Flying in Alaska in October

Tetlin views from the school.

Last week, I spent a few days in Tetlin.  I flew from Fairbanks on 40 Mile Air to Tok (1 hr, 45 minutes, $210) and rode with my colleague to Tetlin.  

The pilot of 40 Mile was Jonathon, married to the kindergarten teacher in Tok.   I rode shot-gun in the Cessna 206, or is that an inappropriate saying on planes.   He is careful about the weather he said, especially since the plane isn't tricked out for IFR (I follow river).

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Enroute, we dropped off a few people in Healy Lake.  The private landing strip was a slash in a forest.  Apparently, there's a winter road to the Alaska Hwy when the rivers are iced over and thick.  In the summer, float planes serve this village of about 10.  No school there now. 

I stayed at Young's Motel, next to Fast Eddy's Restaurant in Tok and lived big ($98/night)  Choices are limited, but this hotel is walking distance from the 40 Mile hangar and there are no rental cars and I don't think there are cabs, so this was a win.  

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It was also walking distance to a gas station quick-shop (regular $4.93/gal) and Three Bears Outpost store, so it was a good location, just next to the Alaska Highway.  

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Senator Lisa Murkowski was meeting constituents at Fast Eddy's from 5:30-7pm on my arrival day, so I ate fast and got out of there fast.  The place was filling up by 5 with the pro-and con- mining community.  The Manh Choh mine is going in just off the road to Tetlin on Tetlin Native Land.  The plan is to send ore trucks the 230 miles to the Toronto owned Ft. Knox gold mine north of Fairbanks for processing.  

                            

Tetlin was beautiful in the cold sunshine, although attendance wasn't great at school that day.

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Teacher housing is a duplex behind the school.  It has running water even though most of the village doesn't have it.  Like most permafrost land, burying pipes is not practical, so I'm guessing this utilidor has a heat source to keep the enclosed water pipes from freezing.

Tok, a bigger community, is a 45 minute drive away and Tetlin kids go there to play on the basketball team.  Students have internet in their homes, thanks to Covid money to the school district during closures (not verified, but I think so) and Chromebooks for all students.

There's no place like home though and I was glad to see the textbook streambed channels near Fairbanks, the meandering Chena River and the braided Tanana from the window of the plane.

Elim, by the sea

Sunrise from the school looking East.

To get to Elim from Fairbanks in one day, you need to take the 5 am flight to Anchorage, hang out in the airport for 4 hours, then board for Nome.  In Nome, you jostle your way to the overly small baggage claim and hope that the giant totes don't squash the food in your bag.   The totes are full of food bought in Anchorage and leave empty to come back full of the month's fresh stuff.   

Then you scamper across the parking lot in Nome to Bering Air to drop your bags for the 2 hour+ wait.  If you don't have at least 3 hungry, tired kids, including the requisite toddler trying to make a run for it, you won't fit in.  Amazingly, everyone was helpful and friendly and no guns were spotted.

  

I have a pretty glamorous job.  Here you see me eating out in Nome, pb&j by the river, sitting on a log.

On our way to Elim, we stopped at White Mountain, then Golovin, then finally Elim, a small village clinging to the Bering Sea.  It was not as badly damaged in the storm of Sept 18, 2022, but there is still evidence of repairs being done due to a washed out road and bridge along the coast.

   

The school is up high on a bluff with sweeping views of the ocean and village.  

  

Having kids put their stuff in bags reduces the amount of spread of any little vermin- bedbugs, lice, and other school-spread ickiness.  I don't know the reason for these particular bags.   The kids don't seem to mind.  The school has about 75 kids and is well staffed.  

  

Here's some sights you don't see everyday in a village...an ambulance and a Boys and Girls Club building.  The B&G Club has a steady presence in villages, but they don't all have a dedicated building.  The store had a great selection and prices were very reasonable considering the expense of shipping. 

                                      

Most communities use their school library for the whole community.  I loved spotting this library and was told that it is not currently open but has a great selection of books.  No National Guard presence now either, unlike Golovin.  The last view is Main St. Elim.

