Real time Balto sequel

think they're still in talks with them. I sure hope they open the road or build another one around it before it freezes. Council Member Kepple and his stupid idea about opening up the "donut hole" is getting old. The city just doesn't have any money for that now. They need to resolve this Tundra Ridge problem first. Don't forget to register to vote so we won't end up with him again and get a new bunch of people in there. Get rid of Thor, Jorgenson, and Leinberger. These three argue way too much and make the meetings long and not interesting.

Well now we are in court over the matter of the road to the airport that is needed to medicine and personal to and from the airport.

And city council put in a new councilmen ...

The airport ranks third in the state for total number of flights. It offers a 6,400 foot asphalt runway, a 4,000 foot asphalt runway, and 1,850 foot gravel crosswind runway, and is currently undergoing a $7 million renovation and expansion. Three float plane bases are nearby:

The port of bethel is the northernmost medium-draft port in the United States. River travel is the primary means of local transportation in the summer. A Bethel-based barge services.

Within Bethel are approximately 16 miles (26 km) of roads that are not connected to any contiguous highway system. Winter ice roads lead to several nearby villages, but their condition varies depending on temperature and snowfall. An extensive network of snow machine trails connects Bethel to villages all over the Delta, from the Bering Sea to the Yukon.

The town's single paved road, about 10 miles, supports a taxicab industry. With 93 taxi drivers, the town has more cab drivers per capita than any other city in the US. Most local cab drivers are Albanian or South Korean immigrants.

Bethel is home to the lone detention center in southwestern Alaska, the Yukon Kuskokwim Correction Center. This prison has a capacity of 207 inmates, men and women, and a staff of 45

Everts a cargo. Has a scheduled delivery route to bethel alaska and works with the DoD and chartered flights. 

Source.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everts_Air_Cargo.

Sled dog race....

Kusko 300", or "K-300", the race has been held every January since 1980, and commemorates an early mail route that once tied the settlements along the river to the outside world. Top mushers and hundreds of sled dogs participate in the race for a purse of $100,000, the largest offered by any 300-mile (480 km) sled dog race.

The race is renowned for its often difficult weather and trail conditions. The inaugural race saw a fierce blizzard with dangerously low windchills for the first half of the race, followed by a freak thaw and rain for the latter half. Three separate K-300s (1991, 1999, 2008) earned the nickname "Kusko-Swim", due to strong winds, rain, and deep overflow on top of the river ice.

Sled dog race is still a possibility. 

We're pleased to announce a tentative schedule for the first K300 Race Committee events of the season. The "Season Opener" is slated for Saturday, December 12th with the "Holiday Classic" to follow the next weekend, on Saturday, December 19th.

Race fans are likely to remember that our local race schedule is flexible and subject to change based on weather and trail conditions. Stay tuned for updates.

Mushers and spectators alike should expect strict enforcement covid-19 safety measures. Details concerning modifications to our usual program for local races will be published closer to race time, along with trail details

State design for tundra road property  aka polks driveway.

The Contractor shall provide professional engineering design services for the Tundra Ridge Road MP 0 to 1 Rehabilitation Project. Design services include: kick-off meeting and field review; environmental support activities; surveying services; hydrologic and hydraulic report; design study report; erosion and sediment control plan; plans, specifications, and estimates; and assistance during bidding.

A complete description of services is contained in the RFP Package.  Estimated period for performance of the Agreement is approximately May 2020 to December 2022.  Cost of these professional services is expected to be in the range of $250,000 to $500,000.

The Request for Proposals (RFP) Package will be available March 11, 2020 and may be obtained in person from the DOT&PF plans room at 4111 Aviation Avenue, Anchorage, AK prior to 4:00 p.m. Persons residing outside the vicinity may obtain an RFP Package through the mail by telephoning (907) 269-0408.

Proposals must conform to the RFP and be submitted with specified forms.  Submittals must be received no later than April 1, 2020 at 4:00 p.m. prevailing time.

Individuals with disabilities, including the hearing impaired, who may need auxiliary aids, services, and/or special modifications to submit a proposal should contact the TTD number: (907) 269-0473, no later than one week prior to the submittal date to make any necessary arrangements.

