Port Alsworth

So I met a girl the other day from Port Alsworth. I was sitting next to her at a training session. She works for the National Parks Service. Nice girl...

Port Alsworth is on Lake Clark on the other side of the Alaska Range. There are no roads there. The only way to get there is via small plane (or LONG dogsled trip in the winter). In the winter, the population shrinks to about 100 or less. Many of the adult men work as pilots. Lake Clark is very large and makes a great water or ice airfield, depending on the time of year.

The village of Port Alsworth was mentioned in that book I read recently called "One Man's Wilderness". It was from Port Alsworth that the "one man" received supplies and mail via his pilot friend, Babe (a fella), who lived there.

Anyway, I asked the girl I met to tell me about life in Port Alsworth. I'm pretty sure she's an Alaska Native. She grew up near a lake south of Lake Clark, so is very familiar with the area and lifestyle. She graduated from a school with a total enrollment of 60 kids in grades k-12.

Many of the folks in that region live a "subsistence" lifestyle, which means they live off the land, for the most part. During the non-summer months, fresh fruits and veggies are a little more difficult to get. Many people have them flown in from Costco or some other vendor on a monthly basis. She's been a member of an organic farm co-op in Washington state which ships boxes of whatever the current harvest is to a drop point in Anchorage once a month. The boxes meant for Port Alsworth are then picked up by one of it's pilot residents and flown to the village.

They keep pretty busy during the winter months with many church activities and community gatherings. They also like to do a lot of snowmachining. However, last year it was really cold, but they didn't have a lot of snow. No snow in these areas during the winter is pretty confining as far as travel is concerned. This goes for most of Alaska off the road system. If there's no snow, you can't run your snowmachine or your dog team. Many places in Alaska are only accessible in the winter when the wet, marshy areas are frozen and can be traveled over using snowmachines or dogsleds... A lack of snow is a big problem.