t’s often a challenge to move items to, from, and around Alaska. That challenge is multiplied when the item in question is the size of a small building. And when the final destination isn’t even on the road system, it takes a lot of collaboration, as well as logistics expertise, to get items where they need to go.

“Delivering and servicing equipment on the road system is challenging enough, but at remote sites, the logistical challenges are humungous,” says Jerry Lee Sadler, manager of Airport Equipment Rentals (AER). “Only a very small percentage of Alaska is accessible by road; it’s easy for those of us living in Anchorage and Fairbanks to forget that we’re just a teeny fraction of the state. So much of the state’s business, infrastructure, and logistics happen out of sight from the majority of the population.”

In a state dependent on natural resource exploration and excavation—as well as state, federal, and military construction work—there’s a big call for equipment that can handle harsh conditions and remote locations.

According to Charles Klever, president of Yukon Equipment, customers buy or rent everything from general construction equipment and road snowblowers to street sweepers, vacuum trucks, and trailers. The company, which has branches in Anchorage, Wasilla, and Fairbanks, provides equipment to customers along the road system, as well as delivers items to Alaska villages and Bush communities.

“A lot of times dealers think that it’s too much work to make the effort to reach remote sites when they make up only 10 to 20 percent of your business,” says Klever. “It takes a real investment in people and money to do it.

“But it’s part of our mission statement,” he continues, noting that Yukon is a subsidiary of Calista Corporation. “We are here to enhance the benefits of the region and remote Alaska, and we’ve dedicated the personnel and effort to doing that.”

As the John Deere dealer for Alaska, AER is responsible for getting the company’s main product line from Moline, Illinois to Alaska, as well as for providing a range of other manufacturers’ equipment to customers both on and off the road system. The State of Alaska, the US Army Corps of Engineers, and oil and gas infrastructure supply companies, among others, count on the company’s ability to shift as conditions change.

“We have the knowledge, facilities, and expertise to handle whatever logistics are needed,” says Sadler. “We are a family owned company with a very direct management style, which enables our ownership to make decisions on the fly. If we know that we need a new piece of operational equipment to improve the safety and reliability of our services, we can make the decision that day and get it coming.”

There’s no easy way to get things to Alaska, especially if the destination doesn’t happen to be near a road. When bringing in John Deere equipment, for example, AER first contracts with a trucking company, such as Big Sky Trucking, Evergreen Heavy Haul, or Span Alaska, to ship the goods from Moline to a TOTE facility in the Port of Seattle. From there, the equipment is barged to Anchorage, where AER trucks it to their location, or, if it is too large, contracts with another company, like Specialized Transport & Rigging (STR), to haul it on a specially made trailer.

“Some really large equipment, like excavators, may need to be broken down into smaller components before we can move them,” says Sadler, giving the example of a 188,000-pound 870G excavator that had to be transported in three separate pieces.

Equipment headed to Fairbanks is often put on the Alaska Railroad for shipment, though AER will also haul it if the company has an empty truck that needs to be returned to the Fairbanks branch. The dealer also moves items to the North Slope through outsourcing or will drive the Haul Road when trucks and drivers are available within the company.

Once there, the customer may put the item on a rolligon (a flatbed with bubble-like tires) to traverse the tundra or use a hovercraft or some other form of landing craft to transport it to remote sites like Northstar Island.

“Large, specialty pieces are the most difficult to move, so we don’t try to do it ourselves because you can get in trouble if you’re not equipped for it,” says Klever. “We use heavy-haul contractors that specialize in that area like STR, Jimmy Johnson Trucking, and Tope Transportation; depending on the haul, some are more competitive than others.”

Massive machinery can even be moved by air, though this also requires taking things apart.

“A few years ago, we shipped a 43,000-pound grader with Lynden on their Herc, but we had to remove the cab of the equipment to get it to fit,” says Sadler. “Once we got the specs, we figured out a way to squeeze it in there.”

After winning a bid to transport replaceable cutting edges to remote sites around Alaska, AER used its own Pilatus PC-12, a Swedish turboprop aircraft, to get the parts to the customers. “We were able to pull all the seats out of the airplane and flip open the big rear door to slide the whole pallet into the back,” says Sadler.

“One of the questions we ask our customers is, ‘Is this machine Hercable?’” says Klever. “Sometimes you can take a cab off to make equipment more transportable, and sometimes it’s just too big. We probably Herc out one or two pieces a month, with the logistics manager and our service department working together to figure out how to break it down right in our shop.

“These types of trips can be quite involved and quite expensive,” he adds. “The hauling costs more than the machine, but they have to have it. They’ll pay what it takes to get it there.”

