Next set of pics are from the Summer of 2011
My great grandmother taught in a small village along the peninsula in the 40s and 50s, her oldest son (my great uncle) fell in love with both flying AND a Native Alaskan girl and stayed to start an airline and a family. Both of which have greatly grown over the past 60 years. Her younger son (my grandpa) moved back to WA but always had a large spot for AK in his heart and when he passed away in late 2010 he wished to be buried up here out in the village.
Like many areas up here, it isn't accessible by roads. Air travel is a very common way to get around, but many of the villages and communities are small and limited in resources compared to the bigger cities like Anchorage. It takes two flights to get there, the airport in the village is a short gravel strip runway with a small building at one end. I want to say the biggest planes they can land up there seat around 9 people. There are around 70 people who live there currently and salmon fishing is the main source of income. They have no stores so all of their food, clothing, etc. are flown in (at the nearest town with a store, you can expect to pay around $10 a gallon for milk). There is a church and a small school as well, and possibly a post office.
I didn't get the building in the pic, but this is part of the runway:
A couple pictures of the village, the second is a pic of the old cannery:
You know you're in rural Alaska when...
On our way back to Anchorage we took a detour to fly by Mt. McKinley, the tallest mountain peak in North America. I took a bunch of pictures out the window:
Alaska range
Top of Mt. McKinley
Right before I had to put the camera down and grab the paper bag...
All in all a really fun trip to take though, not only to see where my family has such strong connections to but to see how life is away from the city! Anchorage is definitely small compared to Seattle but there are malls and buildings over 2 stories high, and busy roads with stoplights and many stores and restaurants found everywhere in America. Driving in town it often is no different than most cities, except maybe the moose crossing the roads at their own leisure from time to time ;-) Out in these small villages it is a completely different world!