The New Boat Haulout

This is a picture of the new boat haul out that Hoonah is getting. I believe someone said it could handle a three hundred ton boat when it's completed. I think it will be a real asset to the community. Right now folks with larger boats have to travel to Wrangell or Sitka or maybe Juneau to get hauled out. With a facility like this here it should open up more job opportunities for the local folks, something that is badly needed.
I'm fortunate enought to be working with a crew who is going to be doing some or maybe all of the concrete work. The fellow who got the bid grew up at Game Creek at the farm where we lived for ten years.
In the immediate backround is the ramp that the state ferries pull up to. After they are tied up the ramp is lowered and all the vehicles and people disembark and wait for the new passengers to come aboard. The mountains in the backround have been all clearcut unfortunately. All that land is owned by one of the native corporations, Sealaska I believe. For eight or ten years the logging provided quite a few jobs here and Hoonah experienced a boom, but now most of the trees are gone and it will be another forty or so years before they are large enough to log again. The clear cut logging caused quite a bit of controversy here- everyone wanted the jobs, but no one wanted the end results. It's too bad that it wasn't profitable to just do a smaller scale operation. In the spring and summer when everything is green the clearcuts aren't as noticable, but when the snow flies, they stand out; as my good friend Uncle Bill would say, "Like a scab on a polar bear's behind."