Roughly 70 people gathered at Dillingham’s downtown hockey rink on Saturday, a spin-off of the No Kings rallies around the country protesting policies of the Trump administration.
Several attendees wore costumes, including green dinosaur onesies, a banana suit and a founding father costume. A semicircle formed around a series of speakers.
Community member Norman Van Vactor spoke about Western Alaska communities affected by the remnants of Typhoon Halong, which struck earlier this month, killing at least one and displacing more than 1,000.
Van Vactor described the climate change impacts facing western Alaska and criticized the Trump administration for cutting funds for mitigation projects.
“Whole villages, probably dozens of them, may have to move within our lifetime,” he said. “And while people fight to save their homes, what does the Trump administration do? They seem to be cutting the very lifelines of people in communities like that.”
The Trump administration's EPA canceled a $20 million grant to build an erosion barrier in Kipnuk, one of the villages that suffered the most severe damage from the storm.
The grant was canceled in May, and Van Vactor said that while this project may not have changed the outcome of the storm, there is a feeling of neglect from this administration among rural Alaska.
Dillingham Mayor Alice Ruby also addressed the crowd, calling on people to continue the conversation beyond the event.
She said many people don't know the local impacts of the Trump administration's cuts to things like Medicaid, which subsidizes health care services for low income residents treated at Bristol Bay Area Health Corporation, and the Essential Air Service, which subsidizes rural air travel to 12 Bristol Bay communities.
“Clarks Point, Ekwok, Stuyahok, Manakotak. There will be no freight, there will be no cargo to those communities without Essential Air Service," said Ruby. “So we need to make sure that people know that, that people understand it.”
Bristol Bay's state representative, Bryce Edgmon, pointed to potential impacts in Alaska from Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill. He said he's been speaking to house speakers from conservative states across the country.
“They are greatly concerned on what the Big Beautiful Bill is going to do in terms of cost shifting from the federal government,” said Edgmon. “These fake cuts that really aren't cuts, they're just transferring the cost to those at the state level.”
Meanwhile, Alaskans turned out in roughly a dozen communities for “No Kings” rallies. In Anchorage they estimated roughly 2,000 people attended. 7 million people are estimated to have shown up to rallies nationwide.
