By Tunnel to Whittier and An Interesting Exchange with a Councilman

Entering from West                                              Exiting on East in Whittier

Whittier is is a unique place. The only road to town is through a 2 1/2 mile tunnel. There is also a 1 mile tunnel. The railroad tunnel was built during WWII to transfer military supplies from the deep water port in Whittier to Anchorage. In 2000, an $80M project converted the tunnel to a shared railroad and auto tunnel. There is a staging area on each end requiring a wait for traffic coming the other way or a train to come through. We drove the Jeep over on a day-trip from Portage Lake.

Almost all residents in Whittier live in the single 14-story, Begich Tower. It has been converted from a military facility to apartments following the 1964 earthquake. At one time it was the largest building in Alaska! Another high-rise structure nearby stands vacant.

The story is that they built high-rise buildings to lessen the need for snow removal which averages 20 feet per year.

There are many boats in the harbor and the Alaskan Marine Highway ferries serve the town. Cruise ships sometimes dock here but passengers quickly leave by train or bus, usually for Anchorage.

Whittier has a gorgeous setting on Prince William Sound. Outdoor activities abound.

But on our walk along the harbor and nearby shops we were very dismayed. There was trash everywhere. Buildings and shops in disrepair and sorely in need of paint. Junk was piled around almost every structure. Here are some examples of what we saw:

It was a real shame to see this in a place of such indescribable natural beauty.

I was really bothered by what I saw. That evening I found the email addresses of the mayor and a few other town officials. I wrote them an email telling them what we had observed of their town in our brief visit. Basically almost all of these problems could have been taken care of without large expenditures. All it takes is personal pride and motivation to clean things up. I suggested that the mayor take his town council on the same walk that we had taken and observe what they saw. Then come back and talk about what they were going to do about it, not why they couldn’t do anything. A little presumptuous for someone who had only spent a few hours in Whittier and probably would never return. But what we saw was very disturbing.

I didn’t hear anything for about a week. Then I received an email from one of the councilmen. I was going to post it here but I will not. Basically it stated that they have very harsh weather and limited time to clean things up. He went on to state “We have went through 25 city managers on the end of there career, or just staring out as the stepping stone to another job, Fire Chief, Chiefs of Police, Harbor Masters and my favorite Public Works pretenders. These are the people who really do us a job. We have an ineffective City Council with such a revolving door when it comes to city Administration. With all the traffic were left cleaning up a city with less than 90 acres to do everything a Town can do (with City status) .”

So I guess that means there is little hope that Whittier will be cleaning up it’s act. Too bad. Most of the tourist books are down on Whittier, except for the outdoor activities the surroundings offer. It could be so much more.

So we move on

I moved on to some excellent clam chowder I got at the café on the other side of the tunnel……