Whittier, Pt.1
The drive to Whittier is comically beautiful with mountains so rugged it's as if they have been shaped out of the rock with a hatchet. The coastline is silty and the ocean is shallow and in some spots very still. So still that one can imagine no tidal influence. The runoff from melting ice and snow rushes down the sides of the mountains and into the sea.
Whittier is behind the mountains and is served by a one way tunnel that was, until ten years ago, accessible by rail only. You would pay a fee for the vehicle and a per-person fee and you would be taken two miles through the tunnel to the city of Whittier on the other side. Today, the tunnel is just wide enough to fit passenger vehicles and entry and exit times are scheduled hourly.
For those of you who knew I was making this trip, I may have overstated the status of Whittier (a bit).
The Lie:
Everyone lives in this big creepy building -- it's the first one you see when you GIS "Whittier, AK."
The Truth:
1) Not EVERYONE lives in the Begich Towers building. Only 80%. The rest live in Whittier Manor or in surrounding small buildings.
2) The BTI is NOT the creepy decayed building that one sees when Google Image Searching. That is the Buckner Building which was built to house soldiers and has a movie theater and a bowling alley and an amount of asbestos so large that cleaning and refurbishing the building is not cost effective. In fact, the cleanup needed to facilitate a teardown is so much that the building just sits and rots in plain view. The effect is much like the Ryugyong Hotel in North Korea -- a grotesque specter looming over the landscape.
Whittier was created during WWII to act as a port to ship goods from the lower 48 states to Alaska. The same is true today -- most of the freight that comes into the state of Alaska is sent in through Whittier and people make good money loading crates on to rail cars when the ships come in.
Cruise ships also stop over in Whittier and there is talk of expanding Whittier's industry to be more supportive tourism.
Whittier is behind the mountains and is served by a one way tunnel that was, until ten years ago, accessible by rail only. You would pay a fee for the vehicle and a per-person fee and you would be taken two miles through the tunnel to the city of Whittier on the other side. Today, the tunnel is just wide enough to fit passenger vehicles and entry and exit times are scheduled hourly.
For those of you who knew I was making this trip, I may have overstated the status of Whittier (a bit).
The Lie:
Everyone lives in this big creepy building -- it's the first one you see when you GIS "Whittier, AK."
The Truth:
1) Not EVERYONE lives in the Begich Towers building. Only 80%. The rest live in Whittier Manor or in surrounding small buildings.
2) The BTI is NOT the creepy decayed building that one sees when Google Image Searching. That is the Buckner Building which was built to house soldiers and has a movie theater and a bowling alley and an amount of asbestos so large that cleaning and refurbishing the building is not cost effective. In fact, the cleanup needed to facilitate a teardown is so much that the building just sits and rots in plain view. The effect is much like the Ryugyong Hotel in North Korea -- a grotesque specter looming over the landscape.
Whittier was created during WWII to act as a port to ship goods from the lower 48 states to Alaska. The same is true today -- most of the freight that comes into the state of Alaska is sent in through Whittier and people make good money loading crates on to rail cars when the ships come in.
Cruise ships also stop over in Whittier and there is talk of expanding Whittier's industry to be more supportive tourism.
POSTED BY rgin AT 10:30 PM1 COMMENTS
1 Comments:
I never did it, but supposedly skiing at Alyeska feels like you are plunging directly into Turnagain Arm...
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