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Hovercraft to fill in for road link. KING COVE: Vessel will deliver access, while many still hope for street. Sparks will fly soon in a Seattle boatyard as welders start building a new $8.8 million hovercraft for King Cove, the isolated Alaska Peninsula fishing town that received federal funding for the boat instead of a road to nearby Cold Bay. Click here to read the whole history of the King Cove road proposal now changed to using Hovercraft for commuting.
 Aleutians East Borough reports on the Cold Bay project. Under the preferred alternative, a hovercraft would ferry passengers across Cold Bay along a route that is protected enough from the area's high winds and weather to ensure that the trip can be made safely and dependably...
Hovercraft Basics: Hovercraft are amphibious marine vessels that float on a cushion of air instead of piercing the surface of the water...
KTUU-TV reports (Jan. 15) that King Cove gives approval to pave road to Cold Bay and hovercraft port.
 Hovercraft delivers to the Alaska Bush, from the Juneau Empire online. A company is gearing up for its seventh winter of hauling mail, freight and passengers to and from eight remote riverside villages in southwestern Alaska by hovercraft. Updated 4/28/04.
Travelers in Southeast to ride on cushion of air Winged  vessels will run 6-8 feet above water. Click here for more on the WIG boat technology.
Kenai Peninsula Online reports a Rescue hovercraft needed rescuing.
Update on the AP-188 that is delivering mail on the Kuskokwim River;
it is still carrying passengers and cargo.
Lynden, Inc. More on the Hovercraft model at the Smithsonian Institute. Downloads the PDF document.
Alaska Scrapbook, Bethel Alaska Scroll down on the page to find the article Oats for Kasigluk. There is a good picture of the AP-188 hovercraft in the background. Ironically the statement contradicts all the reasons for using a hovercraft; it has to be loaded and unloaded off shore!?
Kvichak Marine Industries Licensed to build Griffon Hovercraft. First American-built large commercial hovercraft goes on line; Crowley Marine Services Inc. will operate the hovercraft, “Arctic Hawk”, on the North Slope of Alaska for British Petroleum.
Crowley Flyer has a good picture of the new American built hovercraft stationed here in Alaska. (Click here to download the PDF version)
Hovercraft may ease travel problems between Alaska Peninsula villages
The communities are connected by land and residents continue to push for a road. But standing in-between is the 315,000-acre Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.
Izembek Lagoon contains North America's largest eelgrass bed and is important to a wide variety of wildlife species, including migratory waterfowl, shorebirds, and aquatic and land mammals.
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Izembek Refuge may be best known for the huge number of brant, a small sea goose, that stop over during spring and fall migrations on their way to and from their breeding areas in Alaska, Canada, and Russia. The entire Pacific population of black brant, approximately 150,000 birds, can be seen in the Izembek Lagoon area every fall.
For more of this article click here,
King Cove School on sale for $2.8 million
For sale by owner: Ocean view property near King Cove waterfront; 17 rms, 4 bath, library, gym and more on 3-plus acres. Asking $2.8 million. Desks not included.
King Cove School is on the block.
The Aleutians East Borough is building a new school on higher ground in the Alaska Peninsula port city and the old school must go, borough administrator Bob Juettner said. If he doesn't get an offer soon, the 47,000-square-foot facility could end up on eBay.
"Why not?" he said. "The state sold the ferry that way, though I'd like to do better than the state did."
State property managers in 2003 listed the ferry Bartlett on the online auction service and drew a top bid of nearly $390,000.
In many communities, old schools are rebuilt on site, as occurred with Fairview and Denali elementaries in Anchorage. Or they're handed down and reused with the old high school becoming the new middle school.
Click here for the full article.
Access to Knik bridge stirs debate
The road to the Knik Arm bridge could require a big dig through Anchorage's oldest neighborhood and a long drive along the bluffs below Elmendorf Air Force Base.
Public scoping meetings set for next week in Anchorage and Wasilla will show three "concept routes" planners have in mind for getting traffic from Anchorage's A Street/C Street couplet to the proposed bridge and back again.
One would cut through fuel tank farms at the edge of the Port of Anchorage. One would sweep across the edge of Elmendorf Air Force Base. And one -- the shortest and most direct line on the map -- would cut through Erickson Street on Government Hill, dividing most of the neighborhood from its elementary school and the landmark AT&T Alascom building.
Constructing some sort of road, dam, hovercraft, railway or high-speed aerial tramway access across the channel between the state's largest city and the Mat-Su Borough has been debated in Southcentral Alaska for decades.
Click here for the full article.
Learning lessons of Bush transportation the hard way
KONGIGANAK -- "You should put some plywood there," Richard said, kicking the 2-by-6 runner of my wooden sled, "to strengthen it." His face was difficult to see in the foggy, pre-dawn darkness; I thought he was smiling. Given my history with sleds, this wouldn't have been unwarranted. My last sled came flying apart 50 miles into a 250-mile hunting trip. With the runners held on by a single nail, it looked, as Richard commented later, like it had sprouted wings and was preparing to take off.
So the second he said that my new sled lacked strength, I should have headed home. Still, I didn't build this sled. It was built by my students under the supervision of one of the village elders during the school's cultural heritage week. I had to have faith.
Five of us stood above the river, waiting for distant, bobbing snowmachine lights to catch up. Everyone else was headed across the Kuskokwim to cut logs for steam baths. I was headed to Bethel to pick up lumber. Once the two late risers caught up, we sped for Tuntutuliak, where we split up.
Click here for more.
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