Quinhagak, Alaska, USA

Quinhagak: Adventure Travel in Alaska

In this day and age, humans are hard-pressed to actually find a place that is “away from it all.” But for the villages that dot the western coast of Alaska, “away from it all” is an exact description. Life is sharper and more real there. It is, in every sense of the word, rustic.

Fly to Bethel, Alaska, the hub of the western villages; hop on a tiny bush plane that seats six people including the pilot; fly for approximately 40 minutes over serpentine rivers and tributaries and a thousand ponds and arrive in Quinhagak. Seeing this village from the air, it is hard to believe that nearly 900 people live here. It is a small dot on the vast tundra. And yet, Quinhagak is one of the bigger villages on the Yukon-Kuskokwim River Delta.

There are a variety of ways to travel to the village; however, only the most intrepid choose any way but flying. In summertime one may boat there, traveling down the wide brown Kuskokwim River. In winter, when the tundra is solidly frozen, one may snowmachine there. (Anywhere else in the world, it will be a ‘snowmobile’. To Alaskans, this vehicle is a snowmachine.)

By far, the most common mode of transport in the villages is to fly. The airport in Quinhagak is one building and a gravel strip, lined with lights and completed by a windsock. There is a sign to welcome visitors, and a winding gravel road runs past the blue-painted K-12 school and into the heart of the village.

Quinhagak boasts a larger grocery store than most might expect; the first floor of Qanirtuuq, Inc. sells groceries and nonperishables, and the second floor sells basic clothing, household items and snow gear. There is a hardware store adjacent to the grocery store. Both are painted a bright cheery red that in the wintertime stands out against the crisp white snow.

Travel a little further down the main road and there is a post office combined with the offices of the NVK, Quinhagak’s village council. In the evenings, after Qanirtuuq closes, there are DVD rentals at Video Mania, a tiny store that sells soda pop and snacks. There is also the AC (standing for Annie and Carl, the owners), which sells a few groceries and toiletry items.

Most days one may take a stroll down the streets and see village dogs trotting about, children playing together, and four-wheelers or snowmachines driving back and forth. The constant tundra wind sets a backdrop for village noise. The guttural lisping of Yupik is a common sound; it is the primary language for most village adults. Yupik people are friendly, constantly smiling and joking. The air smells like smoked fish and wood being burned in a maqi, the Yupik steam house.

Summertime in the village is full of life. The fishing cannery at the far end of the village, situated on the mouth of the river, employs hundreds of migratory workers each summer. The population of the village is estimated to nearly double every year in the first part of June, when fishing season begins. Strunk’s Kuvvaq, a coffee shop, opens and sells mochas and lattes. Local flora flourishes. Daylight lasts from the small hours of the morning until well past midnight. Undoubtedly, summer is the prime time to visit the village.

Quinhagak homes and buildings sit on stilts to keep them above the ground. This is to prevent permafrost and the rippling tundra from breaking up foundations and also to keep residents dry during the small and common spring floods. Electricity is one convenience that the village has, but running water and indoor plumbing are luxuries. Only a handful of homes have one or both of these, and there are plans to provide a sewage system for the village beginning in 2010, but for now the village implements the “honey bucket system,” just another factor that sets Quinhagak a world apart from the rest of the United States.

These so-called honey buckets are used in place of a flush toilet (in communities where there is no water-borne sewage system because the permafrost makes the installation of outhouses or septic systems impractical). The bucket is placed under a wooden frame affixed with a toilet seat lid. It is typically emptied once a day for large families or once a week for smaller families (or when it becomes full or smelly), by carrying it to a nearby honey bucket well or hopper or to a sewage waste dumping location. Honey buckets get their name from the five-gallon (19 liter) buckets that were once used as containers for honey. These buckets are the same type of plastic buckets that are used to store paints and cleaners.

Quinhagak is a hunter’s and fisherman’s paradise. The Kanektok River, easily accessible from a riverbank road and boat launch, is one of the top fishing rivers in Alaska and is full of salmon, trout, and other types of fish. The tundra is home to many types of animals, such as grizzly bear, moose, caribou, wolf, fox, birds and waterfowl, beaver, rabbit and a variety of rodents. Hunting tags and fishing licenses may be obtained at the village store. There are also a number of guide services that boat the Kanektok in summer and make hunting trips.

The fishing cannery offers dormitories for its workers, which are often residents of other villages in Quinhagak for the summer. Aside from that, options for housing during a visit to the village come down to whether one knows a villager to stay with. Quinhagak offers no hotels or hostels as of yet, but there are miles of open tundra, soft and mossy, for tent camping – if one does not mind sharing space with the abundant wildlife in the area.

The native villagers are allowed subsistence hunting year-round and fishing is a constant activity for most. In summer, many pick berries and gather “mouse food,” a harvesting of the plant roots and shoots that mice have gathered and stored for winter. Mouse food is often put into soups or akutak, the Eskimo equivalent of ice cream that is a mixture of shortening, berries and sugar. Salmon eggs may also be added. Nature’s bounty is gathered and brought home to be washed, plucked, cleaned, cut up and either cooked or canned or frozen for future eating. Plants and wildlife on the tundra are bountiful, and unlike most remaining North American wilderness, the Kuskokwim Delta is essentially as untouched as it was a hundred years ago.

Whether one is drawn by the plentiful fishing and hunting, craves the excitement and fascination of another culture or simply wants to get away from it all, Quinhagak is quite the destination for an Alaskan adventure. It promises a retreat like none other.

About the Author

Lynsey Hostetter grew up in Alaska and has lived in Quinhagak for three years. She has an insatiable love for any type of literature, and as a child was scolded for reading books at the table. Lynsey lives in the village with her schoolteacher husband, ten-month old daughter, and two dogs.