Skagway’s Railroad dock reopens, waterfront development, and a softball championship

The use of Skagway’s largest cruise ship dock remains in question as it reopens fully after rockslide damage, plans for the development of the Ore dock move forward, and a Skagway team brings home an international softball championship. KHNS’ Mike Swasey sat down with Vice Mayor Orion Hanson for the latest news from Skagway.

Swasey – Vice Mayor and assemblyperson Orion Hanson, thanks so much for joining us today to talk about all things Skagway. Let’s start off on the Railroad Dock. A lot of landslide activity lately, the dock was shut down for a while. What’s the latest happening there?

Hanson – So the Railroad Dock has reopened with some limitations on where they’re opening the gangways. The city’s brought up geologists, and experts, to give us advice. White Pass has done the same. And we’re analyzing the information and trying to make the safest decision going forward.

Swasey – Last we heard, the mountain had shifted a solid two inches in the last year and had been moving over an inch a year for several. We don’t have any information yet from the geologist telling us exactly how dire the situation is. Is that right?

Hanson – We don’t have specifics yet.

Swasey – Is there a plan moving forward to mitigate potential disaster? Or is that something the assembly is still working on?

Hanson – The assembly and White Pass are looking at options on how to deal with a crumbling mountain.

Swasey – Let’s stay on the waterfront. The 30% plans for the Ore Dock and Broadway Dock development have been completed. And could you kind of break down what those plans include?

Hanson – Sure, so the Ore Dock will be developed in two phases. The first phase is a 500-foot steel floating dock for cruise ships that will allow faster and more orderly disembarkment of passengers. It also includes relocating the fuel headers and also includes the design of a roll-on roll-off heavy highway dock.

Swasey – And that’s for, specifically, for Alaska Marine Lines, or they can use it and other entities can as well?

Hanson – Well, the handling of freight will be put out for a bid process like we’re doing with the fuel service and with the property that Temsco is on. Most likely that will be AML since they basically do all the freight in Southeast Alaska.

Swasey – Would they then be in control of that dock? 

Hanson – If they get the lease they would be in control.

Swasey – And what else are they planning to do with the 30% plans?

Hanson – We also have the design for a T dock which would be for ore transshipment. And also plans to dredge the north end so that we can get an ore ship, a fuel ship, or a freight ship in at the same time as a cruise ship. We awarded a contract at the last assembly meeting for a company in the Washington area that will build the 500-foot steel floating component by next August, which will then put us on a time schedule to where we can have the dock ready for the 2024 season. 

Swasey – And how big of a ship can that accommodate, the 500-foot (floating dock)?

Hanson – It’s an 1,100-foot cruise ship, the Oasis class. 

Swasey – Is that 4,000 passengers, do you know the number?

Hanson – I think the ships vary, but yes 4,000 plus. 

Swasey – Okay, well let’s move on to the big international softball tournament from this last weekend played up in Whitehorse (Yukon Canada). Tell us what happened at Dustball.

Hanson – We had a great time up there. We were defending champs from 2019 which is the last time that Dustball happened. We had three people from Whitehorse, one guy from Haines, James Hart, and the rest of the team was from Skagway. And we made it to the championship game basically blowing out every team we played. In the championship game, we went up 10 to one through the first two innings and in the third inning the White Sox got really hot and they went up, I believe at one point, I think it was 14 to 10. 

In the seventh inning, we were down 19 to 16 and we came back and beat him with a walk-off hit by Andrew Shriner. That was awesome. Bases loaded, he hit a one-hopper in the gap off the fence and it was a walk-off celebration. Very, very exciting in front of several hundred people in Whitehorse. Weather was great, camaraderie was great, competition was great. And very proud to be Dustball champions from the men’s top division.

Swasey – Vice Mayor Orion Hanson, thank you so much for joining us and talking about all things Skagway.

Hanson – Thanks, Mike.