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Cargo to the Bush
Cargo carriers supply rural Alaskans with everyday advantages
through delivery services.
By Vanessa Orr
Years ago, living in rural Alaska meant waiting days, sometimes weeks, for
supplies to be brought in. With no roads leading outside, the residents of
remote villages were dependent on those individuals and businesses that could
transport the goods they needed, whether by barge or plane. Today, these
far-flung locations still depend on transportation companies to provide them
with many of the necessities they need for everyday life, as well as specialized
equipment for construction or similar projects. But while transporting these
items may have gotten easier in the last few decades, there are still many
challenges faced by the companies who service rural Alaska.
A Matter of Logistics
There are inherent difficulties in transporting cargo to remote, roadless
villages, even if the goods are carried in by barge or plane. As always in
Alaska, weather is a concern, though it is not the only thing that transporters
need to consider.
“There are a lot of challenges in flying to rural Alaska,” explained Todd
Wallace, senior vice president, corporate business development and community
relations for Northern Air Cargo. “You have to take into account the remoteness
of the area, the weather, the length and condition of the runway, snow removal,
and in general, the harshness of the environment. And you have to know how to
deal with the cargo you’re carrying; it doesn’t do you any good if somebody’s
bananas arrive frozen.”
“In some areas, like Dutch Harbor, you not only have to deal with a short
runway, but also in bad weather, weight and balance issues become critical,”
said Holly Austermuhl, cargo inside sales, Alaska Airlines. “While we may have
room on a plane for 72 people, we might only be able to seat 40, along with half
of the priority mail and none of the cargo.”
Barge carriers face serious difficulties as well. Working quickly to transport
as much as they can during a limited season, they face challenges that are not
only daunting, but also dangerous. “On the inland rivers, we’re not particularly
weather-driven, but we’re absolutely limited as to what we can do on the Bering
Sea coast,” explained Mark Smith, president, Yukon Fuel Co. Yukon Fuel Co. is a
fuel and freight marketing service provider that ships fuel and supplies
throughout western and rural Alaska on Yutana Barge Lines. “During rough
weather, it can get ugly, especially in the shallow areas near shore. We also
have to deal with the fact that very few of the areas we operate in have good
charting to indicate sandbars or other hazards, and other aids to navigation are
also limited.”
And then there are the challenges unique to the company’s cargo. “We take
everything from boats to goats,” laughed Ron McCormick, sales and marketing
manager for Everts Air Cargo (formerly Air Cargo Express.) “We’ve moved
reindeer, sled dogs, and goats–several times. Our point of view is that if it
will fit, we’ll fly it.”
“We fly a lot of babies–baby animals that is,” added Austermuhl. “We’ve flown
bear cubs to Anchorage or to the San Diego Zoo to be cared for after their
mothers were killed. More recently, we flew a very old whalebone out of Alaska,
which was really a challenge. Unlike human bones, they don’t really dry out, so
it was kind of liquidy, and still had plenty of smell.”
You Can Get There From Here
While most air carriers will provide charters to non-mainline locations, the
majority of their business comes from scheduled flights to hub cities. “We fly
from Anchorage to all over Alaska, and to rural hubs that allow us to service
the villages,” explained Bob Anderson, director, cargo services and sales for
Alaska Central Express. ACE has hubs in Barrow, Bethel, Dillingham, Kotzebue and
Nome. “Our niche is in high-frequency flights; because we have a smaller
capacity than some of our competitors, we make more trips to our hubs. So if a
customer needs to get something to Bethel quickly, we can get it on our next
flight, instead of their having to wait for another air carrier who might only
fly there once a day.”
Lynden Air Cargo also offers scheduled flights to hub cities, as well as charter
flights for items that might not get there any other way. “It really depends on
the time of year, but in summer, I’d say that about 50 percent of our flights
are scheduled, and 50 percent are chartered,” explained Mike Hart, president.
“In the winter, probably 80 percent are scheduled and 20 percent are chartered.”
One of the reasons for the increased number of charters in summer is that Lynden
flies a Hercules L-382, which is large enough to transport the construction
equipment needed during the building season. “Our charters are almost entirely
oversized, heavy loads that need to go to short, unimproved runways,” said Hart.
“People tend to come to us if they have heavy equipment or construction
materials that need to be taken to smaller areas.”
Another option for those transporting heavy, oversized items is to ship by
barge, which travel through Alaska and Canada. “We mainly ship the things that
won’t fit onto an air cargo flight,” said Smith of Yutana’s 12-barge fleet.
“These include construction materials, larger inventory items, vehicles, boats,
hazardous materials and batteries, though the most critical thing we ship is
fuel. About 95 percent of our business is scheduled deliveries, though we will
charter equipment to customers if they have a unique need.”