As expected, moving huge equipment around the state comes with its fair share of logistical challenges, including the need to be aware of evolving weight restrictions.

“Depending on what restrictions are in place for where we’re trying to send a shipment, we may be looking at reduced axle loads on trailers, which means that a trailer that used to haul a 100,000-pound machine is now only legally allowed to haul a 25,000-pound machine,” says Sadler.

This forces the company to plan ahead, moving as much equipment as possible while the ground is still frozen. “We may take the equipment to a customer’s job site two months before they need it or before the rental period starts,” says Sadler. “Having the forethought to get equipment to the site before weight restrictions hit is definitely always a challenge.

“Each year, these restrictions can come earlier or happen later or be extended, and in some areas, they might completely change,” he adds. “The only thing that is consistent is that there are going to be weight restrictions—and they can make or break a customer’s job.”

Because it’s Alaska, shippers also must be skilled at traversing all types of weather—with contingency plans in place. “Truck drivers face avalanches, tight berms, frost heaves, and potholes the size of small cars,” says Sadler. “You have to be prepared for it all.”

He adds that it’s important to know how to treat equipment in double-digit negative temperatures as well.

“Because we have facilities across the state, we are generally able to store equipment fully loaded on semi-trailers inside large warehouses or tents, so that when we leave the next day, everything has had a good chance to thaw,” he says. “If we have to, we’ll drive a few hundred miles with a piece of equipment sitting on a trailer running or strap an auxiliary heater to the trailer to keep the equipment from freezing while riding for hours at highway speed.”

And even if the weather and the roads are perfect, there’s the issue of having the right product in stock for the right price—especially during a pandemic. Demand for different equipment changes from year to year, and it’s up to suppliers to not only predict what will be needed but find it, get it to Alaska, and make it affordable.

“This year, we’ve had a big demand for equipment from villages that are mostly off the road system,” says Klever. “Whether the economy is driving this, possibly through stimulus or other money, we’ve seen a big increase for water trucks, as well as regular construction equipment like wheel loaders, skid steer loaders, and backhoe loaders.

“Some villages want new water trucks and some want them used, so we’ve had to develop these markets—used water trucks don’t just appear,” he adds. “We’ve had to work hard to find companies in the Lower 48 who are putting tanks on trucks that used to be used for deliveries or hauling, because that makes them more affordable.”

Yukon has an employee specifically dedicated to working with the 220 small towns and villages throughout the state to talk to them about their equipment needs. “Jeanie Gusty is our point person; she finds out what they’re looking for, what their budget is, when they need the equipment delivered,” says Klever, who adds that Gusty, from Stony River, often speaks Yup’ik on these calls.

“As a logistics manager, she is quite fluent in finding out what barges are going where and in arranging delivery throughout western Alaska, and, working together, we coordinate the process involved in equipment sales and logistics to help villages acquire much-needed equipment,” he adds.

It’s a challenge to meet the barge schedule and then also work with all the different entities to make sure that the equipment is paid for and delivered on time.

“While we deliver equipment year-round, there’s obviously a much bigger demand when the barges start running,” says Klever. “A lot of times villages are trying to get grants in place or to get money together, and I can’t tell you how many times that a grant gets approved and we only have a short period of time to get a particular piece of equipment to a specific spot, at a specific time, at a set amount of money. All sorts of puzzle pieces have to come together.”

According to Klever, one of the biggest challenges this year has been finding inventory. “The COVID crisis cut manufacturing back and now there are equipment shortages in the market,” he says. “If someone needs a machine today and we don’t have it, we refer them to another dealership who might have it. Everybody is covering for everybody.

“There was a huge demand for water trucks a month ago; I delivered five to villages, and now I have three in the yard,” he adds. “It’s hard to figure out what to bring in, what to order new or used, and what inventory will meet demand. If I don’t have it, I can’t deliver it.”

Even after the sale is made, machinery still needs maintenance, and in many cases that means flying mechanics out or bringing pieces of the equipment back in.

“Two years ago, we had a transmission go out in a D10 ‘dozer on Kodiak Island, and it weighed about 1,000 pounds,” says Sadler. “From Fairbanks, we had to fly to pick up a mechanic in Anchorage, fly them to Kodiak Island, remove the transmission, load it on a pallet, put it in the back of our Pilatus, fly back to Anchorage to drop off the mechanic, and then fly to Fairbanks and offload the transmission. Later that week, we had to fly another transmission from Fairbanks to Kodiak and install it. But we had them up and running within a week.

“We’ve worked with miners deep out in the Alaska Range who were only accessible during certain times of the winter for us to take equipment in and out,” he adds. “It’s tough to manage the servicing of your equipment when you’ve got to take boats and planes and four-wheelers just to get there.”