UPDATED WITH VIDEO: Going to its grave — ferry Kalakala arrives at scrap yard in Tacoma

Published 8:50 am Thursday, January 22, 2015

By Peninsula Daily News

and The Associated Press

EDITOR’S NOTE — Time-lapse video (http://youtu.be/qYnc9i_AMgk) by the Tacoma News Tribune documents the final voyage of the Kalakala.

TACOMA — The historic ferry Kalakala (kuh-LAHK’-uh-luh) is now at the Tacoma dry dock where it will be scrapped.

The Coast Guard says it arrived Thursday morning.

It was towed two miles from the Hylebos Waterway, where it has been moored for a decade, to the graving dock on the Blair Waterway.

The sleek, silver ferry was the symbol of Seattle in the days before the Space Needle, running for years between Seattle and Bremerton.

Later it carried autos and passengers between Port Angeles and Victoria, B.C., a run memorialized in a mural in downtown Port Angeles.

After it was taken out of service in the late 1960s it was used as a cannery in Alaska.

The Kalakala was returned to Puget Sound with hopes of restoring the vessel — one plan was to make it a floating museum and restaurant in Port Angeles — but none of these plans came up with enough money.

The News Tribune newspaper reports (http://bit.ly/1zwIdnX ) Rhine Demolition is handling the salvage and will decide whether to offer any souvenirs to the public.