The price for heating fuel and gas is only the beginning of the story. Groceries must be flown in at ever-higher freight prices. A pound of hot dogs in the village store costs $7.39, and a two-pound loaf of domestic cheese runs $17.49. A loaf of Wonder Bread is $5.85.
The cost of flying to Bethel has risen to $186 for a round trip, so few go there to shop -- and even fewer make the trip to the dentist or hospital until ailments become urgent.
In earlier years, hunting, fishing and trapping helped villagers get by. But the market for fur has disappeared, and the fish stock has declined precipitously. Last year, there was no commercial fishing season at all for the region's mainstay, chinook salmon. Moose hunting, also because of declining numbers, hasn't been allowed around Tuluksak for five years.
"Me, I have 17 people living in my house," said Elena Gregory, the Tribal Council secretary. She is the only breadwinner in a household that includes her husband -- a seasonally employed carpenter -- four daughters, two sons-in-law and nine grandchildren.
"I'm lucky because I have a full-time job. . . . Most people are two weeks on, two weeks off," a job-sharing arrangement devised to spread out the village's 34 available jobs, Gregory said.
"Right now, my truck and my snow machine are out there rusting, because I can't afford gas for them," said Rachel Sallaffie, a teacher's aide. "But we're lucky. I have four freezers of birds and fish, and two months ago my husband got a caribou, so we still have meat."
Samson, an Alaska Native who grew up in the region before going away to college in Fairbanks, helps villagers here apply for fuel subsidies and other aid programs.
Walking through lots filled with abandoned vans and pickups -- the remnants of an era when the fishing was good enough that people could afford cars and could repair them when they broke down -- he pointed to a shack made of weathered plywood, its roof ripped open to the chilly sky.
"This guy asked for help fixing his house, but I couldn't do it -- too dangerous for the workers," he said.
"When I started this job, I was going to pay my student loans and then just work menial jobs after that, go commercial fishing in the summer. Now, I've been to just about all these villages, and I've seen things -- things that keep me working," he said. "It was going to be a six-month job, and come September, I'll be doing this for 18 years."
