A vast expanse of land separates the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers where they meet the Bering Sea. But roughly 150 miles inland, where the Portage Mountains rise up from the tundra, the rivers come within a few dozen miles of each other.
This is where the state of Alaska is revisiting a concept that has been discussed and attempted since long before statehood – establishing a reliable corridor for travel, trade, and commerce between Alaska’s two longest waterways.
"It's a big project, and it could potentially impact a lot of people," said Rebecca Garrett, project manager for the Alaska Department of Transportation's Frontier Roads Program.
Garrett said that the program is a means of capturing federal transportation funding that can benefit remote Alaska communities.
The program’s first project, the Yukon-Kuskokwim Frontier Road, currently has around $7 million to fund the study of five proposed pathways, ranging in length from 30 to 45 miles. Each would serve to link the middle Kuskokwim River to a slough that branches off the lower Yukon River a short distance below Holy Cross.
"I think it was an opportunity to explore a large project in rural Alaska where surface transportation could potentially help reduce the cost of living or take away some barriers that people have to getting freight and supplies, maybe open up opportunity for development," Garrett said.
Garrett said that the project to build a 24-foot-wide gravel road is only funded through the environmental analysis stage, but that construction could begin as early as 2028. She said that the project remains full of unknowns – like the total costs of the project, where the road would be built, whether it would be open year-round, and what the maintenance costs might be.
Community outreach
Last spring, state transportation officials traveled to nine communities to gauge interest in the project. According to notes published online, multiple Yukon and Kuskokwim communities showed openness to potential job training and employment from building the road.
But some communities said that they would prefer smaller, local road projects. They also expressed concerns about impacts to subsistence, both environmental and from increased access for outside hunters and fishing guides. Multiple communities questioned the ultimate purpose of the road and how it would reduce the cost of living.
And these questions are nothing new. The maps the state has been using to solicit feedback for the proposed road come from a nearly decade-long feasibility study conducted by regional tribal consortium the Association of Village Council Presidents (AVCP) with the help of millions in state funding.
The study was initially requested in 2011 by the Kuskokwim River community of Kalskag. All but one of the proposed corridors in that study terminate in Upper Kalskag. On the Yukon side, all end at a point dozens of miles from the nearest communities of Holy Cross and Russian Mission. AVCP estimated the upper end of the project cost at $150 million.
The AVCP-led study was ultimately unable to determine the preferred corridor for the road. AVCP did not respond to a request for comment regarding reasons its involvement in the project abruptly ended. But in the last report it published, AVCP concluded that the project would likely not be developed for many years, and that the plan hinged on opportunities that would come from eventual construction of the proposed trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline.
A film produced by AVCP in 2013 to promote what was known as the Yukon-Kuskokwim Freight and Energy Corridor spelled out the hopes for natural gas.
"A natural gas line in the corridor could bring a new fuel source to the Kuskokwim communities. It would encourage mining and other industrial ventures, as well as provide a supply of fuel for homes and power generation," a narrator reads.
But the future of natural gas in Alaska remains uncertain, and with the state now at the helm of the proposed road, many of the same questions persist. One major issue is whether four communities that would have access to the corridor on the Yukon side – Grayling, Anvik, Shageluk, and Holy Cross – would even consider supporting the project. In 2018, the so-called “GASH” communities signed a tribal resolution in opposition to the road. Tribal officials in all four communities did not respond to requests for comment regarding their current position on the project.
On the Kuskokwim side, there is at least some support. The Native Village of Kalskag responded by email to say the tribe supports the project as long as wetlands along the road are protected, but did not comment on specific pros or cons of the project.
Freight and fuel
Matt Sweetsir, owner of barge operator Ruby Marine, grew up on the middle Yukon River and has been running barges on the river and its major tributaries for 45 years. He said he’s aware of the proposed corridor, but has never really understood the reasoning behind it from a freight perspective.
"I'm not quite clear how handling it and then trucking it for the 45 miles or so would actually result in cheaper freight for either river system. That just doesn't seem to be logical to me," Sweetsir said.
Additionally, Sweetsir said he can’t see how a fuel delivery system requiring tank farms on either end of the road would pencil out. He said one problem is that the economics of fuel delivery have changed with the use of foreign-flagged tanker vessels in the Bering Sea in recent years.
"Now they have tankers that are essentially positioned offshore all summer long, and then they transfer fuel from those tankers into the hubs, Bethel, Nome, and Kotz[ebue]," Sweetsir said. "Some of it comes into the lower Yukon, but that fuel is by orders of magnitude the most efficiently delivered fuel in Alaska."
With so many unknowns, the state isn’t in a position to say precisely how the Yukon-Kuskokwim Frontier Road would benefit communities. Garrett, with the Frontier Roads Program, stressed that the process of surveying and analyzing has just begun.
