Back in Eek
Yesterday I flew back to the Yup’ik Eskimo village of Eek.
Kyle Pratt points to himself
This will be my seventh year teaching in this remote Alaskan village. Getting to Eek starts with a flight to Anchorage, but that is only the beginning. From there you catch an Alaskan Airlines flight to Bethel, about 400 miles west of Anchorage on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, one of the largest river deltas in the world.
This region is about the size of Oregon, but there are few roads in this marshy region and none where I am going. This time of year, travel is by boat or bush plane. So, after arriving in Bethel, I headed over to Grant Aviation, with a fellow Eek teacher Caitlyn James, to catch the next plane to the village.
Bush planes fly on a notoriously fickle schedule. The departure time may be listed as 2:30, but consider that as only a rough estimate.
Kyle Pratt with most of the staff of Eek School.
While waiting at the terminal Caitlyn said, “There’s a photo with you in it over there on the wall.” Of course, I had to go check that out. The picture is from about two years ago and shows most of the Eek School staff, including me, at the village airport with a Grant plane in the background. It's weird to see a photo of me hanging in a random location.
We left not long afterwards on a Cessna 207 and arrived in Eek ahead of schedule. I’ll be in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region until Christmas vacation.