots of a couple of our state ferries AND, are you ready for this? They showed, twice, shots of the Washington State ferry Kalakula in all its scarred, beat-up and faded glory! It's an old 1930's art deco-style Puget sound ferry that retired to Alaska years ago to serve as a fish processing factory - and eventually was towed back to Washington State again.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry! Shame on Ch. 11 for being so dumb. And shame on the State of Alaska for never having given the ferries the publicity and credit they so surely deserve. No wonder the ferry system can't get legislators to pony up money for the system! Almost all of the are from "up here" and they don't even KNOW about the ferries.

They're not alone. When I did a recent story on the ferry system for Sitnews, I made an informal survey of the other 23 tenants in the apartment house where I live. They don't know about our state ferries either! They thought I was talking about cruise ships!

June Allen
Palmer, AK - USA

 

 

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