A girl in one of my classes told me that her father had joined the Army years ago.  She said he was sent to Georgia for his training.  One thing she remembered him telling her was that he found it very difficult to sleep at night.  The noise of the frogs and crickets were too much for him. 

It didn’t occur to me until she told me that story that the nights here are deathly silent.  There is the occasional dog bark and the ten O’clock curfew siren but other than those there is no noise at all at once darkness falls. 

Kotlik Power and Light

     Kotlik get’s all of its’ power from this building, owned by Alaska Village Electric Cooperative.  Four Cummings diesel generators are run by automation.  John the technician who gave me a tour of the facility, was taught by his father who worked here for over twenty years.  Surprisingly, he has had no formal schooling in the trade.  The crew who works here keeps the place spotless.  Periodically, maintenance crews from the utility company spend a week at a time on site and live in a milvan next to the generator plant.  

     On the sleepy Sunday morning when I visited, the town was running on just one generator putting out 198 kiloWatts.  John said that he has seen the load get as high as 400 kW at peak usage.  When the school powers up on weekdays they turn on two generators to meet the electricity demand. 

     Electricity is expensive here (58 cents per kWh) due to the small scale and the high price of diesel in remote locations.  In order to reduce the cost the utility company is toying with the idea of stretching high voltage wires hundreds of miles out to these small villages.  That proposal has met criticism from environmentalists and Alaskan Natives.   Another idea, and something they have done in several villages is erecting wind turbines to supplement the generators.  The town of Nome has four large wind turbines that reduced the town’s fuel consumption by almost 20% last year. 

     The challenge of  building wind turbines here is the same as building anything on a delta.  Constructing a foundation on sediment is an engineering nightmare.  It’s been done though in villages such as Emmonak, Chevak, Hooper Bay, and Nunam Iqua. 

 Just Like Capastrano

Song birds have returned to the Yukon Delta.  For the first time since October I heard twittering, chirping and singing while Hobart and I were walking this morning.  People around the village are hunting geese, ptarmigans, and ducks now.