Travels with Kenji — Shageluk

It was a long road from Chenega Bay to Shageluk. We had planned to go to Port Heiden, but our Cessna 206 pilot, Dave, didn't like either Lake Clark Pass or the coast toward the Alaska Peninsula, so he turned us back from both and we landed at Kenai for lunch.

Kenji and Dave check the weather out west in the coffee shop at the Kenai airport. Shageluk was the call, and we survived a bumpy flight through the Alaska Range to make it in a few hours.

We flew over a Cook Inlet oil rig on the way.

Kenji, always improvising, calls for a ride from the Shageluk airstrip, about three miles from the village.

Shageluk is on the Innoko River, which parallels the Yukon before it dumps into it near Holy Cross.