Chevak, AK

Chevak is a close-knit Cup'ik village of roughly 1,000 residents in western Alaska's Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, tucked about six miles inland from the Bering Sea. It is one of the few communities where Cup'ik is actively spoken alongside English, and traditional customs remain a vital part of daily life. The local K-12 school serves as the central gathering place for the town, hosting community events, sports, and cultural celebrations throughout the year.

ATTRJoseph from Cabin On The Road, USA / CC BY-SA 2.0

Getting to Chevak requires flying in on a regional bush plane or traveling by boat along the waterways. Around the village, people get around on wooden boardwalks and dirt trails using ATVs in the summer and snowmachines in the winter. Subsistence harvesting is an essential part of living here, with families and school groups heading out onto the tundra each season to gather berries, hunt waterfowl, and preserve food for the winter.