Dillingham fisherman. Photo courtesy of The Bristol Bay Times.
Wanda -“My name is Wanda Fulton and I am from Dillingham, AK. I kind of do odd-jobs in the community.”
Stephanie – “Um, my name is Stephanie McCumber. I am the fire[fighter] office assistant. I am currently living in Dillingham, and I am actually from Iowa.”
Wanda – “Dillingham looks like a fishing community. When you fly in, you notice the small boat harbor with boats in it in the summer and boats all along side of it in Peter Pan’s boat yard during the winter.”
Stephanie- “Um, we are located on the Bristol Bay in the Nushagak region. We’ve got a lovely bay in the front and we also got the Wood-Tikchik State Park, behind us, with mountains and lakes.”
Wanda- “Here in Dillingham, our big employers are probably the school district and Bristol Bay Area Health Corporation, with Kanakanak Hospital, and various government agencies like Fish and Game.”
Stephanie- “This is a fishing town um… a lot people fish in the summertime.”
Jackknife Mountain. Photo courtesy of Alaska’s Bearclaw Lodge.
Wanda- “Summertime’s are…kind be beautiful and can be very cold and rainy. And days like this year, where we’ve got sunshine, people like to go out hiking. The bike trail is just filled with people biking and moms pushing babies in their strollers and people love to berry pick.”
Wanda- “What I think is unique is how we’ve got… you know waters in the front bay; where you can go out salmon fishing. You also have access to mountains, in the back, so you can also go hiking or [go] boating in the lake if you like. You have a lot cabins up here, which are nice to have access to in the winter time, by snow machine.”
Wanda- “Right now mainly it’s the Pebble Mine, where they are trying to situate the Pebble Mine, the runoff waters would run into our region and that is upsetting a lot people who have ah…not only gowned-up and lived here, but to a lot of other people who come in and try to fish in our waters.”
