SKAGWAY, Alaska — Two rockslides in a three-day period last week have led to the full closure of the White Pass & Yukon dock at the Port of Skagway, and the dock is expected to remain closed for the remainder of the 2022 sailing season.
The website Cruise Hive reports slides on Wednesday, Aug. 3, and Friday, Aug. 5, both damaged the dock, with the Friday slide causing significant damage to shipping containers used to create a tunnel to protect pedestrians from falling rocks.
Skagway Mayor Andrew Cremata has declared a state of emergency as a result of the slides, which should help the community attract federal and state assistance to deal with the mountainside above the dock. “It’s a tremendous problem,” Cremata said at an Aug. 6 meeting. “I guarantee you it is one we’re going to solve before next season because we don’t have any other choice.”
One of the two berths on the dock had previously been closed after a June rockslide and an engineering assessment that a possible “catastrophic” slide was possible for the hillside above the dock [see “Part of White Pass & Yukon dock at Skagway closed …,” Trains News Wire, July 27, 2022].
The WP&Y dock is the only one in Skagway capable of handling the largest cruise ships, so some are now bypassing Skagway for other locations. Cremata estimates the city may lose as much as half its expected tourism for the cruise season. The White Pass & Yukon, which is heavily reliant on traffic from the cruise ships, is Skagway’s largest employer.
John Rice I wonder if the lack of workers is due to the scant housing available. WP&Y advertised for conductors and I was very interested. However, an on line search for housing found virtually nothing available. And I have a feeling that not crossing into Canada may also have had a lot to do with Canada’s draconian covid restrictions.
Don’t turn the fix into a bigger problem than the slide issue…otherwise known as overengineering a solution. Usually the simplest solution is the best…what that would be in this case I don’t know, I’m not a civil engineer, but I can tell you that it should include at least some new vegetation all up and down the slide areas.
Before you look at solutions though, you have to find out why there’s an issue in the first place…does it have to do with unstable rock/earth, or is it related to the missing vegetation. Figure out the cause behind it first, then devise a solution.
When I visited Skagway back in 1997, I used the Alaska Marine Highway’s ferry. Think they use a separate dock. Can anyone confirm.
We were tied up between the ferry terminal and the ore terminal 7/29. Norweigen Jewel. When we arrived WP&Y had seven shovel nose parked between the two slide zones on the pier in question. They didn’t appear too worried about any damage.
As I recall, the Alaska vessels are smaller and and they do have their own docking point in Skagway. Alaska handles vehicles on a ro/ro basis which the big cruise ships do not.
WP&Y had already announced that they were going to limit their traffic to the US border for the 3rd year and not go into Carcross. Not becuase of the slides, but because they can’t get enough workers for the tourist cruise season.
So while permanent residents of Skagway might be impacted, the chronic shortage of summer staff was already an issue. So perhaps the rock slide now is a blessing in disguise.
The Port of Skagway is still trying to decide what to do with the bulk minerals loading dock that has sat idle for years. Tear it out for a new deep water cruise terminal or keep it for some unknown/unplanned burst in mineral demand from the interior.