Alaska typhoon victims’ losses of traditional foods go beyond dollar values

When natural disasters strike in the Lower 48, people affected are compensated for income lost from wage-earning jobs that have been interrupted, as well as lost assets with assigned financial value.

For residents of the Yukon-Kuskokwim region who were displaced by Typhoon Halong, such losses are not so easily quantified.

In the region’s affected villages, which are among the most rural communities in North America, most residents are Yup’ik and adherence to Indigenous traditions is strong. Those traditions are tied to the harvesting of wild foods and materials for personal and family needs. And much of the labor performed to carry out those harvests falls outside of the usual American cash economy.

Losses inflicted by the disaster in Kipnuk, Kwigillingok and other storm-damaged village