Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Alaska Marine Highway..."The Ferry"

Well most everyone in coastal Alaska has had an opinion on the AMH. I live five houses away from a Ferry terminal. Yes service is just a small fraction of what it was. Schedules have been cut. Prices seem unreasonable.After an aborted reservation I booked a trip. Leaving Bellingham, it is about 38 hours to Wrangell. I was in America working on a house for sale in Portland and wanted to move my boat to Alaska.

FORGET about what it use to ....cost. .(22s use to cost a buck a box). GET OVER IT...Compared to shipping a boat by tug AMH was about 40% the price of by barge...and my boat was inside and available as opposed to lashed on top of a container pitching about in open seas. Someone who knows these things said shipping by tug is more expensive due to higher damage claims...adds up!

Loading started at 3:00 I was there two hours early. As an added complication I shipped the boat and trailer...no tow rig. At the check in the tally man said I had the wrong ticket (!) 'Pull over there and get the right ticket I will be over there in a while" I did. He was. And about then the loadmaster stepped up and told my friend who drove me there in his Suburban..."Follow me" We were loaded first with ease.

Great service that just stayed great the whole trip.

The Matanuska is the second oldest ship in the fleet. I rode it 25 years ago...(sat in the same seat most of the time...as only 4 seats in the recliner deck have decent reading lights) Yes I mean the same seat as 25 years ago.... Folks had pets in their rigs so there was a 15 minute access to the car deck every six hours. Saw whales all the usual stuff...breakfast on china $9 maybe the same price it was 25 years ago (?) Cost 22" boat and myself less than $1500 .Met a young man from Pittsburgh heading North, looking for work.10 years an elevator mechanic. I hooked him up with an interview in KTN. Met a gal heading to Port Protection escaping from the misery of Seattle with her '99 4 runner, old brown dog and two adult daughters...and a backpack of hope

.Gone from the old days were Seniors killing time also no top deck full of hippies camping out because no cabins were available. But, Friends it is still there.

The fall schedule is online.Sad but at least two stops in the little villages.maybe 60 riders to KTN 40 got off another 30 boarded. Six off in Wrangell all had a vehicle two with boats. Backed up the truck and the unloadmaster hitched us up and we were the last off maybe 15 minutes after tie up.

It is still a pretty good choice given the universal travel complications we all have suffered thease last two years.

I too have fond memories of "The Ferry." June of 1968 (I was 11 yo) we boarded in Prince Rupert with our Suburban and headed North. I remember the Matanuska, the Malaspina and the Wickersham. Made a few extended stops along the way.... Ketchikan, Petersburg, Juneau. Got off in Haines and continued north to the rest of AK. Also took the blue canoe from Valdez to Whittier and the Captain even let me steer for awhile. Probably can't do that nowadays anymore! Somewhere around here I have all of the reels of Super 8 movies my mom took along the way. I'm gonna have to dig them out and see what I could do with them.

AMH has had it's share of problems, the re-power of the 58 year old Matanuska did not go well. Frequent unspecified problems have plagued the overhaul. Oil cooler,power packs, and add on computer stuff rumors.The Mat is the mainliner of the fleet and AMH was hard pressed to cover for her downtime. They are going to have to spend some real money soon, and well before oil royalties dry up. Or, go all contract carriers.

Glad to hear the system is still able to function but I suspect reasonable prices will be impacted soon.

I've ridden on the AMH system only once. Wife and I were on a self guided holiday in the northern panhandle. One of the legs was on the ferry, from Skagway to Juneau. Great for sightseers.

I've tried other times to fit it into a DIY hunt but the AMH schedules have never worked on that kind of trip.

The Blue Canoe rides (limps) on . . .

I had a gig starting in summer 2007, that could have become permanent but turned out to be ending in fall 2008. Wife was still working down here but she told me every fishhead should take a job in AK if they get the chance. I have a cool wife........mostly.

I loaded up the '86 2wd Toyota pickup with camper shell, shooting supplies and all, and got on the ferry at Bellingham after having lunch with my cousin who lived near there.

Thoroughly enjoyed the trip to Juneau, might have liked a little more time to sightsee in some of the ports. It was nice to have someone else "drive" as most times I was going and coming for work was long drives.

Had considered coming back down the highway, but as I mentioned I had "shooting supplies", including some that would require the permission of the head constable type in a couple of Canadian provinces. I tried, but a couple of phone calls were not returned in a timely manner and I said screw it, I'll just take the boat back.

And I thoroughly enjoyed the trip back to Bellingham.

The AMH is one of the greatest services I've ever had the pleasure of using.

Drove the Alcan to Alaska in the Spring of 1965. After working in the bush all Summer I didn’t want to beat my car up with another 900 miles of gravel road on the highway again, so made a mad dash from Anchorage to Haines in hope of catching the ferry. Got into Haines about an hour before sailing and they had two vehicle slots remaining. Big sigh of relief! I was exhausted, so snuck back to vehicle deck and slept overnight in my car without being found out.

Woke up with the ship at the Juneau dock about daylight. When we pulled out of Juneau someone had left one line still connected to the dock. I stood at the ships rail and watched about thirty feet of dock get pulled into the sea when the line came tight. WTF!

The rest of the trip to Prince Rupert was a dream though. To a young unworldly 21 year old, I thought I was on the Queen Mary. We had mostly good weather and the scenery was unforgettable. Saw lots of whales and even a glimpse of a black bear in the forest when traversing a tight channel.

Later in the seventies, rode the ferry on vacations with my new family and always enjoyed the experience. Life got busy then and all my trips north since have been by air. But a person should drive the highway and take the ferry at least once in their lifetime to really understand the remoteness and beauty of Alaska.