The calendars in the Kwigillingok school all say it's October. One classroom whiteboard has the date, written neatly in green dry erase marker: Oct. 10, 2025 — a Friday.
On Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025, many from the village sheltered in the school as the remnants of Typhoon Halong approached. By the end of the week, nearly all 400 residents had been airlifted out of the community.
Darell Tanqik John is a lifelong community member of Kwigillingok and the counselor and community advocate for the school. Sitting in his office in the school, he said he chose to stay behind to help as the rest of the village was evacuated to Bethel. He was one of seven people.
“It made me, made me think of, like, the rapture,” John said. “Like it made me think of, is how it's going to be, or am I looking or getting a taste of how it feels to be left behind?”
What was left of the town had changed. The tundra terrain was flooded. Homes had been lifted and rearranged by the storm or had floated away entirely.
John has been living in Kwigillingok since running water and electricity arrived around the 1980s. Cut off from utilities, he said he had to reintroduce himself to forgotten chores of daily life, like hauling ice for household water.
“I had to remind myself, you know, I, you know, I've done this before, and I can still do it again,” John said.
In the early days after the storm, John said Kwigillingok was silent.
“No dogs barking, no four wheel[ers] passing,” John remembered. “Like, in the night, I went to bed and I couldn’t sleep because it was too quiet.”
In the months since the storm, some of those sounds have been returning to the village.
Contractors arrived in the fall of 2025 to begin the state-funded clean up, including Kwigillingok residents who wanted to help rebuild. A small number of other community members returned to houses that sustained minimal damage.
In 2026, 15 kids have come back to Kwigillingok with their families. Most of them are primary school aged and are homeschooling.
“I've spoken to a few students and they're happy to be back,” John said.
Without daily classes, the school has become a hub for life in the rebuilding village. It’s the sleeping quarters for workers who fly in for periods of weeks or months at a time.
Brice Inc., which is receiving funding from the state transportation department, is contracting a food service that runs the school kitchen as a sort of community restaurant.
Mark Adkins runs the kitchen as an executive chef with Arctic Catering.
“Everyone comes through here,” Adkins said, preparing for the lunchtime rush. “Everyone in the village, this is where they come.”
Adkins prepared a lunch spread of salmon chowder, corn dogs, chicken tenders, and a salad bar. Workers sat down to eat alongside parents, Elders, and children. A contractor snuck a bowl of chowder to a lone dog outside. Three times a day, anyone in town can gather here for a meal.
The space also functions as the village’s pantry. Fridges and tables of food were open for anyone to come by and take a snack.
Adkins said that the company works to source some of its food with the owner of a grocery store in town, who was also among the seven who stayed behind.
“It just helps the community repair itself,” Adkins said. “You know, feel more at home again that someone's here looking after them, you know, a little more ease.”
Adkins said that over Christmas, more families came back to visit their village. At the long tables, the village ate a blend of the catered meals and traditional Native foods prepared by the families.
But outside of the school, which has functioning water and electrical systems, life in Kwigillingok has a new set of challenges.
There are no health aides in town. And even as homes are restored, a lot of access equipment, like snowmachines and subsistence tools, was swept away. The Kwigillingok tribe issued guidance against residents returning to the village.
Gavin Phillip is the tribal administrator for the Native Village of Kwigillingok. He was evacuated to Bethel, where he’s remained since the storm. He said that residents that wished to return had to agree to be entirely self-sufficient.
“Even though we rebuild or the recovery efforts that are happening, I don't know, come, let's say spring or summer, I don't know if they will return,” Phillip said.
Part of that is logistical — there’s no exact timeline for when everyone will have a home to come back to. But Phillip said it has more to do with the emotional weight of returning to Kwigillingok after living through a disaster.
“There's hesitancy among the tribal members to return due to the trauma,” Phillip said.
But for the ones who have come back, or for John and the other six who stayed, life is persisting. The children laughed and called out as they played in the school gymnasium after lunch. John said parts of Kwigillingok still feel like home.
“In my heart, yes, it does feel like Kwig, and it always will stay as Kwigillingok,” John said. “But, like, when I go towards the south end of the village, that feeling of 'it's still Kwigillingok' kind of fades away because that portion of the community is wiped, is gone.”
Aside from wanting to help, John said he wanted to stay because his identity as a tribal member is intrinsically entwined with Kwigillingok. But he said he wants his children and grandchildren to live in a better place than what it’s become, and without the fear of it happening again. He said most residents are united in wanting to relocate the village to higher ground.
“If we eventually move to a new site, yeah, we, it won't be Kwig, but in a way, we will bring Kwig with us,” John said.
Right now, the community is scattered across Bethel, Anchorage, and beyond. On the ground in Kwigillingok, those who have stayed or recently returned are also taking it one day at a time.
