There are no freeways to the mainland for island communities in this region, so people must travel by water or air, which makes the airport on Gravina Island an essential transportation hub for people throughout southeastern-most Alaska.
"To facilitate economic growth [on Gravina], we have to be able to actually get there," said Thomas Williams, planning director for the Ketchikan Gateway Borough. "Until there is an actual road to transport goods and materials, growth is not possible."
The bridge was championed by Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young, both Republicans, who pushed the project through Congress in 2005 using earmarks -- the controversial practice used by lawmakers to slip targeted spending into bills without public scrutiny. But that earmark quickly became the target of widespread public criticism and was labeled the "bridge to nowhere." Members of Congress eventually stripped the funds that had been designated for the bridge from a larger spending bill, but allowed Alaska to keep $223 million for other needs.
After that decision, according to a front-page article in the Ketchikan Daily News, Palin said during a Ketchikan Chamber of Commerce meeting: "The money that's been appropriated for the project, it should remain available for a link . . . to help this community prosper."
'A creeping suspicion'
Mike Elerding ran Palin's campaign for governor in Ketchikan, and she won the vote here. But when Palin took office, he said, locals began to get a "creeping suspicion that maybe she didn't mean all that she said."
In September 2007, Palin canceled the bridge project, blaming a funding shortage and lack of congressional support: "Ketchikan desires a better way to reach the airport, but a $398-million bridge is not the answer," she said in a statement.
"We're feeling a little bit caught in the middle," Elerding said recently. "We're proud she's getting national recognition, but we're also feeling betrayed."
Susan Walsh, a nurse who lives on Gravina Island, remembers attending that Chamber of Commerce meeting. When Palin withdrew her support for the bridge, Walsh figured the road project would have died with it. "It was just stupid," she said.
Jacob, the woman who has been protesting the road for two years with a letter-writing campaign on behalf of the Tongass Conservation Society in Ketchikan, says: "We begged her to stop."
