Remember meeting the postmasters?

How do you suppose the mail gets to people when there aren’t any roads?

In Bethel, the mail isn’t delivered at all. Everyone goes to the post office to pick it up.

Groceries delivered by sled.

Mail destined for the surrounding villages can’t be trucked (no roads).

There wasn’t any Pony Express (no roads and very few horses; none today).

Once upon a time it was delivered by dogsled. Or, once a year, boats from Seattle (several thousand miles away) would bring mail.

 Today, the mail comes by large plane or jet to Bethel. It is then sent to some villages by small bush plane.

 What do you suppose comes by mail?

 [all the fresh milk, meat, eggs, and produce in Bethel]
Kitchen Stoves

Cabin Bread

(called Pilot Bread here)

Soda Pop/Fizzy Drinks
chicken eggs (goose eggs come by air once a year in spring hah! hah! they are a welcome food)
Televisions
Clothes
School Supplies

That stuff is heavy and bulky so, mail also comes by hovercraft.

The Kuskokwim Delta has the only hovercraft mail delivery in the United States.

Watch this video, mabe you would like to become a mailman in Alaska!

Passengers on the hovercraft.

Hovercraft garage.

Did you ever think of your bread and milk arriving by mail? Imagine having to wait for it to arrive by hovercraft.

Make your own very awsome hovercraft here.

Learn how hovercrafts work here.

Make a list of the most unusual items you can think of to arrive by mail.

 Record a ficticious interview between yourself and a mailman who delivers via hovercraft.

Why do you think they eat cabin bread in Alaska?

Click here for more information.