Sourdough suggested I take a look at this thread. I think he's pretty accurately covered the fuel issue. There is some controversy over it in that some people claim there really isn't a fuel crisis in Nome - but there are always nay-sayers. Like he said, some villages farther in-land are truly in a fuel crisis by the extra tough temps this year. We've had a lot of relatively easy winters which may have lulled folks into ordering less - especially since its gotten so ferociously expensive ($10 /gal or more some places). If you do a search on the fuel crisis you'll also find that some rivers have gotten much shallower and villages once served by barges can't get the service any more - and we sure aren't going to be dredging those places.
What do villagers do for income? Big variety - there's quite a bit of govt related funding for clinics, schools, post offices, airports, water treatment/ sewage, maintenance or new construction of the above. Now days most villages have some sort of Tribal government doing a wide variety of stuff - it can be confusing with Tribal Goverments, Village government, Indian Reorganzation Act governments, and Native Corporation governments. It gets so complicated some villages have consolidated all the functions in one way or another, or one of the above groups does most of the work and the others are relatively low key with arrangements with the lead group. A few work for the air taxi companies as station managers, a few are pilots. Quite a few villages are near some sort of federal conservation unit ( park or refuge) and there is some employment there. A lot of interior villagers work as fire fighters in the summer going all over the state and lower 48. A lot fish commercially to some extent - farther north the less there is usually. If they live near enough to the coast they may be qualified to work on Bering Sea trawlers in what is called the Community Development Quota - which is usually leased to the big company boats for a share of the catch and the guarantee of hiring a certain number of locals - its been a huge boost to the village cooperatives an individuals who are willing to do the work. A few villagers trap, fewer still may guide, some work on the barges and freight companies. Many many hunt, fish and gather wild food. Many are known to drop any job to do their subsistence - they are hard wired to go for the traditional - sure thing for food - or work only long enough to buy enough gas or a snogo, boat, motor - for a lot out here priorities are just way different than most of the U.S. There can be lots of turnover in the lower paying jobs - almost job sharing in some cases - and many many folks have temporary work and do not work full time all year long. In some villages there are very very few jobs and yes they get public assistance in all its various forms, as well as collecting the State permanent fund dividend.
Sounds to me that Roger has more experience than I with some truly traditional living in the "dugout" or farther south called a Bara'bara. They really were excellent housing for the country, but were terrible when Tuberculosis, flu, and the other diseases got introduced. Also I've heard those underground houses always had "company" in the form of little burrowing critters - voles, shrews and such. Also with the warming, those dugouts don't work so good when it rains in winter - something unknown or very rare 100 years ago.
The newer homes are getting better but its taken a long time to figure out how to do it right - and doing it right is extremely expensive. And the govt supplied housing was often lowest bidder junk prefabbed in the lower 48 then even more poorly assembled on site leaving the folks with terrible conditions. Add to that many didn't know how or couldn't afford to use or properly maintain so they deteriorated quickly. There are classes offered now and programs to oversee maintenance /upgrades. I had one friend who insisted HUD come out and train and hire locals to build from the ground up so the folks had more buy-in and more know-how to take care of their stuff. In that village it really worked well - but then my friend kind of lorded it over most other residents and ordered them around. I teased him that he really couldn't be emperor of the village - but he was one HARD worker. Sadly he flew his plane into the ground in bad weather.
Well enough rambling. It was a shame that the late fall barge abandoned its effort so quickly in OCT as this same Coast Guard icebreaker was in the area and they might have been able to work something out far earlier and before near as much ice was made. But we did have a LOT of big nasty storms all fall.
One thing I keep thinking is that if these 2 ships built for ice have this much trouble this early in the winter, how the heck will these oil companies operate much farther north where there's lots more old thick ice for a lot longer every winter? While I'm not in the greeny skreech and holler camp on the Chuckchi Sea oil leases, I DO have some serious reservations as to how well Shell really can manage the conditions up there.
