Alaska Lifeline: Wings of the Last Frontier Leg 9

Leg 9 — PAOT → PAVL Kotzebue → Kivalina Mission: Deliver food, household goods, and building materials to the coastal community of Kivalina.

📖 Building a House by Air Today's manifest looks strange.

Lumber.

Tools.

Fasteners.

Insulation.

Boxes of hardware.

Imagine building anything when every piece of material has to reach the community through a complicated chain of transportation.

That's normal in parts of Alaska.

USPS's unique Bypass Mail system allows qualified bulk shipments to be tendered directly to air carriers for transportation to rural destinations. The program exists precisely because conventional surface transportation isn't available to many communities.

Your airplane isn't carrying an entire house.

But maybe you're carrying part of one.

Another aircraft will bring more.

Another after that.

Piece by piece, Alaska arrives by air.