Бетел, Аляска: Транспортный узел и культурный центр Дельты Юкон-Кускоквим

City in Alaska, United States

The state owned Bethel Airport is the regional transportation hub, and is served by three passenger carriers, including Alaska Airlines, Grant Aviation, and Renfro's Alaskan Adventure. It also receives service from three major cargo operators: Everts Air Cargo, Northern Air Cargo, Lynden Air Cargo, and numerous small air taxi services. The airport ranks third in the state for total number of flights. It offers a 6,400 foot (1,951 meter) asphalt runway, a 4,000 foot (1,219 meter) asphalt runway, and 1,850 foot (564 meter) gravel crosswind runway, and is currently undergoing a $7 million renovation and expansion. Three float plane bases are nearby: Hangar Lake, H Marker Lake, and the Kuskokwim River. The Port of Bethel is the northernmost, medium draft port in the United States. River travel is the primary means of local transportation in the summer. A Bethel based barge service provides goods to Kuskokwim villages. Within Bethel are approximately 16 mile (26 km) of roads that are not connected to any contiguous highway system. Winter ice roads lead to several nearby villages, but their condition varies depending on temperature and snowfall. An extensive network of snow machine trails connects Bethel to villages all over the Delta, from the Bering Sea to the Yukon. The town's single paved road, about 10 miles (16 km), supports a taxicab industry. With 93 taxi drivers, the town has more cab drivers per capita than any other city in the US. Most local cab drivers are Albanian or South Korean immigrants. Bethel is home to the lone detention center in southwestern Alaska, the Yukon Kuskokwim Correction Center. This prison has a capacity of 207 inmates, men and women, and a staff of 45. Bethel is also the site of a unique 8.5 mile (14 km) prototype single wire earth return electrical intertie to Napakiak, Alaska, constructed in 1981.

Bethel is home to a noted, mid distance dogsled race, the Kuskokwim 300. Held every January since 1980, the race commemorates an early mail route that once tied the settlement to the outside world. Top mushers and hundreds of sled dogs participate in the race for a purse of $100,000, the largest offered by any 300 mile (483 km) sled dog race. Local recreational activities include snow machining, skiing, bicycling, kayaking, caribou hunting, and salmon fishing. Bethel is an established starting point to Float Alaska wilderness rivers in the Kisaralik, Kwethluk, Aniak, Kanektok, Arolik, Goodnews, Eek and Holitna River systems.

Traditional dancers from all over Alaska and beyond participate every March in the Cama i dance festival. Hundreds of costumed dancers, drummers, and singers perform traditional Yup'ik story dances during the three day festival, sponsored by the Bethel Council on the Arts. "Cama i" (pronounced Cha Mai) translates as "a warm hello." The Yupiit Piciryarait Cultural Center also hosts a bimonthly "Saturday Market" where artisans and crafters from the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta come to sell their crafts. There is a variety at the market, but many of the crafts include traditional Yup'ik qaspeq, story knives, woven baskets, ulu knives and more.

Bethel and the smaller communities surrounding it are primarily served by Yukon Kuskokwim Delta Regional Hospital, a 50 bed general acute care medical facility. Services located in the hospital include an adult medical surgical ward, a pediatric ward, an obstetric ward, as well as outpatient family medicine clinics, an emergency room, pharmacy, lab, X ray, and specialty clinics. The facility is accessible by road for those individuals living in or visiting the city of Bethel. Depending on weather and the season, road access to the hospital may also be available to some of the surrounding communities. If not, individuals must be airlifted into the facility via helicopter or air ambulance. Also, there are five sub regional primary care clinics located in some of the more remote and less populated cities neighboring Bethel (Emmonak, St. Mary's, Aniak, Toksook Bay, and Hooper Bay). Many of the services found at the hospital in Bethel are also available at these sub regional clinics, such as urgent care, diagnostic review, physical exams, prenatal care, minor surgery, laboratory tests, X rays, and distribution of medications. The hospital, sub regional clinics, and additional village clinics are all part of Yukon Kuskokwim Health Corporation.

Bethel has a public television station, KYUK LD, and three radio stations, public KYUK, private, non profit KYKD, and commercial KEDI. Since the founding of its community radio station in 1970, the media has become part of Yup'ik development in southwest Alaska and important to the people's self definition. The city is also home to the weekly regional newspapers Delta Discovery and Tundra Drums.