Winter energy in rural Alaska: Upterrlainarluta 'Always getting ready'.

• Author: Stricker, Julie
• Position: ENERGY

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

It's a hot July day in the village of Eagle, but power plant mechanic Scott Helmer is already thinking about winter. The town and nearby Native village on the Yukon River near the border with Canada are cut off from the rest of the state when the Taylor Highway closes with the first major snowfall of the season, so planning ahead is essential.

Eagle is powered by three diesel generators, as well as 24 kilowatts in solar panels that were put in place last summer, "but they don't work at all in the winter," he says. So getting the town's fuel oil supply is key, and it's something that must happen well before the first snows fall.

The Yup'ik have a saying, "Upterrlainarluta," which translates to "always getting ready." For Alaskans who live off the road system, winter is coming. They have to plan far in advance to get through the state's long, dark, frigid season. Air travel is available year-round, in most places, but it's expensive, so most of rural Alaska relies on seasonal barges plying the river systems for bulk cargoes of food and fuel.

Eagle, with a population of 110 to 120, including the nearby village, is fortunate to be on the road system, even if it's just seasonally, Helmer says. "We can stock up on food and supplies before the road closes in October," he says. It's not as easy as driving down to the corner store, however. The nearest large town is Fairbanks, 370 miles away, and traveling the Taylor Highway can be a white-knuckle experience.

Parts of the 160-mile highway, which begins east of Tok at Tetlin Junction, are a gravel road barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass. It winds high along the Fortymile River, around hairpin turns and over treeless summits before it dead-ends on the Yukon River in Eagle. Fuel is trucked in from Fairbanks.

"The truckers, if the road starts getting icy or sloppy, they will come in, but they don't like to," he says. In addition to the fuel needed for the city power plant, two commercial vendors truck in fuel the residents use for their vehicles, boats, snowmachines, and Toyo stoves.

"We have to have forty thousand gallons of fuel to go into the winter," says Helmer, whose family moved to the remote town in 1972 when he was eight years old. "That doesn't mean we burn all of it. We have to have enough of it to go through part of the summer" in case the Taylor Highway is impassible in the spring.

Most residents also burn wood in their homes, which must be cut and dried...