John 12:24 "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit."
Walt Audi came to Alaska in 1962 “to see what was possible,” as he says, and discovered all he wanted. By 1964, he was living above the 70th parallel north, and has continued to serve the people of northern Alaska ever since.
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| Walt Audi on a bright summer day on the North Slope on June 25, 1997, more than 30 years after coming to Kaktovik. Courtesy the Audi family |
“If I was going to write a book about my life, I’d entitle it ‘Fifty Years Above 70 North,’” Audi says with a chuckle.
... In February of 1964, after several other trips to Alaska, Audi came back north with a pickup pulling a mobile home trailer that was supposed to become the first Alaska home of Audi and his wife, Merilyn. On the way, the trailer went into the ditch on an icy stretch and Audi had to leave it in Canada.
... In June of 1964, he was offered a job doing maintenance on the Distance Early Warning line out of Barter Island. It was a 30-day temporary job, doing repairs and work on the fiberglass of the big domes. The DEW line consisted of 63 radar stations extending over 6,200 miles across the Arctic, from Western Alaska to Baffin Island in northeastern Canada.
Audi quickly realized that the only way to travel in the Far North was by aircraft.
On the trips across the North, Audi enjoyed the stories of the pilots. The reality of being isolated in the Arctic was that only pilots could come and go as they pleased. Everyone else couldn’t do anything or go anywhere. That reality made him hungry to fly.
Rash of bear break-ins hits Northwest Alaska cabins
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| This photo & several others are found with the linked article. |
Northwest Alaska is having a cabin break-in problem. But in a twist, the issue isn’t troublemaking teenagers; it’s curious bears looking to find their next treat.
“Dozens and dozens” of cabins all across the region have been ransacked by bears this summer, according to Alaska Department of Fish and Game Kotzebue area wildlife biologist Jim Dau.
From Selawik to Sheshalik, to Noorvik, Kiana and Ambler, residents are reporting their remote cabins have been raided by roaming brown bears. While bear break-ins in the region are not uncommon (last year there were about a dozen) Dau said he’s hearing of more -- and more widespread -- than usual.
The uptick in break-ins appears to be related to several factors. Dau said anecdotally the brown bear population in Northwest Alaska appears to be rising. Berries aren’t great in the region this year and Dau said that’s forcing bears toward chum salmon-heavy waterways, including rivers and the coast. That’s also where most people have subsistence use cabins.
"There's a nanuq outside!" Kaktovik woman chases polar bear from tent
Coffee warmed on the smokehouse stove as Marie Rexford, 51, began pulling on her socks to start the day.
... One sock on, one sock off, something made Marie look over her shoulder.
That's when she saw the outline of a paw pressed against the thick canvas tent, said Marie's daughter, Flora Rexford, recounting the scene. A polar bear was trying to shove and nose its way inside.
"There's a nanuq outside!” Marie cried. She reached for the rifle her son had brought to the windy shoreside camp the night before.
... Marie, who is about 5 feet tall, stalked around the tent. "Where are you, bear?!" she shouted.
Startled, the animal began to walk toward the ocean.
“You better get out of here. If you come back, I’m going to shoot you,” Marie told the bear, according to her daughter. The more Marie talked, the faster the bear moved.
“She has kind of a scary voice,” the younger Rexford said in a phone interview.
Rural Woman in Labor Assisted by Multiple Agencies
Department of Military and Veterans Affairs
In a multiple agency effort, a Nulato woman experiencing early labor symptoms was transported to Anchorage for emergency care, despite bad weather, aircraft issues, and the rural location of the village.
According to Senior Master Sgt. Rob Carte, the Alaska Rescue Coordination Center was contacted by LifeMed at 7:45 a.m. Monday about a Nulato woman who was 25 weeks pregnant with twins and experiencing early labor symptoms. LifeMed was unable to reach the village due to bad weather.
“The combination of our HC-130 and HH-60 rescue teams can often get into locations in Alaska where other aircraft cannot due to bad weather,” Carte explained. “With Forward Looking Infrared Radar technology and highly experienced aircrews, the Air National Guard is often the most technologically advanced search and rescue organization in the state.”
The two aircraft team was unable to reach Nulato, however. Midway into the mission, the helicopter encountered a mechanical issue, and the HC-130 plane was unable to land at the airport due to the condition of the gravel runway.
“Ultimately, we turned to the Bureau of Land Management’s Alaska Fire Service for help,” Carte said. “The nearest military helicopter was in Nome, so the BLM airplane was much closer.”
The crew from the HC-130 accompanied crew of the new plane, contracted from Suburban Air in Galena. They were finally able to reach Nulato and began treating the woman at 1:30 p.m.
The Nabesna Ranger District of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve is an easy place to get lost. Sprawling east from Alaska's Richardson Highway across big river valleys, brushy hillsides and the desolate Nutzotin Mountains all the way to the U.S. border with Canada, the district covers 5 million acres, an area almost twice the size of Yellowstone National Park.
Along the district’s northeastern border, lonely Alaska Highway 1 runs for 125 miles east from a backwoods gas station and convenience store at Gakona Junction to join the Alaska Highway in the comparative metropolis of Tok, population 1,258. Another 145 miles south from there along the Alaska Highway, the only road connecting the 49th state to the rest of the country crosses the White River, so named for the color of the massive load of sediment it moves north from the heart of the Wrangell-St. Elias Park and Preserve past the northern edge of Canada's Kluane National Park and Reserve on the way to the Yukon River.
...Spread across almost 38,000 square miles of mountaintops, glacier ice, forests and slopes thick with brush, the Kluane/Wrangell-St. Elias/Glacier Bay/Tatshenshini-Alsek World Heritage Site is larger than the state of Maine and far wilder.
Far, far wilder.
Nobody knows for sure how many people have gone into the wild here and never come out.
The Cessna 208 which crashed near St. Mary's, Alaska
Clifford Dalton has been a paramedic for more than 20 years.
Dalton said he has taken part in hundreds of medical evacuations in the Bethel region, but what he saw in the wake of a fatal crash near Mountain Village last week was unique.
A federal agency this week announced nearly $29 million will be spent to plan, build and upgrade water and sewer systems in 16 Alaska villages over the next several years.The Department of Agriculture, providing plumbing? Huh. Okay, whatever; it's desperately needed, regardless of where it comes from.
A majority of the money will be spent on plumbing for 123 village homes where residents currently use honey buckets as toilets and collect rainwater to drink, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The USDA is providing the grants.
Plumbing for those homes -- in Kwethluk, Toksook Bay, Eek and Lower Kalskag -- will be paid for with about $21.9 million funneled through the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, the USDA said. The projects are expected to be completed by 2015.
Despite decades of vows by state leaders to rid village homes of honey buckets, a lack of flush toilets and running water remains a costly health concern in many Alaska communities. A 2010 Centers for Disease Control study revealed strong links between high rates of potentially life-threatening diseases such as pneumonia and meningitis and a lack of indoor plumbing.
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