“We rely on barges, when that’s available, from about the first of June to about the end of August. And we try to get as much bargeable stuff as we can during that time,” Huhndorf says.

Huhndorf expects the first barge of the season at the end of May, usually a fuel run heading downstream. The barge may move on down the Yukon as far as St. Mary’s and Marshall. The next barge stopping in Galena might not be until the middle of July.

Ruby Marine is situated in Nenana, a junction of the Tanana River with the Alaska Railroad and the Parks Highway. The company operates several routes up and down the Innoko, Koyukuk, Tanana, and Yukon rivers.

What Huhndorf can’t get on a Ruby Marine barge, his supplier arranges to be sent by bypass mail.

Bypass mail works to “bypass” the retail stations of the US Postal Service (USPS). There is a 1,000-pound minimum for the program. The customer takes freight to one of the USPS-approved shipping companies to be processed, labeled, weighed, and (in most cases) placed on pallets and shrink wrapped. The shipping company contacts USPS with the details, and the post office directs the freight to one of several air cargo groups, often rotating air carriers.

When cargo arrives at an airport that can handle larger planes, such as Galena, the load is then separated and sent to smaller air carriers or bush services based on the USPS directions.

Bypass mail has been in use since 1972. Specific to Alaska, the program has been a controversial practice of the postal service, often threatened by budget cuts or claims that it costs USPS too much. Opponents see losses to the postal service, claiming private carriers are benefitting from federal largesse. Alaska’s congressional delegation often comes to its defense, such as in 2020 when the newly appointed US Postmaster General and CEO Louis DeJoy considered eliminating bypass mail.

Local officials, legislators, and residents of Western Alaska jumped into action, educating media and lawmakers thousands of miles away from their small communities and defending the program. The delegation issued a statement reminding DeJoy that bypass mail is essential and equitable.

“We must be clear: the USPS is a vital lifeline to countless Alaskans, from our population centers to the farthest reaches of our vast state. Throughout the years, the Alaska delegation has defended mail delivery to rural Alaska. We’ve done it before, and we’ll do it again. Simply put, the bypass mail program saves the Postal Service money and fulfills the USPS’ Universal Service requirement,” the statement said.

Huhndorf, who grew up in Galena, spent decades as a bush pilot flying for multiple air services, giving him insight on moving freight and goods to small towns and villages in the Yukon watershed.

Galena Hardware is the closest hardware store to most communities along the Yukon River. Huhndorf often gets orders from village customers for items as small as door hinges or power tools. He packages and labels the items, takes payment over the phone, and then drives it three miles to the air carrier the customer requested, usually Everts Air Cargo or Wright Air Service.

The small carrier puts the item on the next plane headed that direction. The airline then phones the destination customer, who pays for shipping at the carrier when the package arrives.

Huhndorf contrasts the bypass process to ordinary mail. “If you want to mail something to Kaltag, just 60 miles downriver, it goes from Galena to Fairbanks, then it is trucked down to the Anchorage sorting facility, then sent back to Fairbanks to be routed to Kaltag,” Huhndorf says.

During the summer months, the Bering Sea ice opens to barge traffic. Barges from Tacoma, Seattle, and other West Coast ports travel across the Gulf of Alaska to Kodiak, Dutch Harbor, and multiple ports along the Aleutian Islands and the west coast of Alaska.

Alaska Marine Lines provides barge service between May and October to Bristol Bay fishing communities like Dillingham and Naknek, as well as Nome, Kotzebue, and farther north to Arctic towns of Wainwright, Utqiaġvik, Prudhoe Bay, and Kaktovik. The company services sixty-five smaller communities along the way.

Nome is another hub with barge traffic in the summer, bound for Nome residents, surrounding villages, and Little Diomede Island in the Bering Strait.

Just as Huhndorf sends products to smaller communities via bush planes, Nome businesses do the same.

Nome’s Alaska Commercial Company (AC) store, one of the larger AC stores in Alaska, responds to orders from nearby villages daily.

“We have an expediter who runs out to the airport a couple of times a day and takes the customer’s orders directly to the airlines that fly up to their village. Do that every day, every day,” Nome AC branch manager Mike McNally says.

McNally says getting the order right for the summer barge season is important. There are items that cannot be shipped in airplanes, such as strike-anywhere matches or aerosol products like cooking spray. Those items must be packaged and shipped via barge.

Some barge items run out more quickly than others, like soda pop.

“Around about December, we pretty much find out that we depleted our inventory of beverages, for example, off the barge. Then we have to start flying it in,” McNally says.

Nome is also the staging area for supplies headed out to Diomede on Little Diomede Island. The only way to Diomede is via helicopter; ice that formerly served as a runway for airplanes in the winter has, over the past decade, become dangerously thin. Bering Air hopes to resume flights if the ice ever thickens. Until then, Pathfinder Aviation flies federally subsidized routes using its Bell 212 helicopters, more often deployed for firefighting or utility missions like aerial surveys rather than carrying freight or passengers.

US Foods (USF) supplies food and restaurant equipment. The national company manages the statewide distribution of cargo out of a center in Anchorage. Twice a week, trucks drive through the Brooks Range on the Dalton Highway. For shipments north of the Arctic Circle, containers need insulated pallet covers for colder temperatures. Furthermore, trucks are equipped with special protection against calcium and dust on the haul road.

USF also flies cargo via air five days a week out of Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. The most far-flung destination USF services is Eareckson Air Station on Shemya Island near the end of the Aleutian Chain.

In 2019, USF acquired SGA Food Group, which includes Food Services of America, a longtime distributor in Anchorage. USF believes the years on the job gives them an advantage when it comes to moving daily and weekly to remote parts of Alaska, thanks to relationships with air and river carriers.

“We have both the experience and people who know and understand intra- and interstate Alaska logistics to safely deliver quality multi-temperature food products and services anywhere in the state of Alaska,” says USF Area President Rusty Storjohann.

One part of Alaska relatively independent from the logistical web centered on Anchorage is Southeast. Coastal communities are linked by the labyrinthine waterways of the Inside Passage, and most have regular service from the Alaska Marine Highway System. State ferries form part of the supply chain in the Panhandle region.

For example, recent landslides in Wrangell required heavy equipment to clean up. The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities can drive most machinery onto its ferries, expediting essential help and supplies.

In Skagway, heavy snowfall closed the Klondike Highway just as a large snowblower broke down. The weather opened up in Upper Lynn Canal just long enough to load a borrowed blower from Haines and sail it to Skagway, 20 miles north.

For more mundane household items, Southeast shoppers can order directly from Juneau stores. Online apps allow for delivery to an airline’s airport address. Alaska Seaplanes will fly those orders to smaller communities, arranging payment based on weight upon customer pickup.

Logistics are complicated at a glance, but moving things through Alaska to rural areas is a routine process for Alaskans who rely on barges, ships, cargo planes and small bush planes, snowmachines, and ATVs to get mail and supplies. It takes more than one company to get from a large hub to a village of thirty people.

It also takes Alaskans who understand the changing weather and seas, who have the experience to solve problems. The system started long before jets and helicopters. It’s local ingenuity with a touch of technology that advanced the network to a smooth-moving machine working to get all Alaskans what they need.