Southwest Alaska aviation training: housing for student pilots under construction in Bethel.

• Author: DeCorso, Michelle
• Position: TRANSPORTATION & CONSTRUCTION

Bethel, Alaska, is like no other place on earth. The community of seven thousand people is four hundred miles east of Anchorage on the delta of two immense rivers, the Yukon River and the Kuskokwim River. No roads connect Bethel with the rest of Alaska or any other village, except in the winter when the Kuskokwim River freezes and part of it becomes an ice road. The region is tundra, wet marsh in the summer and frozen in the winter, with rolling hills and more than four hundred thousand charted lakes and ponds. The remote region has no roads because construction is a nearly impossible task on the boggy and unstable tundra. The soil is filled with ice, drains poorly, and usually collapses when it thaws. The tundra makes construction technically challenging and extremely costly.

Bethel is the regional hub for forty-six unique and remote communities that range in size from 29 people in Sleetmute to 1,093 in Hooper Bay. The population of the entire region is about 24,000. The population is young; in most villages, about half the population is under the age of eighteen.

The Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta is a tundra ecosystem, with the 19.2-million-acre Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge surrounding almost every village. Emperor geese, spectacled eider ducks, and tundra swans are among the migratory birds that nest in region. Yup'ik Eskimo have inhabited the region for more than twelve thousand years. Every village on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta is an Alaska Native Village, a federally-recognized Indian Tribe. Every village is unique, influenced by the geography and climate. The Catholic Church established a boarding school in Saint Mary's and the Moravian Church has a strong presence in some communities. For generations, Yup'ik Eskimo tribes were nomadic. In the 1930s, the US Bureau of Indian Affairs began building schools at fish camp sites, and families settled in one place in order to send children to schools, effectively ending the traditional nomadic way of life. The Yup'ik language is widely spoken across the region. Native arts and crafts, music, and dance flourish. Families depend upon subsistence salmon, seal, walrus, caribou, and other fish for much of their food.

Harsh Subarctic Climate

The Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta has a harsh subarctic climate. The Bering Sea brings extreme storms, hurricane force winds, heavy snow, rain, and extreme cold. The remote location and the extreme weather makes traveling from these villages very difficult--and people who live in this region must travel all the time. All services for the region are located in Bethel--the hospital, dentists, doctors, driver's licenses, state offices, federal agencies, courts, and State Troopers. Physicals, prenatal care, tests, emergencies, stitches, broken bones, and teeth cleaning all require a plane trip to Bethel. Bethel has the Pre-Maternal Home where women from villages who are expecting a baby live in a dormitory for the month before the birth so they are close to the hospital and not hours--or days--away.

Bethel is also where Alaska Airlines can land a jet plane, so everyone going anywhere else must first travel to Bethel aboard a small plane. Bethel is truly unique; as the regional hub, Bethel has hotels, restaurants, and a thriving taxi industry. Because it is off the tourist path, Bethel is an authentic Alaska bush community.

During the short, ice-free part of summer, some villages can be reached by barge, but the rest of the year all travel is by small plane. All supplies, groceries, mail, and even heating fuel is flown into communities. Alaska State Troopers must fly out to villages to respond to incidents. The...