In the third week of June, I made my first site visit to Napakiak (nuh-PAH-key-ack). Napakiak is a rural ALaskan community located in the Western region of Alaska along the Kuskokwim River. I first flew in to Bethel, which is a hub only about 15 miles northeast of the community. I took a small Cessna 207 that was packed full with 3 passengers, the pilot, all of our gear, and what looked like about a week’s worth of mail and packages. The plane ride over was a short 10 minutes, and we passed over the lagoon and marsh-like landscape, well below the clouds. Napakiak is a second class city, made up of about 356 people. It has a post office, two general stores, a fire department, a school, a clinic and organized tribal and city governments.
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