UAS-Sitka waterfront gets mariculture barge

The UAS Sitka Campus mariculture barge is tied up at Eliason Harbor on Friday, Sept. 18, 2026, after being towed from Ketchikan. The barge will be permanently moored across the channel in front of the UAS Sitka campus building. The barge has been moored at various locations in the Ketchikan area in recent decades as part of mariculture projects including oyster and kelp cultivation, led by the nonprofit OceansAlaska. (James Poulson / Daily Sitka Sentinel)

By ANNA LAFFREY

Daily Sitka Sentinel

Alaska’s mariculture industry turned over a new leaf Friday when the tugboat Ethan B towed a floating mariculture laboratory into Sitka Channel, completing a three-day journey from Ketchikan.

The mariculture barge – a blue, two-story building on a 120’ by 40’ concrete deck – will soon be tied into a new dock in front of the University of Alaska Southeast Sitka campus. It will house hands-on seaweed and shellfish hatchery studies within the UAS Applied Fisheries program.

OceansAlaska, a Ketchikan-based mariculture nonprofit, has operated the barge in Ketchikan for more than a decade as a kelp and shellfish hatchery and kelp nursery, and a space for hands-on workshops. 

Angie Bowers, an assistant professor with UAS-Sitka's Applied Fisheries program, has spent four years working with OceansAlaska and other industry partners to bring the barge to Sitka, to boost mariculture studies at UAS.

In an interview with the Sentinel on Tuesday, Bowers said the floating facility “gives us, UAS, a lot of potential, and we’ll make it fun.”

Sara Ebersole, the mariculture liaison for UAS-Sitka, poked her head into Bowers’ office during the Sentinel’s visit. 

“I’m so excited that thing is here,” Ebersole said. “There’s a lot of work ahead, but hey, it made it here – We did it.”

Bowers recalled how the barge project began in 2022, when the Alaska Mariculture Cluster, a project of Southeast Conference, received $49 million in federal Build Back Better grant funding.

Some Alaska Mariculture Cluster funding was to support workforce development programs at UAS-Sitka. “As part of that, we wanted to have the ability to offer hands-on experiences – spawning shellfish, growing shellfish seed, and having a kelp nursery, all with flowing seawater," Bowers said.

Bowers saw the OceansAlaska barge as one means to that end. Since launching the Alaska Aquaculture Semester in 2021, Bowers has brought students to Ketchikan each fall to study kelp and shellfish hatchery techniques aboard the barge. 

“It was during that time that I really appreciated how the barge was set up, and what it was capable of,” Bowers said. “Working on it was really a lot of fun.”

After learning that her UAS program would receive funding through the Mariculture Cluster, Bowers reached out to Tomi Marsh, the president of OceansAlaska and a strong supporter of the UAS program. 

“I called Tomi to ask where their barge was built, to see if we could get information to have another one built,” Bowers said. “And Tomi said, ‘You can have ours!’ So that’s when the conversation started – four years ago.”

“It’s been a long road with a lot of people involved to make it happen, and a lot more money than I imagined,” Bowers said. 

Build Back Better funds supported the purchase of the barge and equipment upgrades, Bowers said. 

State appropriations funded construction of a dock where the barge will be moored in front of UAS-Sitka. (It's currently moored at Eliason Harbor, and will move to the new UAS dock in early October).

“The dock is a strut system, so no pilings were driven,” Bowers said, noting that the university contracted engineers to design the custom dock. “It's all from shore, and it rises and falls with the tide, and ties in to the barge itself.”

Years of work on the project culminated in the barge’s departure from Ketchikan at 9:30 a.m. last Tuesday; UAS mariculture staff welcomed it to Sitka as it arrived just after 5 a.m. Friday. 

“On Monday, we visited the barge with the Aquaculture Semester students, and they were so excited,” Bowers said, noting that 15 people are in Sitka for the semester intensive focused on salmon aquaculture as well as mariculture techniques. 

“There’s so much potential for the barge being here, and in having people that are dedicated to its success,” Bowers said. “I think it’ll be fully utilized here.”

She said the university will look to raise revenue through its barge operations. “We will be able to commercially cultivate seeded kelp line and oyster seed to sell to farmers,” Bowers said. “That would be a teaching took and an opportunity for students to do real work while learning these methods.”

The barge "will also have bench space for researchers, and will be able to support the Southeast Alaska Tribal Ocean Research lab as a backup facility if they should need a space during maintenance, renovation or growth,” Bowers said. 

Bowers said UAS also hopes to offer barge-based workshops for farmers, school groups and others who are not necessarily involved in university courses; and UAS looks to continue its collaborations with OceansAlaska, Alaska Sea Grant and other industry partners aboard the barge. 

“We also hope we'll be able to find ways to incorporate the visitor industry in the summertime with the barge, and just get creative to help fund the barge bring here,” Bowers said. “It takes energy and staff, and we'll always need maintenance.”

OceansAlaska

Eric Wyatt, the treasurer of OceansAlaska, described work aboard the barge to date as “a concert that’s been going on for years that is kind of a foundation for a successful shellfish industry in Alaska.”

OceansAlaska incorporated in Ketchikan in 1992, and in 2011 received state and federal funding to construct the mariculture barge. 

Ketchikan’s R&M Engineering designed the barge; a Campbell River, B.C. shipyard build it, and it was finished in Ketchikan, Wyatt told the Sentinel today. 

Over the years in Ketchikan, the barge offered space for aquatic farmers, and supported research and training that’s helped lay the groundwork for the mariculture industry to grow across Alaska. 

Reflecting on the years of barge operations in Ketchikan, Wyatt said the highlight was hosting seven hands-on workshops in shellfish hatchery techniques, with funding and support from a host of industry partners.

“We got to bring world-class talent and equipment, to show students that combination of where Alaska would have to go to be able to produce oyster seed or shellfish seed – now or into the future,” Wyatt said, noting that Bowers and UAS-Sitka assisted with this year's workshop.

Brian “Chunk” Kelly and Bryan Frasier of Ketchikan ran the barge for OceansAlaska as hatchery technicians. While saying "bon voyage" to the beloved barge this fall, the duo founded a private consulting business called B&B Mariculture. 

Wyatt noted that Bill Rotecki of Ketchikan is a longtime supporter of the OceansAlaska barge; the late Gary Freitag of Ketchikan was foundational in making the organization’s vision a reality.

Quentin Fong, vice president of OceansAlaska, lads the nonprofit alongside Marsh and Wyatt.

The nonprofit has received grant funding from the Ketchikan Gateway Borough. After selling and transferring custodianship of the barge to UAS, OceansAlaska will pay off its obligations, and “there will be some amount of funds that we can return to the borough in some fashion,” Wyatt said.

Looking to the future, Wyatt said OceansAlaska plans to procure shellfish processing equipment to support the Alaska Oyster Cooperative based in Naukati Bay on Prince of Wales Island, and help with other Alaska mariculture projects as needed.

He said that transferring the barge to UAS fulfills and continues the organization’s mission to provide mariculture training in Alaska.

“After all this time, to be doing that, and to see what the barge is going to be doing into the future – that’s our real highlight, fulfilling a mission and handing it off to someone else to continue,” Wyatt said.  “It’s all about the mission of supporting mariculture.”

• This story originally appeared in the Daily Sitka Sentinel.