The Trusty Tusty, the Rusty Tusty — the Alaska ferry Tustumena has a few different nicknames. In the Aleutians, where the ship doubles as the only restaurant for many small villages along the route, people call it the McTusty.
“We're going to have dinner,” Ellie Hoblet said when the Tustumena docked in False Pass on Aug. 8. “There's no other places to get food.”
Hoblet was there with a handful of others from the fishing village of about 30 residents.
“Best restaurant in town,” Calum Hoblet said. “The clam chowder and the chicken strips, that's the best.”
The Tustumena is more than just a ferry: it’s a lifeline for Aleutian communities. Barging in freight can be prohibitively expensive, so the ferry is a cheaper alternative. And a $350 ferry ticket is often the only way people in the Aleutians can afford to travel out of their communities — a one-way flight from False Pass to Anchorage costs more than $1,000.
But the aging vessel doesn’t make it up and down the chain as often as it used to. Meanwhile, the state’s efforts to replace it have been postponed and delayed for years, leading to reduced service and canceled sailings while the ferry undergoes repairs.
The ship also doesn’t sail as late into the year anymore. Captain John Mayer says one reason for that is to avoid inclement weather.
“I'm far more prudent in the weather I choose to go out in because she is a 61-year-old ship,” Mayer said. “When I first started here, it wouldn't be unusual to leave the harbor in 20-foot seas. Now I don't even think about that.”
Before the pandemic, the Tustumena made two Aleutian chain runs each month during the summer. In earlier years, they sailed into October, when the crew handed out pumpkins for the famed “Pumpkin Run.”
“When we would pull into port, say, for Sandpoint, the whole town would be on the dock,” Mayer said. “Total chaos.”
Mayer has worked on the Tustumena for about 25 years, working his way up to captain in 2015. He says he hopes a new ferry will mean they can sail as late and as often as before.
“Maybe with the new ship we can, because it could just be more resistant to heavier weather,” he said.
But improved ferry service won’t happen until the state builds the Tustumena’s replacement. That's been in the works for over a decade, but it wasn’t made official until Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced the project in 2021. The Alaska Department of Transportation solicited for builders the next year, but nobody bid.
Craig Tornga, the ferry system’s marine director, told the marine highway’s advisory board at its July 25 meeting that they’d finally be going out to bid this fall.
“We got a tired Tustumena that needs a replacement,” Tornga told the board.
He said one of the biggest challenges is a requirement that 70% of the money spent on the project goes to American companies, a point that Captain Mayer also made.
“That's been very exasperating,” Mayer said. “They simply do not make the systems you need for a new ship in this country.”
The original target date for replacing the Tustemena was 2027. Despite the fact that the project hasn’t gone out to bid yet, and despite the fact nobody bid on it the last time, Tornga told the board that they’re still trying to get the replacement ferry on the water at the end of 2028. But he said that date could change once they accept a bid and get a more realistic timeline.
Tornga said the marine highway system is meeting with potential bidders later this month, when he’ll give another progress report.
Back in False Pass, on board the Tustumena, the galley was packed at 6:30 p.m., right when the ferry was supposed to leave. Standing in the galley, Mayer started to sound more like a restaurant manager than a boat captain.
“To-go order? Anybody here to go? Everyone staying on board?” he asked.
He said he didn’t want to set sail for Akutan while folks from False Pass were still waiting for food from the best restaurant in town.
