Emo

#Travel in Emmonak,
In the winter, it is snowmachine., People travel on the Yukon River because the ice is 4 feet thick this time of year. I left Emo May 20 and the ice was still on the Yukon. People had their boats on the shore getting ready for the ice to break any day.

About April, you start seeing dirt on the ground and the ice/snow melts from the town. That is when it gets time for Quads. Whole families will ride on a Quad (4 wheel motorcycle) and they stir up the dust on the street. As the streets dry out, it becomes dustier and dustier.

When the ice melts, people use their fishing boats to travel from village to village and to visit people.get berries and go fishing. The fishing boats are about 18 to 24 feet long and they have 100+ HP engines. They are not cheap to operate.

In the summer, Emmonak is a dusty place. Not many cars in Emo. there are only about 8 - 10 miles of dusty road to drive on. The cars have few miles on them but the suspensions and radiators get beat up pretty bad.

Last year, the garbage truck broke down in the middle of winter and people had to take their garbage to the dump themselves. The dump is about 3 miles out of town, by the airport.

The houses are primarily plywood shacks that are raised off the ground in case the spring ice melt backs up the Yukon river and floods the town. (This happened 3 years ago.) Last year in May, the road to the airport got soggy and people had to walk the last 3/4 mile to the airport because transportation could not get through. The day I flew out of Emo, a grizzly who was hanging out at the dump ran past the airport and I went out and watched him run.