Alaska's Water Highways (1978)

Excerpt from Alaska Review 16. In this segment, Alaska Review reports on the status of the state-owned Alaska Marine Highway System, its vessels, passengers and employees. Interviewees include: Bill Hudson, director of the Alaska Marine Highway System; John Sund of Ketchikan; Captain Gary Cramer of the M/V Taku; Captain Herb Story of the M/V Columbia; Ken Beselin, chief engineer of the M/V Columbia; Greg O'Claray (misspelled in title screen) of the Inland Boatmen's Union (IBU); Pat Tarte of the Port of Bellingham; Jube Howe of the Port of Seattle; Mary Fabry of Ketchikan, travel agent; Erv Hagerup, chief mate of the M/V Taku; and Len Laurence (misspelled in title screen) of Ketchikan, travel agent. Report contains views of coastal Alaska communities, marine highway vessels, dock workers, passengers, and scenes aboard ferries. (Color/Sound/2-inch quad videotape). Airing from 1976 to 1987, Alaska Review was the first statewide public affairs television program in Alaska. The show was designed to explore public policy issues confronting Alaska, and to assist citizens in making decisions about the future of their land. Produced by Independent Public Television, Inc., (IPTV), the series eventually consisted of 16 one-hour shows, 46 half-hour shows, and one three-hour special broadcast. Funded through the Alaska Humanities Forum and State of Alaska, the series won multiple awards for public service and educational programming. IPTV dissolved in 1988. Videotapes for all finished productions and raw footage were later moved to the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), where they became housed with the Alaska Film Archives, a unit of the Alaska and Polar Regions Collections & Archives department in the Rasmuson Library at UAF, shortly after the unit was founded in 1993. The Alaska Film Archives is currently seeking funding to preserve and digitize all of the original full interviews gathered in the making of the Alaska Review series. Copies of finished productions are also held by Alaska State Library Historical Collections in Juneau. For more information, please contact the Alaska Film Archives at University of Alaska Fairbanks. This sequence contains excerpts from AAF-4961 from the Alaska Review collection held by the Alaska Film Archives, a unit of the Alaska and Polar Regions Collections & Archives Department in the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks. For more information please contact the Alaska Film Archives. The Alaska Film Archives appreciates your support. Your donation in any amount will help us continue important preservation work. Please visit the “About” section of our YouTube channel to learn how you can help today. Thank you! For more information please contact the Alaska Film Archives.