Southeast would go a week without mainline ferry service at the end of November as the Alaska Marine Highway System transitions between ships for its winter schedule.

But seven days without the weekly northbound and southbound return voyage between Bellingham, Washington, and Southeast is painless when compared to much longer service gaps in Prince William Sound and Southwest Alaska under the draft fall and winter schedule.

Cordova and Valdez would be left without any ferry…

Rashah McChesney is a multimedia journalist and editor who has reported and edited newsrooms from the Deep South to the Midwest to Alaska. For the past decade, she has worked in collaborative news as the...