Life in Bettles

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to live in a small village in Alaska? I did too. I have only been here for a little over a week but I have a few thoughts to share to help you get an idea.

In a village as small as Bettles (about 15 people live here all year), community is essential. Bettles has approximately 8.6 miles of road in the summer and is only accessible by airplane in the summer. In the winter, an ice road is created to access the community. People bring in heavy items to last the summer, including gasoline and heating oil. The village is run by two generators which are switched when one needs maintenance. People who live here work for the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the FAA, the USPS, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs for the Evansville Natives.

In regards to community here, some of the people here work, sometimes all day, to create a huge spread for a potluck that the whole community is invited to. There are a few people here who are amazing cooks. I have eaten moose and caribou for the first time and I enjoyed them both. Moose burgers seem to be a specialty and a well-loved item and I will say that I am a pretty big fan myself. The potlucks are a great way to connect with people and learn about the community. It’s easy to enjoy the town if you can enjoy the people. As there is no cell phone service here, the conversations don’t get interrupted by outside forces. Besides making a telephone call to the outside world, we are all the company we’ve got.

The best way to get around here is by foot power. Gasoline can cost more than $6/gal and only one place sells it. We use bicycles or just walk, as nothing is really that far apart here.

It is so easy to lose track of time here. The sun still goes below the mountains in the distance, but 11PM seems like 7PM. It’s easy to feel like you do not need to sleep, but it does catch up with you.

In the last couple of days the mosquitoes have finally started to come out. As Bettles is in a relatively swampy area, moquitoes can get bad. If the breeze dies down they make a straight line to any exposed skin, especially for the head, face and hands. Bug jackets and head nets don’t seem that ridiculous when the mosquitoes find you. And when it gets really bad, a cloud of DEET around your body is the only solution. I tried using some natural repellents and I am pretty sure the mosquitoes liked it. I am really happy with the permethrin treatment on my clothes. That seems to be really effective, a few mosquitoes have landed on these clothing items but haven’t bit through them! Thanks Insect Shield.

Overall, it is very quiet here. At night you can hear a few birds or the mosquitoes buzzing and during the day a few vehicles or UTVs will be driving around. It is very obvious when any aircraft comes in. Visitors are starting to arrive to stay at the lodge or fly out to the parks (Gates of the Arctic and Kobuk Valley). Aircrafts also mean food and mail. One of the flight services here has a small store with ice cream and various other items for a reasonable price for a village where food has to be flown in and bought by someone else.

The housing we live in is old FAA housing. It is a nice three bedroom/one bathroom house with most modern amenities, we even have a television. No cable here, but we have a DVD and VHS player and many movies that people have left over the years. Mostly 80s and 90s. The first movie we watched the other night was True Lies.

For the first couple of days we had plumbing that worked okay. The toilet would not flush as it was supposed to, but we continued to use it and plunge it. Finally, we were asked to discontinue our use of the plumbing while they tried to figure out the problem. We geared up with water containers and buckets and have been living in a plumbed house without plumbing since. The maintenance staff has been working tirelessly to figure out and fix the problem. As of today, progress is being made and seems like we might have plumbing back again soon. We are lucky the bunkhouse has showers and water we can use and there is also a pit toilet not too far.

 

After I wrote this the plumbing was fixed! Hooray! Lucky to have an awesome maintenance staff here.