Bethel

I got to fly out to Bethel for a few days last week. Bethel is a small Eskimo town of about 5,000 – but the largest compared to the surrounding villages. Everything is extremely expensive. Gas is $6.00 a gallon. There are two grocery stores in town, and I was shocked to see the price labels…



I spent three days shadowing a PT (Nondas) at the only hospital in town, which I thought had a unique design.

The Natives in Bethel are Yup'ik Eskimos, and therefore speak Yup'ik. I was frequently mistaken to be an Eskimo. On several occasions, some elderly people just began speaking Yup’ik to me with no hesitation...I just returned a blank stare and a smile. :-) It was quite amusing. Most of the signs in the hospital had both English and Yup’ik.

The majority of the people do not own a car, so snowmachines are a major means of transportation.

Another major transportation is taxi cabs. About 1/3 of the cars in Bethel are cabs. Interestingly, the two competing taxi services are owned by Koreans and Albanians…

Typical houses (sorry, no igloos...) :-)

A family with a sled dog team…

I had a wonderful visit with my friends Nondas and his wife Melissa, who is the audiologist at the hospital. In the picture below, Melissa was preparing dinner while John (a nurse at the hospital) and I snacked on moose jerky.

The weather conditions are harsh in the winters. One day, half of the patients had to reschedule or cancel their appointments due to blizzards. That same night, there was a wind storm that made the house shake so much that we felt like we were inside a washing machine. It was -24 degrees the next morning - by far the coldest temperature I've experienced.

Before my flight back to Anchorage, we had just enough time to squeeze in some snowmachining. It seemed like we put on 50 layers...

Oh yeah!!

Since there’s not a whole lot out in Bethel, most of the land is basically snow-covered wilderness. Once you’re out in the middle of the wilderness, everything looks the same. I wonder what they did before GPS came along...? I guess that's why frosbite is one of the most common diagnoses treated at the hospital.

I had such a lovely time in Bethel and learned so much about the culture! It was time to head back to 'civilization' from this one-room airport...