A downloadable version of the RFP Package will be available 

Source.

https://aws.state.ak.us/OnlinePublicNotices/Notices/View.aspx?id=197432

With COVID-19 cases crowding into hospitals, people are being asked to delay other medical procedures if possible. Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation Chief of Staff Dr. Ellen Hodges advised people to take advantage of telemedicine connections to Anchorage in order to potentially avoid traveling for medical care.

“Encouraging our patients to keep as many telehealth visits as they possibly can. And we do appreciate the cooperation from Dr. Onders and the specialists at ANMC to really pivot to doing visits by phone or by video for the people in our outlying areas who have trouble traveling. But ultimately consulting with the community health aide and with the providers here in Bethel, we can help make that decision about what’s worthwhile to travel,” said Hodges.

Despite the growing number of COVID-19 cases in the region, Hodges said that at this point, there are enough supplies at both the Bethel hospital and local village clinics for treating patients.

“We have been getting enough of the medications that we use to treat hospitalized inpatients for COVID," said Hodges. "Primarily our dexamethasone, which is a steroid that is useful in the treatment of hospitalized COVID patients, and remdesdivir, which is an IV medication. As far as the villages and oxygen supplies, we work with each village on a daily and weekly basis to make sure they have enough oxygen cylinders.”

Hodges said that that each village has a machine to concentrate oxygen that handles the needs of most patients. Oxygen tanks are flown out for those who need more oxygen than the machines can provide.

The Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region has some of the highest COVID-19 case rates in the country.

Same old sameold. From 1985...

If one dares to live in Tundra Ridge, one can become a captive at seasons other than winter. May 1 was my goodbye to winter this year, but I did not know it then. As on so many other nights, I was skiing around 11 p.m. into the two setting midnight suns, uncertain which of the fireballs was the mirage -- the upper or the lower. The horizon was bleeding into the snow and hundreds of white ptarmigans enjoyed themselves as much as I did in an all-golden, truly spectacular tundra night. Ten days later what was once white, hard and beautiful had turned into knee-deep mud. Road signs announced Tundra Ridge "closed." No school buses came, no water trucks. My car was sunk tire deep in the mire. My lane in Tundra Ridge had frightening gaps, and all the melting water was happily skipping and rushing through those cavities, digging into them even deeper.

Source  https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/magazine/1985/11/17/at-the-edge-of-survival/4e9ee439-2bbb-4a6f-bc8f-809021111b92/

Most Eskimos from the outlying villages do not like this strange conglomeration called Bethel. This is a white man's miracle and his way of surviving. It does not fit in with the Eskimo ethic and it is the white man's miracles that have created a confusion in these people that is undoing them.

Yet, as most villages have only one small store, the availability in Bethel of three modestly sized, amazingly complete supermarkets with some department store features is quite phenomenal. Considering that there are no farms in all of western Alaska, and each potato, each onion, and each egg has to be flown in, one is willing to pay $1 per potato or cellophane-wrapped lemon. If you need a gun or a box of condoms, they are here too, not far from the lemons.

Besides having its own TV and radio station, the town boasts a tiny but charming museum, a community college and a good library. A hospital, which looks like a yellow submarine, and a brand new $5 million prison complete the picture

Dr. Margret Berendes, MD, practices Psychiatry in Telluride, CO. Dr. Berendes received her medical degree from Fried-Wilhelms Univ Med Fac, Berlin, Berlin, Germany.

Specialty: Psychiatry

Years experience  75.

Dr. Margret Berendes, MD attended medical school at Fried-Wilhelms Univ Med Fac, Berlin, Berlin, Germany.

2017 ...  Thirdly, a road around H-Marker Lake is desperately needed. This request is in the amount of $1,820,752. The community of Bethel has been severely hampered by the closure of Tundra Ridge Road in 2008 because it broke the circuit and causing all traffic to flow in a “U” pattern from the State Highway to Ptarmigan Street.

2008..... 1985....    

Property value for a raised shack in a third of an acre... 120,000...

Source. https://www.maddenrealestate.com/property/352-tundra-street-bethel-ak-99559/pid-13139643/

Earl Polk worked with film Producers to produce.

A feel we breath again.

Description.

Rarely heard of 40 years ago, suicide among Alaska Native peoples is now a silent epidemic — 3.5 times higher than the national average — and affecting Alaska Native men between the ages of 15-24 at the highest rate in the country. Alaska's rate of alcohol-related deaths is more than double the rest of the nation, with Alaska Natives accounting for half of those deaths.

