Author: Emily Schwing

The first week of school in Aniak, Alaska. Alaska’s education department has transferred ownership of 54 buildings to rural public school districts since 2003, including Aniak’s elementary school. Gabby Hiestand Salgado/KYUK hide caption toggle caption Gabby Hiestand Salgado/KYUK For more than a decade, the Kuspuk School District asked Alaska’s education department for the money to fix a rotting elementary school. The school, in the small and predominantly Indigenous community of Aniak in western Alaska, was in deep need of repairs. The nearby Kuskokwim River had flooded the 88-year-old building several times. The walls were moldy. Sewage was leaking into a…

Emergency supplies fill the lobby of the Chief Paul Memorial School in Kipnuk, Alaska. Nearly 700 people sheltered there for two days after ex-Typhoon Halong. Eric Stone/Alaska Public Media hide caption toggle caption Eric Stone/Alaska Public Media On a Sunday morning last month, James Taq’ac Amik was huddled on a small bridge with his girlfriend. At 4 a.m., they had scrambled into an 18-foot aluminum motor boat, fleeing floodwaters from a massive storm surge that inundated Kipnuk, a village of 700 people in the heart of western Alaska’s sprawling Kuskokwim river delta. “I couldn’t make it up. I tried, but…