Like any great mission, the River Watch flight has a slick, four-part entourage.
The team consists of a pilot, two state emergency management specialists, and a hydrologist.
Each morning throughout the thaw and breakup of the Kuskokwim River, they pack in tightly to a small bush plane. From the air, the River Watch crew surveys the changes in the ice. That data informs official flood warnings and comprehensive reports. But outside the tight team of four, the brains of the operation also lie in the many people who live along the river.
River Watch’s Willis Walunga is an emergency specialist with the state.
“The people that actually live in these communities, they have the eyes, they have the ears, they have the practical knowledge, the past knowledge, and nothing can replace this key part,” Walunga said.
Much of the river data collected throughout breakup comes from the people living in Kuskokwim communities. Also called "ground truth," these perspectives provide first-hand reports, photos, and the lived experience of the bigger picture.
“At two o'clock in the morning, three o'clock in the morning, once they hear something coming, they already know,” Walunga said.
Three hours in Aniak
The River Watch plane landed in Aniak, one of several communities the team visits, sometimes daily, as breakup progresses down the river and out to the ocean.
At the airport, the team asked to see local flooding.
Pilot Mike Stewart came along, pulling himself onto the back of a lumber truck.
“We got plenty of room on this flatbed,” Stewart called out as the truck rumbled toward the pool of water surrounding the AC grocery store.
Jana Drake, who works with the state emergency side of the operation, hopped out of the truck. “I’m gonna go around, I think, try and get inside the store and just make sure everyone’s okay in there,” she explained.
Inside, Christine Schexnider, the manager of Aniak’s AC store, showed Drake photos of the flooding that entered her house next door.
“We’re gonna stay open as long as the power’s on,” Schexnider explained.
Schexnider and Drake talked about water damage. But you could hear a kind of lightness in Schexnider's voice.
“I got kayaks under the house. If I had to, we’ll lash them together and float down to Bethel and have Chinese food,” Schexnider said, laughing.
A transformation
For communities along the Kuskokwim, a transformation is occurring. The winter world is literally splitting apart. Soon, it will be time for boating, for hunting, for family time at fish camp.
“You have to live it to understand it, but an Alaska breakup means so many wonderful things,” Drake said. “Back to being able to gather and harvest and hunt.”
The team caught a ride down to the riverbank, where water pushed a tower of ice sheets 40 feet high onto the shore. For the first time all year, the river is flowing, carrying chunks of ice.
“The sound is amazing,” Drake explained. “Like chandeliers clanging each other.”
Some of the floating ice chunks carried cargo.
“Wood is good, there’s some right there,” Drake exclaimed. “We got wood!”
Some people had already pulled in wood that floated by on ice chunks. By the river, a truck rumbled by with multiple logs piled into the back.
A different kind of map
Flooding in Kuskokwim communities depends on a lot of factors.
Surrounding the river is a plumbing system of sloughs and offshoots of the main channel. Their smaller thaws all have a role in where ice jams form and how flooding plays out.
From the air, hydrologist Johnse Ostman uses a digital map to orient and note where changes are happening. But unlike conventional maps that use mile markers, his is a network of local place names. That map then informs warnings and updates using the language of the people who live here. Sometimes that’s literal — using the Yup’ik name for an ice jam point, or a locally known landmark.
“On the Kuskokwim, we're basing it by history and people,” Ostman said. “It really is a lot of fish camps.”
Sometimes, those fish camps belonged to Elders who have passed away. The structures aren’t even there anymore, but the plots of land are still known for the people who kept them.
After leaving Aniak, the plane circled the surrounding ice and landed briefly in the downriver community of Lower Kalskag. Ostman radioed out to locals along the river, and it was like he was talking about one big town.
“A gap that formed in the ice last night has gotten a little bit wider up off the, you know, between, like, David Doris' and Upper Kalskag,” Ostman relayed.
Sometimes, the River Watch crew will fly a community member up above so they can see exactly what’s going on. Ostman said that new names get added to the list every flight.
“Everybody in the listening area will know where that is,” Ostman said. “And that, it gives me a connection to this place as well.”
Ostman said that over his five years flying the Kuskokwim River, he’s still learning local place names, thanks to the generosity of the local experts who help keep Kuskokwim River communities safe.
