A postcard from Alaska for you now. Today’s postcard takes us aboard the Alaska State Ferry, Motor Vessel Malaspina.

The great State of Alaska encompasses some one and a half million square kilometers, a land area equivalent to Germany, France and Spain combined. But for all its size, Alaska has less paved highway than Switzerland. Small planes keep communities in the vast interior in touch. But keeping scattered coastal communities tied together along Alaska’s fifty-three thousand kilometers of shoreline is a much more difficult task.

Alaska State government operates a fleet of nine ferries in these cold northern waters, making port calls at thirty-two Alaska communities, with stops in Canada and Washington State as well. Each year, the Alaska Marine Highway System carries more than three hundred thousand passengers, the equivalent of half the state’s total population. At one-hundred thirty meters in length, the five hundred passenger and vehicle ferry M/V Malaspina is one of the system’s largest vessels and travels between a dozen ports in southeast Alaska’s inside passage.

Standing on the ship’s bridge, Captain Pete McMann explains that, while even the smallest Alaska coastal communities generally have some type of air service available, the region’s unpredictable weather makes the ferry a far more reliable travel choice.

"Southeast Alaska is known for real inclement weather. We have, typically, four or five low weather systems that pass through the area on a monthly basis. As today is…the clouds are high…beautiful day for flying, boating, whatever. But there are a lot of days where the weather is so that, I don’t think the planes…it wouldn’t be advisable to fly."

Whatever the weather might be, Captain McMann says Alaska’s coastal residents have little choice but travel to larger towns for goods and services unavailable in their isolated communities. They also use the marine highway to visit with scattered family and friends.

"They write the schedule out to accommodate the people during their off times of work. So that’s why you’ll have literally an entire ship full of shoppers on a weekend. And these people, especially the natives, they all have family throughout southeast. They’ll spend a night or a weekend with other families or communities, so it’s no big deal for them to just pile in the car and, ‘Let’s go shoppin’! We’ll see Uncle Bill while we’re there and stay a couple a’ days, shop, and then get on back home.’"

One of the communities served by the state ferry system is tiny Tenakee Springs. founded during Alaska’s gold rush era in the late eighteen hundreds. The village is home to about one-hundred, so small that Main Street is the town dock and boardwalk jutting out over Tenakee Inlet. Village mayor Vicki Wisenbaugh makes regular use of the state ferry that calls every few days.

"We have a daughter in braces and she goes to the orthodontist. When we can work it out, she flies in and we ferry her home. We often bring big things that we can’t find in Tenakee. We’ll bring lengths of stovepipe, somebody’s boat breaks down and you need parts for the engine. At Christmas time I like to go into Juneau or Sitka, somewhere around the holidays just to see all the pretty lights and do a little shopping. Just recently we brought home peat moss and steer manure. You know, big things you don’t wanna’ fly with!"

There’s space on board the M/V Malaspina for more precious cargo as well. Just behind the ship’s galley and cafeteria is a nursery for families with small children. The cabin is brightly colored and equipped with toys, books, beds and changing tables. Valena Hanson, traveling with her three children and expecting a fourth, is on her way home to Haines, Alaska. A local midwife helped deliver two of her children in Haines, but she traveled to Juneau for her third delivery and may do the same for her fourth if there are any complications.

"In Haines we just don’t have a hospital that will deliver babies, so, we have a clinic, but Scotty was born in Juneau. We’re not really sure at this point what we’ll do, but it’s likely that we could plan for me to travel down to Juneau on the ferry a couple of weeks before the due date and probably stay at Bartlett House and wait for the baby to come. That’s a very likely option, very common option from Haines."

While living so far from life’s more common conveniences does pose some challenges, for Alaskans like Valena Hanson, there are compensations for living in the wilds of America’s last frontier.

"Christmas morning we woke up to a mother moose and her calf nibbling on the trees in our front yard and it was kind of a little gift because it was a beautiful morning with the snow and the moose were just happily eating away at the cranberry bushes and, um, a young grizzly bear that came and dug through our compost pile that we were able to watch for a while and the mountains are breathtaking nearly every day."

The Alaska Marine Highway System, tying together far flung coastal communities in America’s Last Frontier. Today’s postcard from the top of the world.