A perfect match: Alaska-Washington share many maritime ties.

• Author: Colby, Nicole Bonham
• Position: ALASKA WASHINGTON CONNECTION

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There is a long-standing, symbiotic relationship between the Pacific Northwest and Alaska's North Pacific fishery. It is a connection easily read on the backs of fishing boats that are tied up along Alaska wharves, but list a Puget Sound home port. It's also evident in the widespread net of fishery support services and transient workers who may live in Dutch Harbor, but who support families back home in the Lower 48.

States on both ends of the North Pacific waterway continue to benefit from such historic maritime ties.

WORLD-CLASS CATCH

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin quantified the global impact of the Alaska fishery in her introduction to the November issue of Economic Trends, a monthly report of pertinent state economic factors published by the Research and Analysis arm of the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development. "Alaska fisheries--sport, commercial and subsistence--in the ocean and in freshwater, are the best-managed, most sustainable in the world," the governor wrote. "... The four billion pounds of seafood harvested in 2006 were worth $1.4 billion to commercial fishermen, the highest value since 1999. Last year, Alaska's seafood exports topped $2 billion for the first time. That's an additional $333 million in export value in just two years. Including all seafood harvesting and processing, Alaska's commercial fishing industry is one of the largest private-sector employers in the state."

That impact flows outward to the world and region through processing and logistics chain jobs, as Alaska seafood makes its way to the farthest reaches of the globe.

CASE STUDY

The Aleutian Chain is often considered "ground zero" for North Pacific fishery operations and is often regarded as a barometer of the health and vibrancy of that northern fishery economy. As the Aleutians go, so goes the fishery economy, some would even suggest.

So it's not surprising that the Aleutians East Borough figures prominently in the fishery-oriented November issue of Economic Trends. Economist Brigitta Windisch-Cole chronicles the borough's historic abundance and current economic challenges in a Trends article that describes the evolution of the borough from its 1,573 residents when formed in 1988, to its 2006 population of 2,643--half of whom were "transient seafood processing workers."

That dynamic environment of the commercial fishery has a strong impact on the Aleutian East communities of Akutan, Cold Bay, False Pass, King Cove and others, and is in part...