Streamline ferry Kalakala rolls on in song

It was 26 years ago this month when the iconic ferryboat Kalakala returned to the Seattle waterfront – after a long exile serving as a cannery in Alaska – to a glorious welcome home.

The story of the vessel’s unlikely resurrection in November 1998 went downhill from there, of course, and the Kalakala was ultimately scrapped.

However, thanks to two Seattle men, the spirit of the beloved streamlined vessel now lives on in song. Those men gathered at Colman Dock early Wednesday in the aftermath of The Bomb Cyclone of November 2024 to share a new version of their joint creation with KIRO Newsradio listeners.

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From a public viewpoint at the southwest corner of Colman Dock, overlooking Elliott Bay near the water taxi terminal, Jack Broom and Jon Pontrello told KIRO Newsradio how the song came to be 26 years ago, and how it has come back to life.

Jack Broom retired in 2016 after nearly 40 years at the Seattle Times. In 1998, when the Kalakala made its triumphant comeback, Broom witnessed its return and wrote the lyrics to a song called “Roll On, Kalakala” – sung to the tune of Woody Guthrie’s “Roll On, Columbia.” Broom had earlier written lyrical tributes to the ferry Cathlamet and other Northwest icons like the razor clam.

“I grew up in Seattle and remember seeing it out on the water looking like a floating Airstream trailer,” Broom told KIRO Newsradio, describing what some have nicknamed “The Silver Slug” for its color scheme and, perhaps, for its top speed.

“While all the other ferries look like white and green boxes, it was Art Deco,” Broom said. “It was fun to see, it was just something special.”

“It went to Alaska for 30 years,” Broom continued. “And they brought it back in 1998 with the hopes of restoring it, but it didn’t quite work out.”

A version of “Roll On, Kalakala” was recorded not long after it was written, Broom explained, and was available via a rudimentary audio-sharing platform hosted by The Seattle Times and accessible via touchtone phone. Unfortunately, that version was not preserved, and no copies can be found.

Jon Pontrello is a Seattle musician who has written and performed songs about Pacific Northwest shipwrecks and about the late Peter Bevis, the man who led the charge to bring the Kalakala ferry home from Alaska in the 1990s. He stumbled across Broom’s creation while doing research into local songs.

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“Jack’s song, I just I love the lyrics, and he originally wrote it in 1998 when the Kalakala returned,” Pontrello told KIRO Newsradio. “And it kind of had this theme like ‘following your dreams’ and stuff like that. But when the Kalakala was demolished in 2015, he revised the last verse to reflect the final chapter in the Kalakala story.”

“Some of the lines in that last verse I really loved, and felt like there was a bigger story there connected to a universal truth about loss,” Pontrello continued. “And that really inspired me to want to record this song.”

With that, Pontrello performed “Roll On, Kalakala” for KIRO Newsradio listeners, with Jack Broom joining in on the chorus.

Meanwhile, a timeless transportation ballet was unfolding in the darkness below the overlook.

Immediately to the south, foot passengers disembarked from the Vashon and Bremerton water taxis. To the north, the big Washington car ferries came and went at the terminal on Colman Dock, just like Kalakala had done from the 1930s to the 1960s.

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To quote the lyrics of the immortal Jack Broom, “Roll on, Kalakala, roll on!”

Jon Pontrello will formally release the studio version of “Roll On, Kalakala” on December 19, 2024.

You can hear Feliks Banel every Wednesday and Friday morning on Seattle’s Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien. Read more from Feliks here and subscribe to The Resident Historian Podcast here. If you have a story idea or a question about Northwest history, please email Feliks. You can also follow Feliks on X.

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