Alaska’s governor and lieutenant governor helped celebrate a new vehicle-accessible dock under sunny skies on the Petersburg waterfront Saturday. The borough-owned, state-funded dock opened this spring and is another option for boats to load and unload gear and supplies in the busy fishing town.
Boats started using the new drive down dock in late March. The float and transfer bridge stick out from behind the public cold storage to the very edge of Petersburg’s south harbor – making it a convenient spot for boats to tie up and unload.
Mayor Mark Jensen welcomed a small crowd to a ribbon cutting ceremony Saturday. Harbormaster Glorianne Wollen noted the project has been in the works for 21 years.
Local company Tamico was the main contractor on the $7.8 million project and many current and former Petersburg residents were involved in the construction and design.
Former Petersburg resident and state senator Bert Stedman, who was instrumental in securing the state grant money for construction, was not able to attend Saturday’s ceremony. Gov. Bill Walker, Lt. Gov. Byron Mallot and their wives were in attendance
It was Walker’s first visit to Petersburg.
“You know I grew up in Valdez and I thought that was the most beautiful you could be and I had not been to Petersburg until two hours ago and my goodness sakes what a gorgeous place,” Walker said.
Afterwards, the crowd walked down onto the float, including Gov. Walker, who acknowledged that the era of state-funded projects is a thing of the past.
“Timing is everything and Petersburg is fortunate they worked on this during the years they did,” Walker said. “It’ll be a while probably before we can do another one quite like this and this is a great success story.”
