Ties That Bind Seattle to Alaska

“Seattle and Alaska are economically bound at the hip, and no one in Seattle seems to know it,” says Dave Gering, head of Seattle’s Manufacturing Industrial Council (MIC). Indeed, in 2004, MIC’s Seattle Industry magazine documented $4 billion in Alaska trade passing through the Puget Sound region in a single year.

With a small population of roughly 683,500, Alaska has no industrial base and its extremely short growing season requires it to import just about everything it consumes. As the closest Lower 48 port to Alaska, the Puget Sound region has an almost exclusive hold on that import market—a market that is larger than Seattle’s.

According to Seattle Industry: “Because there is no railroad connection between Alaska and the Lower 48—or Canada—and because Alaska is so far removed from any other state in the union, the … people who populate it rely on the maritime shipping industry of central Puget Sound to receive the majority of their consumer goods, business supplies, building materials and industrial equipment. And in many cases these products and commodities are ‘Made in Washington’ or distributed by companies based here.”

Companies such as Foss Tug, Lynden Transport, Alaska Air, TOTE, Alaska Marine Lines, Alaska Distributors and many more are based in Seattle, and a significant portion of their work involves shipping goods to and from Alaska. Even the oil that lines the pockets of Alaska is refined in Seattle before being shipped back to Alaska for everyday use.

Trade with Alaska caused Seattle’s early 20th century boom and has buoyed Seattle’s economy at times of local bust. Following the near collapse of Boeing in the 1970s, this region’s economy was saved by construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and the huge refineries built in the north central Puget Sound to process Alaskan crude oil.

Although geographic proximity to Alaska makes shipping through Seattle an apparent no-brainer, it wasn’t always so. After 1867—when the United States purchased Alaska from Russia for a measly $7.2 million—San Francisco seized the Alaska trade market and held it through the end of the 19th century. When news of Klondike gold hit in July 1897, San Francisco, with its roots in the 1848 California Gold Rush, should have captured the market.

But it didn’t. To everyone’s surprise, Seattle stole the gold rush. A month after the SS Portland arrived with a ton of gold, one man—Erastus Brainerd—convinced the Seattle Chamber of Commerce with the sole purpose of capturing the gold rush trade. In only seven months, the Chamber’s Bureau of Information created a news blitz across the United States and Western Europe, in effect snaring the lion’s share of the business for Seattle.

Inadvertently, this marketing dare and coincident wealth may have attracted new residents; between 1900 and 1910, Seattle’s population grew from 80,000 to 240,000, an incredible 300 percent increase. Some estimate that as many as 40,000 people were drawn through Seattle to the Yukon gold fields, but even these estimates cannot explain Seattle’s population explosion. The wealth brought to the city by this boom, however, does explain the call for an Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition designed to put Seattle on the map.

Today, Alaska continues to play a major role in Seattle’s economy. The city imports Alaska’s oil and salmon and ships out just about everything it takes to clothe, feed and house the people of Alaska. Recently, Seattle has also become the hub of Alaskan tourism with more than 200 cruises leaving Elliott Bay every summer for the great North. Not only do the thousands of tourists on those cruises spend money in Seattle, but every one of those vessels is also supplied by regional wholesalers.

Alaska gives Seattle a huge economic hinterland unmatched by any other state. Though it may be invisible to the average citizen, Alaskan commerce infuses billions of dollars into the local economy every year, constantly reinforcing the ties that have bound Seattle and Alaska together since 1897.