Northern Transportation Company Ltd., or NTCL, offers barge service to Northern
Canada and the Arctic. The company’s operations include deliveries to Camden
Bay, Kaktovik, Prudhoe Bay, Milne Point, Wainwright and Barrow, as well as
points along the area’s many rivers. “We deliver as far west as Point Hope from
our operation on the Hay River,” said John Marshall, NTCL’s manager of marketing
and technical sales. “A couple of advantages of shipping with us is the value of
the Canadian dollar, and the fact that we can often get into places by boat
about three weeks earlier than our American competitors. We don’t have to wait
for the ice to melt, which enables us to do resupplies for companies on the
Arctic Slope.”
Like Yutana, NTCL is limited in the time that it can actually ship materials.
Their shipping season lasts from mid-July to the end of September, though there
are certain times that they do not ship in order to avoid conflicts with the
whaling communities they serve.
“It’s a unique business when you only have 120 days to deliver your cargo,” said
Smith of the short barging season. “You try to put all of your efforts into
making this tough logistical time frame work for the customer. Because when
winter comes, they need to be ready.”
By Land, Air or Sea
Getting cargo to rural Alaska depends on a lot of factors, including the size of
the load, the location it needs to reach, how much the shipper wants to pay,
when the customer needs it there, and the time of year it is being shipped. For
this reason, many transportation companies not only offer their own services,
but also work with “downline” companies to get the cargo to its goal.
“We do a little bit of everything,” explained Linda Leary, vice president of
sales and marketing, and part owner of Carlile Transportation Systems. “We do
trucking, and third party logistics, primarily in the state, but also in Federal
Way (Wash.), Houston (Texas) and Edmonton (Alberta).” Carlile is one of Alaska’s
largest motor carriers, and also works with air, rail, road and water carrier
partners.
“One of the things you have to realize when shipping freight in Alaska is that
you’re dealing with a lot of different elements; not just standard truck or
rail,” she continued. “It’s a great place to work in transportation, because
you’ve got to be able to handle everything.”
“Handling everything” means knowing how to get cargo from one place to another,
up to and including the use of ice roads to haul freight in the winter to
Prudhoe Bay. Roads that in the summer simply don’t exist. It’s not a job for the
novice.
“Most people in the state are pretty well educated on how to ship freight–they
have to be,” said Jim Springhill, Alaska manager of Alaska Air Forwarding. “But
if you’ve got someone from the Lower 48 who wants to ship something to Kwethluk,
they usually don’t have a clue. People think that a 747 can land anywhere, and
can’t understand why a piano can’t fit in a Cessna 207.”
“If they’re from here, they may even know specifically what companies they want
to use,” he continued, adding that about 40 percent of Alaska Air Forwarding’s
business is made up of rural shipments. “But if they’re from Outside, they
usually leave it up to us.”
Changing With the Times
As new technologies emerge, shipping companies in the Lower 48 are often quick
to take advantage of what’s available. This is true, too, of those businesses
operating in rural Alaska, though many of them also realize the importance of
holding on to the tried-and-true.
“We fly legendary aircraft, and offer extraordinary service,” explained Everts’
McCormick of the six DC-6s and two C-46s that make up their fleet. The C-46 is a
vintage World War II aircraft. “While technologically, GPS has opened up a whole
new world of flying, a lot of what we do is still the same. Some airstrips have
been lengthened, and we’re able to get into some areas that we couldn’t before,
but not that much has changed.”
Lynden’s Hart agrees. “We’re still using the same type of aircraft, and we
haven’t seen much change in capability over the past few years,” he said. “And
the people in the remote areas are still limited in that their cargo can only
come in by plane or barge.” Lynden Air Cargo shipped roughly 10,700 tons of
scheduled cargo and 7,300 tons of chartered cargo in Alaska last year.
But the cargo itself has changed, according to NAC’s Wallace. “I tell my new
employees to look around their houses, and pick five things that they use every
day,” he explained. “Because these are the things that we ship every day to real
people; things that better their quality of life.”
“Not only has the quality of life changed in the mainline hubs of rural Alaska,
but it’s also changed out in the villages,” he continued. “Because of the number
of carriers, people no longer have to order big qualities to have barged in, and
they can enjoy fresh produce. They now have lattes in the Bush! They can hop on
the Internet, or dial 1-800-whatever for a Vegematic, and get it delivered
directly to their door.”
One thing that has not changed, however, is the importance of the rural
customer. “Since 1956, we’ve been delivering real freight to real people,” said
Wallace. “You know these people on a personal basis.”
“We don’t need to look at a book to answer our customers’ questions,” added
ACE’s Anderson. “We have two people working our front counter with more 30 years
experience between them. And if we don’t know the answer, we’ll get it. We pride
ourselves on our service.”
Despite all of the obstacles that freight carriers have to face on a daily basis
just to enable cargo to reach a final destination, the one thing that they all
seem to appreciate about their jobs is that nobody knows what the next day will
bring. “Every day is different; in Alaska, you never know what’s going to
happen,” laughed Wallace. “We might ship horses, or llamas, or bears or reindeer
or rock bands–what’s unusual to some people is normal to us.”
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