A 1.835Mb PDF of this article as it appeared in the magazine—complete with images—is available by clicking HERE
Here’s a shot taken in Chuathbaluk…yep, Chuathbaluk. Say that ten times fast. Used to be called Russian Mission but there were two villages along the Yukon River called Russian Mission and it got sorta confusing. People getting kicked out of an airplane onto the wrong airstrip was not a rare occurrence. In 1970 they had had enough of that and officially changed the name to Chuathbaluk. It translates in Yupik language as the place of big blue berries but you won’t find any blue berries in this particular location. This is the village sewer lagoon under construction. I guess there was a time past they just pumped the sewer into the river.
So here is my colleague Ralph Sousa finishing up a day of stakeouts on a 3 or 4 day stint. We usually wait until a bunch of jobs are pooled together in the remote villages then we are off on the milk run. Flying from village to village, a lot survey here, a topo there, a stakeout somewhere else. I’ve worked with Ralph along time since we first met in 84 in Talkeetna, Alaska. I was surveying the Alaska railroad and was staying at his dads place and he had just got done climbing Mt. McKinley or Denali I guess is what most people call that big rock these days. We sure have been through a lot over the years. Ralph is also the figure that appears on the front cover of the 2009 BLM surveying manual.
—Daryl Moistner
Photo Courtesy of Daryl Moistner
A 1.835Mb PDF of this article as it appeared in the magazine—complete with images—is available by clicking HERE