Bound for the Bush

So here's where I'm headed tomorrow morning. I'll be meeting up with two female accounting students from the University of Alaska and we'll board a medium sized plane (16-seater?) out of Anchorage to the village of Aniak. From there, we'll take a puddle jumper (4-6 seater) to the smaller village of Grayling. We'll spend one night there while the accounting girls prepare the taxes for the villagers. Saturday morning we'll take another little plane on a short hop to Holy Cross (pop. 200, 6 people more than Grayling). They'll have their taxes done. Sunday morning we'll return to Anchorage via Aniak, arriving in the mid-afternoon... weather permitting.

I'm excited for the trip. It'll be my first visit to the Alaskan bush. Both villages where we'll be staying are primarily Alaska Native. And although they are only about 40 miles up the Yukon River from one another, they are comprised of different tribes. But they are both varieties of Athabascan people.

Grayling has the added distinction of being on the northern route of the Iditarod Trail. So a month after I'm there, a multitude of dogs pulling sleds will pass through on their way to Nome.