
The important role of water taxis in Alaska | INDIE ALASKA
Season 11 Episode 8 | 3m 27sVideo has Closed Captions
With 6,640 miles of coastline, water taxis are a vital part of Alaska Transportation.
When a massive, unexpected landslide blocked the only road to Lowell Point, Tom Miller knew his water taxi service was the only way to move residents, school children, and tourists back and forth to the nearby town of Seward. With roughly 6,640 miles of coastline, water taxis are a vital part of the transportation and infrastructure in Alaska. In this episode of Indie Alaska, we hear Tom's story.
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The important role of water taxis in Alaska | INDIE ALASKA
Season 11 Episode 8 | 3m 27sVideo has Closed Captions
When a massive, unexpected landslide blocked the only road to Lowell Point, Tom Miller knew his water taxi service was the only way to move residents, school children, and tourists back and forth to the nearby town of Seward. With roughly 6,640 miles of coastline, water taxis are a vital part of the transportation and infrastructure in Alaska. In this episode of Indie Alaska, we hear Tom's story.
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Just a massive amount of like earth and trees and everything just came down all at once.
Go quick quick!
Go!
Go!
Go!
Well, we were driving a water taxi around, picking people up and dropping them off, and it came down.
Go go go go!
And a whole bunch of people were stranded.
I think we're staying here tonight.
We just kind of re-mobilized everything and just started running people back and forth.
You know, realizing what the situation was with all the, like, residents out there and all of the other businesses out there.
And their guests and then, like, the school kids and people that worked in town.. And so we just kept doing it Just a little bit of a safety talk before we get too far out.
This is Captain Tom.
My name is Logan.
It took them a whole month to, like, clear it out to where it is right now, which is still kind of a little bit of a precarious spot.
But yeah, so we basically ferried people for a month.
We know everybody out there.
I mean, it's my grandma's homestead, but we couldn't really just have landing crafts and not help people out, you know?
I came up here when I was three with my mom.
You know, we all lived in this cabin that was off grid at that point.
You know, we hauled our own water and eventually we got electricity there.
We'd fire up a generator every night.
And watch like the Johnny Carson show on a black and white TV.
The beach actually looked a lot like this back then.
There wasn't a bunch of houses or anything.
People started asking if they could camp on the beach and they started charging like $3 a night.
And then Miller's Landing was just kind of born.
But the place has largely been built by us, and we've always done our own maintenance and fixed our own stuff.
And, you know, all of our houses and all of our cabins out there have all been things that we've built.
You know, that's a very Alaskan thing, too.
There's not really anybody that can help us a lot of times.
There's not really contractors available or anything like that.
So you kind of figure it out.
A lot of the people up here, even if they disagree with you or your lifestyle or anything, they largely just kind of want to live and let live and let each other do their own thing.
So that's what I like about it and that's why I stay here and make this my home.
Here we are, guys.
Water taxis are important.
Ferries are great if the community is big enough, but a lot of the communities aren't big enough, and, you know, Alaska's huge.
So it's one of the things that is necessary to get things built or get people to places or, you know, to to access it and open it up.
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