Service Site/Area

This is taken from a grant proposal from my organization that I'm reading to understand the area and project better.  It gives good insight to the area and what it's like, especially since I know that some of you can't wrap your head around how rural it is.  It's hard because it really doesn't exist in the Lower 48.

  I'll bold the "interesting" parts:

"The Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta (YK Delta) is a large area in soutwestern Alaska and represents one of the most remote regions in the continetal United States.  About the size of Illinois, the region encompasses over 57,000 square miles and is home to 25,000 people, primarily Native Alaskans of Yup'ik Eskimo descent.  They are the largest group of Alaska Natives to remain on their tradtional lands and have retained their language and culture to a high degree.  Many community and family activities are planned to coincide with the year-round semi-nomadic hunting, fishing and related seasonal subsistence practices.

The YK Delta is the service area of KuC [University of Alaska Fairbanks Kuskokwim Campus] and the target area for this project.  It encompasses 47 villages of the Wade Hampton and Bethel Census area (2010) with a combined population of approximately 25,000.  Villages in the region range in size from less than 50 to over 1,200 residents with an additional 6,000 people residing in Bethel, the commercial hub.  The YK Delta is considered "ultra rural" and consists largely of isolated wilderness; in fact, the second largest national wildlife refuge is nearly conterminous with the KuC service area.  Many amenities that are commonplace in the lower 48 [vocab word!] states, and even urban Alaska (e.g. running water, flush toilets, transportation infrastructure, adequate bandwidth for reliable Internet services), are unavailable in local villages.  There are no roads among the 47 communities or to the national road system.  Commercial travel is restricted to small bush planes with some personal travel via small boats during the summer and snow machines in the winter.

The majority of the local population participate in a mixed cash and subsistence-based economy utilizing hunting, fishing, gathering, barter and trade with few, primarily seasonal, wage jobs.  The Y-K delta region produces the highest per capita rates of wild foods- over 600 pounds compared to the statewide average of 375 pounds.  The decline in the local commercial fishing industry over the years has created substantial regional hardship to the point of federal and state economic disaster declarations...

...The cost of living in rural Alaska is also much higher than in the contiguous states due to a lack of transportation infrastructure, distance from major urban hubs, and a small marketplace.  All supplies and foodstuff must be flown in or barged in during the limited ice free summer season....This year [2011] it costs villagers more remotely situated over $400 for round trip airfare to Bethel; the year before the average round-trip airfare was $325.  Trips to Bethel generally are essential for such things as medical appointments and to get goods unavailable in samller communities."


Something to think about the next time you are sitting in traffic.