ehicles outnumber the Alaskans who drive them. According to the Division of Motor Vehicles, all registered vehicles in the state amounted to 808,874 in 2023 (the latest year with complete data). The state’s population, of course, has yet to exceed 800,000, pegged at about 733,000 during the last census.

Passenger cars and pickup trucks add up to 601,684, which is more than the number of driving-age Alaskans. How did they all get here? Either the owner drove into the state personally, or the car or truck was purchased from a dealer that had it shipped in. Or the third option: those wheels arrived thanks to a vehicle shipping company.

Wrightway Auto Carriers is an Alaskan-owned company that’s been in business for more than seventy years. According to General Manager Paul Carson, braving the Alcan is not the best way to bring a car into Alaska.

“We only have one highway into the state, and it’s a long, challenging highway to make it up, so the majority of vehicles that come into the state on a new or used front come in over the water,” says Carson. “The Alaska Highway is a challenging trip and it’s very hard on vehicles, so it makes sense to ship your car and have us deliver it to wherever in the state.”

With Wrightway, says Carson, most vehicles are loaded at the Port of Tacoma in Washington and travel by carrier ship to the Don Young Port of Alaska in Anchorage. In addition to transporting cars, trucks, travel trailers, and more for people moving to and from Alaska, whether for corporate, military, or private reasons, Wrightway also handles the logistics for many dealerships within the state.

“Vehicles come into the state on an ocean carrier, and once they reach the port, we deliver to a significant number of dealerships in the state as well as other customers—like oil companies up on the slope in Prudhoe Bay.

If the vehicle is going to someone within the Anchorage area, it may be picked up at the port or Wrightway may deliver it to the customer’s door.

If a vehicle is going farther, say to Fairbanks or Kenai, it’s then trucked to its final destination, which can also be challenging. “Within the state, with our trucking, weather and road systems are a challenge up here,” says Carson. “Just going from Anchorage to Denali to Fairbanks, you’ll run into every type of weather on the way: ice, rain, snow. There are ever-changing and evolving road conditions.”

The tough conditions are why Carson suggests leaving vehicle transport to the professionals. Many shipping companies will ship a vehicle with personal belongings inside, which can cut down on moving costs. And it’s not unheard of for vehicles on the 1,400-mile Alaska Highway to have breakdowns and need repairs, so a well-maintained hauler can avoid those costs as well.

Simply driving a car or truck home is not an option for the 86 percent of Alaska communities not connected to the road system. Vehicle transport to those destinations is a job for a specialist.

Bowhead Transport, a subsidiary of UIC Commercial Services, specializes in providing “exceptional marine services in the most challenging environments.” Bowhead delivers vehicles by barge to some of the most remote communities in Alaska. “The only way to deliver is by barge,” says Bowhead Vice President Chris Palle.

Just because towns and villages are off the road system doesn’t mean cars and trucks are unwelcome. Residents need wheels to haul supplies and run errands on local streets (not to mention trailers, all-terrain vehicles, and snowmachines). Vehicles drive around plenty once they reach their destination, even when driving there in the first place is not an option.

“There are some communities on the North Slope that have ice road access in the winter, such as Barrow,” says Palle, “but the majority of the coastal communities in western Alaska, the Aleutians, and the Arctic area are barge access only for supplies.”

In a way, vehicle transport is even more urgent in communities without smoothly paved streets. “The road conditions associated with using the vehicles is hard on them, so they get replaced frequently,” says Palle. “As a result, providing transport of the vehicles to those communities is extremely important to the residents who live there.”

Bringing vehicles ashore is not easy. “Some of the locations are exposed to open ocean, either the Bering Sea or the Arctic,” says Palle, “and because of this the conditions have to be just right to land a 300-foot barge on a sandy beach. So watching the weather and sea conditions and timing those deliveries correctly is extremely important.”

Once up to the beach, getting off the barge is its own challenge. “Once we do have the ramp down to drive the vehicles or carry the vehicles off the barge and carry them to their new owner, sometimes there is soft sand, gravel, rocks, cobblestone. So each and every location requires a different set of supplies and equipment to safely deliver those vehicles.” Bowhead solves these issues by building portable roadways, using graders to compact base material, utilizing heavy equipment to carry vehicles, and more.

“I think that these types of deliveries are very unique to the Alaska region,” says Palle. Most places might have barge docks or landings already built, but that’s not always the case in the areas that Bowhead services. “Logistically, these types of deliveries in the state of Alaska are typically more challenging than most locations outside of the Lower 48.”

Bowhead Transport approaches every project by determining how, not if, it can be completed. Palle says the company’s motto of never using the word “impossible” speaks to this.

Bowhead Transport needs to schedule around the ice that covers the Arctic coastline for a good portion of the year. For example, says Palle, shipping a vehicle from Seward to Nome must wait until after June 15. Shipping a vehicle farther north to Utqiaġvik can’t happen until after July 25. To get one from Utqiaġvik to Prudhoe Bay, transporters have to wait until about August 10 before the ice clears (although the Dalton Highway is an overland option).

On the opposite end of the calendar, the Arctic begins to ice over around October 1, and the ice will work its way south until the ice covers the northern portion of the Bering Sea and Norton Sound area. “A lot of people think about barging in Alaska as a seasonal business, but it’s not a seasonal business,” says Palle. “Each region has its own unique challenges throughout the entire year. Seward, Dutch Harbor, and Anchorage are all accessible all year long, and business does continue. The Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands are all year-round locations, but other places are not.”

Another challenge can only be expected, not planned for: wildlife. “Sometimes we have to raise the ramps on the boat to make sure the polar bears don’t climb up onto the boat,” says Palle. “There are lots of safety precautions we have to take to protect our crew from polar bears. They’re curious and want to just get on board and take a look around. When that happens, the whole crew just goes inside and watches them walk around the deck and then eventually they leave and jump back in the ocean and go.”

Polar bear and walrus encounters are worth the risk. Palle says, “Providing transport of the vehicles to those communities is extremely important to the residents who live there. If you’re a receiving customer in one of these small coastal communities of about 100 to 200 people, when a barge pulls into town if you’re waiting for your vehicle, you’re probably going to walk down to the landing to see your vehicle come off that barge. A barge delivery is a big deal because it doesn’t happen all that often.”

Even on the road system, vehicle transporters provide a valuable service to Alaskans. Of Wrightway, Carson says, “We are locally owned and staffed and have been around since 1950. We’re a group of dedicated Alaskans here to support Alaskan businesses and the public to ship their vehicles. It’s challenging to do, and we try to make it easy for everybody and support the community in doing so.”