The Economic Development organization serving Alaska

Alaska's Rural Communities in Crisis

By Melanie Welsh, Executive Director, Alaska Unlimited 

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The images of C-17’s filled with evacuees from Western Alaska’s storms from Typhoon Halong struck at the very heart of who and why Alaska Unlimited exists. As the storms tore though more than homes and infrastructure, it fractured an already fragile systems and exposed generations of underinvestment and reminded us of something that can not be ignored: 

Alaska’s rural communities are on the verge of collapse: economically, socially and culturally. 

 

The real crisis isn’t the storm. It’s the conditions that the storm revealed.

 

Alaska Unlimited hosted an energy and small business development delegation to rural Alaska when prices were $1.67/KWH to audit energy systems and provide solutions to an already challenging energy landscape. This is not just an impossible utility bill, it’s the barrier to economic survival. Entire villages live without reliable power for months. Imagine raising children in the dark and cold of Alaska, trying to store food with out freezers or access emergency healthcare without power. 

 

Housing shortages, substance use, suicide and abuse are not abstract statistics, they are symptoms of generations of trauma and neglect. Communities displaced by climate disasters face uncertain futures, some may never return home and cultures and communities are in crisis.  Alaskan Indigenous communities are some of the most resilient in the world. Should it be so hard for Americans to survive in 2025, when systems seem designed to fail?

 

We must rethink what recovery really means. We cannot consider temporary fixes, recovery isn’t about patching problems or delivering simple solutions. Recovery means reclaiming power, in every sense of the word: 

 

Energy Power: By investing in REAL energy infrastructure with energy systems that make our communities self-sustaining. 

 

Economic Power: By helping communities to build regenerative economies, local food systems, remote work hubs, and trades that build opportunity. 

 

Cultural Power: By prioritizing cultural preservation, language and learning - ensuring the survival of our cultures for generations to come.

 

Political Power: By supporting BUILDING BASE UP, not top down policy and funding. 

 

Metrics for success must be different. Success can’t be measured by how many generators are flown in, but how many families choose not to fly out forever.

 

Moving Forward. Sivunmun

This isn’t just about recovery, it’s transformation. It’s not about restoring what was, but rather, “reimagine what can be.” For recovery to be meaningful and enduring we must rethink. 

 

Alaska Unlimited is launching the Golden Futures Initiative.  The local framework created to build opportunity by: energy independence and housing security, small business development and workforce development for careers in the community.  It can not be about surviving the storm, but thriving in spite of all the storms that are to be. To those who have the same burden while seeing the photos and hearing the stories, know that there is opportunity to build. Let’s do the hard work that makes the real difference. 

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Melanie Welsh is the Founder and Executive Director of Alaska Unlimited, a non-profit organization building opportunity in Alaska. A Yupik Eskimo from the Native Village of Aniak and daughter of Mark and Cecilia Matter.