For centuries Alaska Native peoples survived the harsh conditions of life in the far north while their social, cultural, and spiritual practices thrived. In the 1700’s the battle to claim Alaska and its peoples began, first with Russia and then the United States, setting into motion disruptive changes for Alaska’s first peoples. The painful scars from colonization continue to cycle from one generation to the next. Faced with heartbreaking challenges, Alaska Native communities are striving to recover and regain balance.

In a landscape as dramatic as its stories, We Breathe Again intimately explores the lives of five Alaska Native people, each confronting the impacts of historic and contemporary trauma. Reflected in the northern lights and the city streetlights, from the ice roads to the asphalt, the characters battle for personal healing, hoping to break new trail for their families and their communities to follow.

Source.

https://itvs.org/films/we-breathe-again

Earl was born on July 7, 1925 and passed away on Thursday, August 15, 2013.

Earl was a resident of Bethel, Alaska.

Legality of land claim dates to 1982 Indian land settlement.

the Indian Claims Limitation Act of 1982, it is a Federal Law applying to Indian Lands, including Alaska. What if I were to pay you $200 to take a look at a letter to Rose Brady in the Anchorage office of Bureau of Indian Affairs - Realty Division - asking "Has the time limitation clock started running on the Tundra Ridge Road which is trespassing on the Lucy Polk Native Allotment in Bethel AK, per the the Indian Claims Limitation Act of 1982? If the closk has started, when did it start?" and send it, relaying the response to Earl Polk in Bethel AK and myself?

That is the question we really need answered.

Land dispute continues.

This is a very interesting issue, here is an excerpt of a letter we just sent to a tribal leader that recapps briefly what has happend. Complicating things further is the fact that the BIA probably wold not respond to an attorney representing us asking the above question, they would have to ask on behalf of the Poke family. There are other complications, one being that when the state interveined they only offered 5 cents on the dollar for the value of the land, as determined by what the state paid for right of way less than an inch away. We will continue to look for options. dale

"As you know, for some time Martha has been attempting to purchase some property near Tundra Ridge from the heirs of Nicholas Charles. In 2003 we were informed that we were at a point in the process where it was necessary to pay the purchase price to the BIA, and we did that. We were told Martha would receive restricted title in about two months. Seven years have passed with no apparent progress. Shortly after we paid the BIA we learned of the Tundra Ridge Road right of way problem. This has apparently been the main problem. Long ago we reached a point of despair, though these problems have no reason to be beyond resolution. For these past seven years the Charles family has been effectively denied their own land. Once the Tundra Ridge Road was closed all of Bethel was denied an important thoroughfare. We have been denied the use of our money and effectively denied the use of our land in Tundra Ridge as we have been unable to obtain road access to it.

We have been completely frustrated in our communications with the BIA. Five months ago they sent out an encouraging letter, but nothing has happened and they have not responded to our last two letters asking where things stand and what is there that can be done. Apparently the City of Bethel has agreed to stay out of the right of way issue and let the state handle it. ONC Realty (the tribe) did all they could from when we started this process in 1999 until they closed their office. We suspect frustration with the BIA played a part in that. Then too, it may not be in ONC's best interest to oppose the city, even though the property rights of two of their member families have been trampled in the right of way issue. " continued.

The hatred of tundra street goes deep.

  Significance: The process of acculturating Yupik Eskimos of Western Alaska to western culture became focused in Bethel, Alaska with the establishment there in 1885 of a Moravian mission. The Moravians, financially supported by the Federal Bureau of Education, initiated formal Western education in Bethel for Yupik children, and for most of the next twenty-five years maintained a boarding and day school. In the 1910's diminishing missionary support lead to the closure of the boarding school, with the Bureau of Education staffing the remaining day school with non-Moravian teachers. In 1931, the Bureau of Education's responsibilities for Yupik education were shifted to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, with separate facilities for Native education remaining until 1947. Thereafter, Yupik students were educated in integrated Alaska territorial schools with white children of the Bethel area. The last non-integrated facility used prior to 1947 for Yupik schooling was constructed coincidentally also in 1931 Though vacant in 1991 and transferred out of Federal ownership to the Bethel Native Corporation as part of a larger land exchange, the "Old BIA School" remained as an architecturally imposing symbol of a long tradition of educating local and regional Yupik children, including a philosophy of segregation predominant until the twentieth century. The school's appearance, as a two-story, modified hip-roofed, frame Cape Cod style building, with a dormer window from the second story below a cupola on top, made the structure architecturally significant within the community.

