Alaska Mission Trip #1

So here are some blogs on my recent Fitz Family Mission trip with my daughter, Jenica Halula (Miss Fitz), and Bob Lenz of Life Promotions to western Alaska from Dec 2 - 11/07.

First some words about the scale of Alaska. It is BIG! click on the pictures for a larger view. Here is Alaska superimposed on the lower 48. Cut Alaska in half and Texas is still third biggest...


We started in Anchorage and then flew with MARC and Arctic Barnabas to remote villages in western Alaska. In order, we visited:
Unalakleet, Shaktoolik, Koyuk, Elim, White Mountain (missed this one due to bad weather) and Nome. Check out these maps for locations in relation to Anchorage.




The pilots, Bob and Greg, were excellent. And Craig, our host from Arctic Barnabas was great too. They took very good care of us.


Here are some facts and figures for Alaska:
670,000 total population
663,000 sq miles
(TX is 262,000 sq mi/21,000,000 population)
White 70%
Native 16%
Other 14%

Anchorage - 315,000
Fairbanks - 85,000
Juneau - 35,000
Palmer, 5000
Soldotna, 5000
Homer, 6000
Kenia, 7000
Nome, 3000
TOTAL - 460,000 of the 670,000 people live in those 8 cities. The rest are a little spread out...

Anchorage to Unalkleet - 400 miles (think Chicago, IL to Lexington, KY)
Unalakleet to Shaktoolik - 45 miles
Shaktoolik to Koyuk - 40 miles
Koyuk to Elim - 80 miles
Elim to White Mountain - 80 miles
White Mountain to Nome - 137 miles

More to come about the people and the experience.