                                        

Sadly, this is a regular sighting in villages:  rusty barrels.  Once freight comes into a village, it rarely leaves, hence Connex trailers, old equipment, outdated communication dishes and barrels.  Hopefully these didn't contain toxic chemicals.

My brief survey of locals didn't yield any definitive results; it was evenly split whether Elim is pronounced E-lum or El-um.  So, I'm guessing it doesn't matter to anyone.

I was treated with curiosity and friendliness.  Shout-out to Louis who gave me rides to and from the airport and liked to joke.  Also, he gave me moose meat to take home- more precious than gold, food.

                                

Early thirty in Elim.

Golovin, after the storm

It has only been a week since Golovin got slammed by a huge storm, the tail end of a typhoon.  The 17 National Guard troops left yesterday, but community members told me what a big help they were in just cleaning up debris.   No one, thankfully, was injured but many folks lost their freezers with subsistence fish and meat for winter.  Silt was left everywhere.  Golovin was particularly hard hit because of its precarious position on a peninsula hugging the shore and jutting out into the ocean on 3 sides.  

Many newer houses are up the hill and people up there could only watch from their windows.

      

Small buildings, Connex and storage containers were dropped around town and surrounded by silt.

The beach became one with town,       . 

                                

 More scenes that are post-storm.

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Work crews from Unalakleet and elsewhere are working the heavy equipment and rebuilding roads and infrastructure alongside locals.  The school, relatively unscathed inside, is housing everyone but the National Guard.  The playground, inundated with sewage and spilled diesel fuel has been condemned indefinitely until samples can be evaluated and the toxic ground replaced.  Kids take off boots at the door and put them in plastic bags to avoid bringing contaminants into the flooring.  Some teacher housing is unlivable, so the principal and his wife are sleeping in the library until their polluted, asbestos tiled floors can be replaced by a hazmat team.

The little store across the street was well-stocked and Heidi was friendly.  The students and staff at the school were welcoming and business as usual.  

Why people live here....twilight in Golovin.

 

Huslia in September

"Way up in Alaska wherever you are

If you're headed out close or you're headed out far

When you go to the airport, you may need your knitting

For you'll only be flying, weather permitting"

I left Fairbanks and clear weather on Wednesday, but when we stopped in Galena, the pilot let us know we were on weather-hold.  There was fog on the river.  We waited and I chatted it up with Vivian from Huslia.  I grabbed a free, take one, book by Sue Grafton and drank coffee from a styrofoam cup.  Eventually we left, about 2 hours delayed.

Huslia is known for dog mushing.  It waned for awhile and now it's revived somewhat and young people are getting involved.  There are annual races here and in nearby Galena.  I understand there are about 5 dog yards.  George Attla put Huslia on the map in a manner of speaking, but the Huntington brothers, authors and characters, also made Huslia famous.

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The Koyukuk River intersects the Huslia River nearby and they are tributaries to the Yukon.  The river is a road in the winter but proximity causes major flooding in breakup in the Spring so the old log houses huddled near the river are being relocated.  Also, the fishing has been really restricted in the past few summers.  Moose hunting was happening when I was there and folks were getting their moose.  Local foods are really important in this subsistence village.  

The Mercantile and the Bifelt store were both closed when I was there.  Locals can call for it to be open to them, but I wasn't there long enough and I was mostly just curious since I brought my own food.

Wright Air didn't come in Thursday as scheduled because their pilots timed out for the day and the month.  I was bummed because the weather was great.  I suspect their pilots timed out on expensive charters to go hunting and left the rest of us flightless, much like the emu.  Courtney made my day by making me a mango smoothie.  When she was cutting meat early the next day, her dad brought me the prepaid mocha to the school.  Courtney and Curtis, you're the best!

The Jimmy Huntington School, home of the Huslers, is a wonderful place.  I liked the lavish artwork and welcoming fishbowl.  This wall of Elders is only one of the walls of art, done with 1% for Art on public buildings.

Shoutout to Keely who went with me, and her dog Silna, on a great walk of discovery.    Scenes from around town include Main St., the log cabin Post Office,  an outhouse in the middle of the woods, and views from our walk.  

 


                                         

     

More from Huslia in the future.