Greg Kim, KYUK - Bethel
After 20-year wait, Newtok residents leave home to pioneer Mertarvik
How are you supposed to feel when you’ve left your home, your family, and your friends to pioneer a brand new village? Mertarvik residents say that it’s complicated.
Newtok moves first families into new homes in Mertarvik
Throughout this month, over 130 people from Newtok — roughly a third of the village — will cross the Ninglick River to pioneer Mertarvik, their new home.
How do police enforce bootlegging laws under local option?
With Bethel voting to enter local option alcohol regulation, bootlegging becomes a felony.
Bethel limits alcohol, rejects pot restrictions, reopening public debate about addiction
Bethel is likely returning to damp status. Unofficial results from the election earlier this week show Bethel re-entering local option for alcohol sales. Under local option, voters have chosen to make furnishing alcohol to someone under age 21 a felony. In the same election, voters rejected entering marijuana local option and cast ballots for Bethel City Council candidates, favoring the challengers over the incumbents.
Crooked Creek receives $16M to rebuild runway
The longer, lighted runway has been in the works for more than a decade.
Running water is coming to all of Lower Kalskag
For residents, the infrastructure expansion means better health outcomes, less time spent hauling water and more time doing other things — like moose hunting.
Dealing with erosion is complicated. Who can help?
Navigating a web of bureaucracy is one of the biggest challenges eroding communities face when pursuing relocation. Here's how Akiak's handling it.
Bethel community gathers to remember beloved teacher Sophie Alexie
The community of Bethel lost one of its most beloved teachers of Yup’ik language and culture when Sophie Alexie passed away on Aug. 6. Community members gathered for a potluck in Bethel on Aug. 19 to celebrate her life.
Students in Mertarvik will go to school in evacuation center
This school year, some students in Newtok will leave behind most of their friends. In October, 21 families from Newtok will relocate to their new village, Mertarvik, and kids in those families will have to transfer schools.
Newtok partners with military to escape coastal erosion
Newtok is the nation’s first community to relocate due to climate change, and the military is lending a hand. U.S. troops are working side by side with Newtok residents to build new homes.
Newtok’s infrastructure erodes like the ground below it
The village of Newtok has been waiting over two decades to move to its new home in Mertarvik. As they’ve waited, their public health infrastructure has eroded like the ground beneath the village.
Celebrating Nick Phillips’ 30 years of delivering water to Bethel residents
Tom Phillips detaches a big blue hose from the back of his truck and drags it around a house to the water tank in the back. Then Phillips waits, anywhere from three to 10 minutes depending on the size of the tank.
Amid PCE issues, what Y-K Delta residents can expect electric bills to look like
Starting this month, people in rural Alaska will pay the high cost of electricity without any state subsidy. But that could still change.
Homes near Akiak’s eroded riverbank need to move, but some people choose to stay
Akiak lost a mile-long stretch of riverbank to erosion last month. Six houses are now within 100 feet of the riverbank and need to be moved as soon as possible, but some people don’t want to move.
Fishing regulations on the Kuskokwim: Do they restrict Yup’ik culture or preserve it?
The Kuskokwim River has now had three fishing openings for drift gillnets, but many people in Akiak are not happy. KYUK went fishing with the mayor of Akiak to find out more about why people’s nets aren’t as full as they want them.
Work begins on new site for village of Newtok
The Air Force and the Marines started work on Tuesday, helping to construct the new site for the village of Newtok.
Searchers work to recover Napaskiak man who drowned in Kuskokwim River
Paul Kaganak fell into the Kuskokwim River two Saturdays ago. Since then, dozens of men and women from Scammon Bay to Akiachak have volunteered to drag the river to find him.
Kipnuk celebrates life of late high school basketball star Keoni Aliralria at graduation
In Kipnuk, seniors finished on May 10, concluding a difficult school year in which senior basketball star Keoni Aliralria passed away from cancer. At graduation, diplomas were awarded to all the graduates, including Aliralria.
Akiak loses a mile of riverbank to erosion
People in Akiak woke up on Monday to find their smokehouses in the river. Massive erosion along the riverbank had eaten those structures earlier that morning.
Marijuana Control Board approves Bethel pot shop with delegation
Bethel is now only weeks away from its first marijuana store. The state Marijuana Control Board approved the license for ALASKAbuds "with delegation." That means it’s approved with a condition, the condition being state fire...