For a long time, Aleknagik resident Kay Andrews wondered about all the bridges being built to nowhere in Alaska. All she wanted was a bridge to somewhere.
Andrews and her community are getting their wish this fall, when a two-lane, 440-foot-long bridge will span the Wood River. The bridge will finally connect the two sides of the community and bring together the 240 people that call the Southwest Alaska village home.
It's a project that's been at least 40 years in the making. Villagers spent years lobbying local and federal governments to fund the project and even longer just wishing for the bridge.
For residents, it comes down to safety. The village borders the north and south banks of Lake Aleknagik near the Wood River. In the winter, the frozen lake serves as the village's main transportation corridor. But the ice can be unpredictable and unstable. Villagers said about 20 people have died trying to cross over in the last 40 years.
In a phone interview from Aleknagik earlier this month, Andrews, the city administrator, said it was more than just the deaths that kept her pushing for the bridge over the years. She's concerned about the divide it's caused in the community. With the population split, the village always needed two of everything. If one side got a road grader, so did the other side.
There are the safety concerns for the dozens of school children crossing the lake each day. The Aleknagik School is where all students in kindergarten through eighth grade attend on the north side of town. Older students catch a 20-mile bus ride to high school in Dillingham on the south bank. The way things are now, no matter what side of the lake the student lives on, it must eventually be crossed as part of students' daily commute.
There haven't been any student deaths, but Andrews said there have been many "close calls" over the years.
"I wouldn't say this is just fun and games," said Southwest Region School District Superintendent Dave Piazza about the bridge. "This is being put in for safety of students and community members."
For Andrews, 52, there's a personal connection. She said four of her family members died after falling through the lake. That includes her mother, who died when Andrews was only 6 years old.
Andrews hopes the bridge will be an economic driver, bringing in business and tourism to the whole community. But she also looks forward to little things, like children being able to ride a warm, covered school bus from their house all the way to school. That transition from the back of an open "snowmachine bus" and boat will mark a big change for the village.
"Hopefully this will bring the community closer together," she said.
Getting built
Alaska Department of Transportation Highway Design Chief Jim Amundsen said he heard of villagers pushing for a bridge since the 1930s.
Amundsen himself has put serious time into the project. He's worked on it since 2002 as a project engineer, when the the bridge first garnered a federal earmark from Sen. Ted Stevens that allowed environmental studies and preliminary design work to begin.
By 2005, that work was done and the project was ready to go, but was stalled due to a lack of construction funding.
That changed in 2008 when voters and the Legislature approved a $20 million state general obligation bond to build the bridge. That covered most of the project, but inflation and design changes pushed the cost up by another $5 million by the time it was ready for construction. With the last piece of funding missing, bridge construction paused.
A Minneapolis bridge collapse in 2007 changed how Congress authorized transportation funding for bridge construction and repair, according to Amundsen. That change went through in 2010 and suddenly the Aleknagik bridge found traction again.
With the design in hand, it just needed permitting approval from the U.S. Coast Guard. But then, another roadblock.
Amundsen said cuts in the Coast Guard permitting office led to a backlog in approvals. The Aleknagik bridge "got caught in that snarl" that "took a while to work its way out."
But with persistence from the community, approval finally came through in May 2013. The project could now find a builder, and broke ground in April 2014.
Amundsen said the total construction cost of the bridge will be about $24.5 million, a mix of federal and state funds.
Despite the years of back and forth, Amundsen noted the community's resilience.
"They never lost hope, never gave up, never stopped grinding it," he said. "They deserve the gold star on this one."
Long-term benefits
Amundsen expects the bridge -- which he calls a "tested and true" design -- to last anywhere between 75 and 100 years. He said similar bridges along the Ohio River in the Lower 48 have been in use for over 150 years. He could see the Aleknagik bridge easily lasting for more than 100 years.
Andrews admitted it was frustrating to see the project take so long, but that in some ways it was OK. The lake has been freezing later in the year, and abnormally warm weather has meant early, unexpected thaws and dangerous, unstable ice. She thinks Aleknagik needs the bridge now more than ever, but also wondered if the community might not have been really ready for the project if it had come at any other time.
"If I was to do it over again, I wouldn't do it any other way," she said.
In the future, Andrews could see maybe another bridge to the island where a small section of the community lives. Who knows, she said, maybe even one day there might be a boardwalk along the lake.
An official ribbon cutting celebrating the bridge's completion is set for October.
Correction: This article originally stated the Legislature had approved a $20 million general obligation bond to help fund the bridge. The bond was actually approved by both voters and the Legislature.