Alaska typhoon victims’ losses of traditional foods go beyond dollar values

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By Yereth Rosen

November 04, 2025

A statewide effort to replace lost subsistence harvests is part of the system of aid that organizations are trying to tailor to the needs of Indigenous rural Alaskans

When natural disasters strike in the Lower 48, people affected are compensated for income lost from wage-earning jobs that have been interrupted, as well as lost assets with assigned financial value.

Kelsey Ciugun Wallace, president of the Alaska Native Heritage Center, and Shea Siegert, senior manager of external affairs at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium read a recipe for uunaalik that is attached to a bag of muktuk slides on Oct. 30, 2025. Muktuk is whale blubber with attached skin, and uunaalik is a disk of boiled muktuk. The muktuk was among a collection of Native foods donated from the North Slope community of Utqiagvik for distribution to people displaced by Tyhpoon Halong. The foods were being stored in a freezer trailer at the Alaska Native Heritage Center. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon

For residents of the Yukon-Kuskokwim region who were displaced by Typhoon Halong, such losses are not so easily quantified.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published by The Alaska Beacon. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

In the region’s affected villages, which are among the most rural communities in North America, most residents are Yup’ik and adherence to Indigenous traditions is strong. Those traditions are tied to the harvesting of wild foods and materials for personal and family needs. And much of the labor performed to carry out those harvests falls outside of the usual American cash economy.

Losses inflicted by the disaster in Kipnuk, Kwigillingok and other storm-damaged villages include the stockpiles of wild fish, game meat, berries and greens that have been built over months of unpaid work.

While there is not a dollar number for the food that was lost, its value is high, said Kelsey Ciugun Wallace, president of the Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage.

“Our foods are just so important to who we are as Native people,” said Wallace, who is Yup’ik and from Bethel, the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta’s hub community. Traditional foods provide not just nutrition, but also emotional and spiritual support and “connect us to the land and water,” she said.

In response to the loss of subsistence food and access to food-gathering sites, the Alaska Native Heritage Center and the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium are funneling traditional foods to displaced families.

They are coordinating a program that is taking in donations from around the state. Through it, frozen foods, like sockeye salmon from the Copper River Basin, muktuk from the North Slope and berries from Southcentral Alaska’s mountain slopes, have been collected in a huge freezer trailer parked at the heritage center.

Kelsey Ciugun Wallace, president of the Alaska Native Heritage Center, looks over a collection of frozen sockeye salmon on Oct. 30, 2025. The salmon was donated from the Copper River basin and is part of the collection of traditional Native foods donated for the Yukon-Kuskokwim residents displaced by Typhoon Halong. The salmon and other foods have been stored in a large freezer trailer at the heritage center, pending distribution to families and organizations. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)

The volunteer response has been overwhelming, and it extends beyond donations to cooking, preparing and serving, Wallace said.

“All the aunties in Anchorage are wanting to cook,” she said.

For ANTHC, the emergency food collection and distribution adds to a year-round traditional foods program, said Shea Siegert, the consortium’s senior manager of external affairs.

Siegert said he does not know how long the emergency program will run. “As long as there’s a need, we will continue to fill it,” he said.

Some of the donated food is being used by the nonprofit World Central Kitchen, which has been providing hot meals to evacuees and emergency workers at the William A. Egan Civic & Convention Center in downtown Anchorage and the Alaska Airlines Center on the University of Alaska Anchorage campus. Both sites have been operating as assistance hubs for the evacuees in the Anchorage area, and the two sites were also used as temporary shelters, though most of the clients were set to be transitioned to longer-lasting and more private living quarters by last week, according to state officials.

Government agencies providing economic assistance are also attempting to accommodate the cultural needs of the people displaced by the typhoon.

One is the U.S. Small Business Administration, which typically provides low-interest loans to help victims of declared natural disasters recover from economic losses.Erin Oliver of World Central Kitchen dishes out salmon pilaf during lunch service on Oct. 29, 2025, at the William A. Egan Civic and Convention Center in Anchorage. The downtown center was serving as a temporary shelter and assistance hub for the hundreds of Yukon-Kuskokwim residents evacuated to Anchorage in the wake of Typhoon Halong. World Central Kitchen was one of the nonprofits responding to the disaster and helping to serve the displaced residents, almost all of whom are Yup’ik. The organization was using local ingredients and strives to provide meals that are familiar and culturally appropriate for clients. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)

Kelly Loeffler, the SBA’s administrator, said the agency recognizes that damages in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region are different from disaster damages in the Lower 48.

Loeffler, at a Wednesday news conference held in Anchorage with Gov. Mike Dunleavy, said the SBA has “modified some of the rules in order to speed relief to those survivors.”

Loans will be available to replace lost or damaged subsistence-related items, Loeffler said at the news conference, which was held outside the Alaska Airlines Center. That includes things like all-terrain vehicles, hunting knives and boats.

“We’re going to continue to respond to unique needs of the terrain, people and this culture and make sure that the funding meets the moment,” she said.

However, damages to subsistence camps are not eligible for such aid, according to an SBA statement issued on Monday.

The quandary of how to compensate for subsistence losses also affected the response to a similar disaster three years ago.  When remnants of Typhoon Merbok struck the same region and wreaked havoc farther north into the Bering Strait region, rural and mostly Indigenous Alaskans had to work through aid systems to get compensation for lost subsistence gear and equipment.Kelly Loeffler, head of the U.S. Small Business Administration, speaks at an Oct. 29, 2025 news conference held outside the Alaska Airlines Center at the University of Alaska Anchorage campus. Listening to Loeffler are, from left, Willie Nunn, a Seattle-based coordinator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency who was assigned to Alaska; Bryan Fisher, director of the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management; and Gov. Mike Dunleavy. Loeffler spoke about the SBA’s plans to make loads available to Alaska victims of Typhoon Halong. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)

Federal agencies attempted to tailor aid programs to the needs of rural Alaska residents, and some of the relief effort focused on rebuilding and repairing traditional fishing and hunting camps. Additionally, the U.S. Geological Survey stepped up its mapping of the region and its identification of coastal hazards in Merbok’s wake.

But there were bumps, such as improper language translations provided by a contractor the Federal Emergency Management Agency hired.

The urgency for tailoring disaster response to the particular needs of Western Alaska is expected to continue into the future.
Scientists project that climate change, by warming the ocean, thawing permafrost and thus causing the land to sink, raising sea levels and diminishing sea ice will trigger yet more regional disasters like Halong and Merbok.