The Alaska marine highway system: staying afloat on troubled waters.

Can the Alaska Marine Highway System keep up with the demands for its ferry services in southcentral and southeast Alaska?

Southeast Alaska's Prince of Wales Island is ready to commit mutiny over ferry service from the Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS). After long drives from all points

on the huge island to the ferry terminal in the tiny coastal community of Hollis, Prince of Wales residents have to sail only about 35 miles to reach Ketchikan, the region's second-largest population center. But winter ferry service consists of infrequent runs and overcrowded boats, causing residents to refer to themselves as "Prisoners of Wales."

Community leaders say years of mostly fruitless negotiating with the AMHS have compelled them to seek a new direction. Now, Prince of Wales islanders are considering forming a port authority, buying a vessel and providing themselves with twice-daily ferry service.

Reliable ferry transportation is one of the single biggest factors in the island's economic development, says Craig businesswoman Bobbie Permenter, who relies on the ferry to transport most of the stock for her office supply store and her gift shop, as well as her husband's appliance business. She says all of the island's 6,000 residents depend on the ferry for much of what they eat, wear and do.

Further up the coast in Sitka, a strident crowd of business people, public officials and retirees pack a small public hall to complain about ferry service. AMHS director Gregory Dronkert attends the session, one of the many meetings he has held with his constituents, up and down the coast, since taking the helm of the ferry system in January. On this spring day in Sitka, Dronkert hears a familiar refrain. While half the people at the meeting call for more summer-time stops to bring in tourists, the other half say the ferry system spends too much of its resources on visitors, giving Alaskans short-shrift on ferry service.

Dronkert, 32, is seen as the wunderkind who will bring new solutions to ferry system problems. He continually ponders such questions as: Who should get more ferry service -- tourists or Alaskans? How much should AMHS capitalize on existing markets? How much should it be used to expand to new markets?

Dronkert says he has decided that the ferry system should be considered an essential service for economic development, a service that is being subsidized by the state because the private market cannot afford it. The ferry can and should help local economies develop by providing trade to get things rolling, he says, and that includes transporting tourists as well as residents. Once local development has progressed to a point where commercial or locally-run alternatives make sense, they should be encouraged. Growth past a certain point, especially in the tourist trade, he says, can only occur with an increase in the private sector.