The View From ‘Nowhere’

Our town in Alaska sorely needed a bridge to its airport. Instead, we became a national punch line.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/165478?GT1=43001

But the politics of earmarks didn't mean much to us up here in Alaska. We were too busy focusing on the need for a bridge to get to our airport. Then somehow our bridge became known as the "Bridge to Nowhere."

To us, the name seemed odd. Ketchikan was never "nowhere." It is 90 minutes north of Seattle by plane. The rest of Alaska, including Anchorage, with a population approaching 300,000, lies to the north—well beyond "nowhere." The media reports never seemed to mention that Ketchikan has a year-round population of 14,000—making it the fourth-largest community in the state. And they forgot to account for the more than 250,000 people who pass through our airport every year, and the nearly 1 million visitors who come here each summer, mostly on cruise ships.