Source.Bureau of Indian Affairs School, Tundra Street, Bethel, Bethel Census Area, AK

As far as legal precedence on the department of interior and native tribes dealing with land seizures this agreement was reached in 2012.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today lauded the final approval of the Cobell settlement and outlined steps that Interior will take to help implement the historic $3.4 billion settlement. The settlement resolves a long-running class action lawsuit regarding the U.S. government's trust management and historical accounting of individual American Indian trust accounts. It became final on November 24, 2012, following action by the Supreme Court and expiration of the appeal period.

“With the settlement now final, we can put years of discord behind us and start a new chapter in our nation-to-nation relationship,” said Salazar. “Today marks another historic step forward in President Obama's agenda of reconciliation and empowerment for Indian Country and begins a new era of trust administration.”

The settlement includes a $1.5 billion fund to be distributed to class members for accounting and potential trust fund and asset mismanagement claims. The settlement also includes a $1.9 billion fund for a land consolidation program that allows for the voluntary sale of individual land interests that have “fractionated,” or split among owners, over successive generations. Fractionated land can have many owners – sometimes hundreds or more – diminishing the land's value and making it difficult for individuals to use the land for agriculture, business development, or housing from which tribes can benefit. Up to $60 million of the $1.9 billion fund may be set aside to provide scholarships for American Indians and Alaska Natives to attend college or vocational school.

“This marks the historic conclusion of a contentious and long running period of litigation,” said Hilary Tompkins, Solicitor for the Department of the Interior. “Through the hard work and good will of plaintiffs, Interior and Treasury officials and Department of Justice counsel, we are turning a new page and look forward to collaboratively working with Indian country to manage these important funds and assets.”

Payments to Claimants
The Claims Administrator will now begin overseeing disbursement of the $1.5 billion to nearly 500,000 class members. The court previously approved GCG, Inc., as the Claims Administrator. The Department of the Treasury will transfer the $1.5 billion to an account at JP Morgan Chase, a bank approved by the court. Per the terms of the settlement agreement, Interior's Office of the Special Trustee (OST) has assisted GCG with its database by supplying contact information of individual class members from its records.

“We will continue to work with GCG to ensure it has the information it needs to make expeditious and accurate payments,” Deputy Secretary of the Interior David J. Hayes said. “At the same time, we're focused on making meaningful improvements to our trust administration so that we're more transparent, responsive and accountable in managing these substantial funds and assets.”

Trust Land Consolidation Program
The Department of the Interior will use $1.9 billion from the Trust Land Consolidation Fund to acquire interests in trust and restricted lands that have “fractionated” over successive generations since the 1880s.

Individual owners will be paid fair market value for such interests with the understanding that the acquired interests will remain in trust and be consolidated for beneficial use by tribal communities. Interested sellers may convey their fractional interests on a voluntary basis. Currently, there are over 2.9 million fractional interests owned by approximately 220,000 individuals.

While the settlement was pending, Interior held a series of consultation meetings with tribes in 2011 to ensure that this landmark program incorporates tribal priorities and promotes tribal participation in reducing land fractionation in a timely and efficient way. These discussions informed a draft land consolidation plan released in February of 2012. Interior is incorporating public comments and expects to release an updated plan by the end of the year for additional consultation.

“The land consolidation program is our chance to begin to solve a fractionation problem that has plagued Indian country for decades,” said Interior Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Kevin K. Washburn. “We are anxious to get started. We know that Interior's continued outreach through consultations with Indian Country is a crucial component to accomplishing truly open government-to-government communication”

Congress approved the Cobell settlement on November 30, 2010 as part of the Claims Resolution Act of 2010. President Obama signed the legislation on December 8, 2010. The district court approved the Cobell settlement on August 4, 2011 and it has been upheld through the appeals .

All in a back drop of the biggest winter sport in Alaska sled dog racing.

A lady won the copper 150 this year...

https://www.copperdog150.com/