A trip back to rural Alaska

[FlightView]

I made a similar post a few years ago when I visited and so I thought I’d share again.

Yesterday I took a day trip to my family’s tribal village. This is where my grandfather and dad grew up. I spent summers here as a kid, while my dad flew planes and my mom commercially fished for salmon. Population is 62, though that seems optimistic. They currently don’t have a public school because there aren’t enough kids enrolled (must have 10).

Getting there - there are no connecting roads to anywhere, this isn’t an island but might as well be. I took a 9 passenger plane direct and it took 2 hours.

Getting back - I took a 6 seat plane to a bigger village and a 19 seat plane to Anchorage. Total time to return was 3.5 hours.

This time I’ll share pictures of home life. Fresh produce is not sold here, but they do have a store now, which they didn’t a few years ago. The Costco food was brought in by us to share. But as you can see there’s little to be refrigerated and most food items are canned/boxed. No toy stores around, so toys are few. It was 35F, windy.


Cousin in law found a whale bone


My cousin (beard) is having his caribou antlers loaded by the pilot.



My aunt’s spice cabinet



My cousin shot a ptarmigan and put it in the fridge to pluck later.


Fish pie - made with salmon, rice & veggies baked in a crust.


My uncle’s pantry


Kids’ toy pile

[Eagles]

These pics are so cool, thank you for sharing them! I absolutely love your aunt's spice jars and actually said "oh wow" when I saw the whale bone.

I'm glad you had a great visit. It must be hard to be apart due to logistics and time.

[goldenbird]

Thanks for sharing!

[piratecat]

Thank you for sharing. Those spice jars are amazing.

[FlightView]

At the airport, no Uber, Lyft or taxis here. The truck filled up so we hopped in the back. It was cold!



Some shelter when we were waiting for our planes to arrive.


One of the planes we flew in, a Beech King Air

[Sweetjane]

I remember when you did this before, thank you for sharing.
The whale bone! It's massive.

[kayc]

Thanks for sharing!! And omg to that whale bone!

[klw]

Very cool! What do the kids do for schooling?

[Pumpkinwest]

I remember your other post too. Love when you post photos and explain what it’s like back home ♥️♥️♥️

I really enjoy hearing about the culture, so thank you! 🥰

[Yogurt]

Thank you for sharing! I enjoyed the last ones so much as well, these are cool to see.

[spicysalmonroll]

This is so neat, like a whole other world!
I think I've heard on Jeopardy that Juneau is the only state capital that can't be driven to, is that right? Like even Honolulu you can drive to from neighboring towns and cities but Juneau you cannot.
That salmon pie sounds yummy.
I'm going on an Alaska cruise this June, which I know is insanely different from your village but I'm so excited!

[Wtfshouldmynamebe]

Those spice jars are so beautiful

[DGM]

This is amazing to see! Thanks for sharing.

[FlightView]

Apr 25, 2024 20:14:14 GMT -6 klw said:

Very cool! What do the kids do for schooling?

Thanks to the internet, they can homeschool online. They used to fly kids to a neighbor village with an open school.

Not sure what happens if a family can’t afford internet. Most residents are using starlink because it’s more reliable than other services.

[FlightView]

Apr 26, 2024 7:53:15 GMT -6 spicysalmonroll said:

This is so neat, like a whole other world!
I think I've heard on Jeopardy that Juneau is the only state capital that can't be driven to, is that right? Like even Honolulu you can drive to from neighboring towns and cities but Juneau you cannot.
That salmon pie sounds yummy.
I'm going on an Alaska cruise this June, which I know is insanely different from your village but I'm so excited!

Juneau is beautiful but can only be flown into. Something like 80% of communities here cannot be driven to. But during the winter people use the ice to travel between villages on snowmobiles. It can be dangerous and every year someone goes missing.

[FlightView]

Oh and I forgot I was going to tell y’all this.

So my cousins son (he’s like 20) had a backpack he left on his grandparents porch and it had some food in it.

Apparently the backpack went missing and they figured out one of the neighbors dogs took it and brought it back to his house 😂

[wedding]

Wow! This is wild! Thanks for sharing. We are also headed on cruise and land tour of Alaska in June and I can’t wait.