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Coast Guard issues contract for major icebreaker port expansion in Seattle

By: James Brooks, Alaska Beacon

U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star (WAGB 10) (left) sits moored next to U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy (WAGB 20) at Coast Guard Base Seattle, Aug. 25, 2024. The Polar Star and Healy are routinely deployed to Arctic and Antarctic locations to support science research or help resupply remote stations. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Lt. Chris Butters)

The U.S. Coast Guard announced Tuesday that it has awarded a $137 million contract for the first phase of a project intended to allow its Seattle base to host two new heavy icebreakers.

The contract, awarded to The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company, covers dredging of the Coast Guard’s Slip 36 and construction of two ship berths capable of hosting the new icebreakers, formally known as Polar Security Cutters.

The first of those ships, the Polar Sentinel, is expected to be complete in 2030. When accepted into the Coast Guard, it will be the service’s first new heavy icebreaker since the Polar Star was commissioned in 1977.

The Coast Guard operates the federal government’s icebreaker fleet, and the Polar Star is key to supplying American research bases in Antarctica from its Seattle home port.

A second and third heavy icebreaker were fully funded with $4.3 billion included as part of the Republican budget package approved by Congress and President Donald Trump earlier this year.

The budget package also included $300 million for port construction in Juneau to support the newly commissioned Coast Guard icebreaker Storis, a converted oilfield services ship. Until that work is complete, the Storis will be homeported in Seattle.

The Republican budget package, known as the “Big Beautiful Bill Act,” includes billions of dollars for shoreside port facilities like those in Juneau and Seattle.

Additional phases of work are expected in Seattle, which is expected to be the home port of four new major Coast Guard cutters, the service said in a written statement.

Seattle NHL team’s mascot has a close encounter with a brown bear during video shoot in Alaska

AP- Seattle Kraken forward John Hayden and the team’s blue-haired troll mascot had a close call with a brown bear during a promotional video shoot in Alaska.

Hayden and the mascot named Buoy were on a fly-fishing outing in Katmai National Park as part of a trip promoting youth hockey when the bear approached, video released by the team shows.

Knee-deep in a shallow river, they wore waders and other fly-fishing gear. Hayden had been fishing, but a guide quickly took the rod from him.

The bear charged toward the mascot, splashing water, but turned away before making contact as Hayden, Buoy and the film crew waded back to shore through a gentle current.

Brown bears commonly feast on salmon in the Brooks River in Katmai National Park, gobbling them as they leap upstream over Brooks Falls to spawn. The park, nearly 300 miles (485 km) southwest of Anchorage and inaccessible by road, is home to the annual “Fat Bear Week” contest celebrating the bears as they fatten up for the winter.

The NHL team said it didn’t intend to involve the bear in filming, but included it in a video posted to social media. Organizers had hired guides for safety.

“Bears are everywhere at Brooks Falls and, like, this is their territory,” said Kraken Partnership Marketing Director Melissa O’Brochta, who also recorded the encounter from shore. “They’re also super used to seeing humans. So I wasn’t scared.”

A troll might have been a different story.

“I want to blame it on Buoy,” Hayden said on the video afterward. “They were pretty interested in his look.”

The run-in happened on June 25 as part of an annual trip organized by the Bristol Bay Native Corporation in Anchorage, Alaska, with events that promote youth ice hockey. Alaska does not have its own NHL team; the closest teams are in Seattle and Vancouver, Canada.

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