Northernmost ice-free ports: Valdez, Whittier, and Seward are top three in North America.

• Author: Stricker, Julie
• Position: TRANSPORTATION

The Port of Anchorage is the lifeline for the state of Alaska. Ninety percent of the states cargo destined for 80 percent of the population passes through the port every year. But the port is nestled in the upper reaches of Cook Inlet, which has some of the world's most extreme tides and can become ice-choked and dangerous during the state's long winters.

Fortunately, Southcentral Alaska boasts three other major ports in Seward, Whittier, and Valdez--all ice-free--that provide links to the Alaska Railroad and Interior Alaska year-round. These ports, with infrastructure dating back to the aftermath of the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake, are home to fishing fleets, cruise ships, and pleasure boats, as well as cargo shipments.

Valdez

"In the summer, our harbor is just packed, and we're at the point that we can't get any more boats in it," says Diane Kinney, Valdez Port and Flarbor director. "We have a 511 slip harbor, and we'll sometimes have twice as many boats here."

Kinney says the US Army Corps of Engineers is planning to dredge a basin for a new harbor and put in breakwaters just south of the current harbor. Once that is done, the city will start putting in new docks.

Valdez, at latitude 61.13[degrees]N, is the northernmost ice-free port in the United States--and North America. It is located at the head of a scenic deep-water fjord and is where the terminus of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline is located.

"It makes an ideal port for the pipeline," Kinney says. "It's an ice-free port, so we can get the tankers in and out year round. We also have a US Coast Guard unit here. We have everything set up for the tankers to make it easy for them to travel in and out of the port."

Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, the consortium of companies that oversees the pipeline, has its own facilities across the bay from the city of 3,100.

Valdez has its own freight and municipal docks, which support thriving fishing and tourism industries. Valdez was established during the Klondike Gold Rush as the jumping-off point of the All-American route to the gold fields over the glaciers. Valdez languished until the Richardson Highway was built and is now a key supply route to Interior Alaska.

Ships carrying freight bound for Interior Alaska or the North Slope can dock at Valdez's container terminal, which has a seven hundred-foot floating dock and is located about five miles from the city center, Kinney says.

"The freight comes in on the dock and it goes right onto the...