BETHEL -- After more than a week of floating down the Kuskokwim River on a giant log raft, a crew of men led by Thomas Willis of Stony River arrived in this Southwest Alaska hub community Saturday with the goal of selling the very wood that formed their vessel.
The group reached Bethel that afternoon and tied up on the rock-covered bank near a boat launch area by the new Swanson's store. Willis said they were hoping to fire up their chainsaws there for the next four or five days to divide and then distribute the wood. Right away, they cut logs for a friend who had brought them fish and checked on them during their journey.
"I only get from the best," said that friend, Earl Samuelson of Napaskiak, from his now firewood-laden skiff.
Later, they moved the operation to the beach area near the Association of Village Council Presidents' Joe Lomack building.
The Stony River crew traveled by raft more than 330 miles on the river over a week and a half or so, Willis said. Stony River is 185 air miles northeast of Bethel, and their main wood collection site was even further upriver, at the confluence with the Swift River. The Kuskokwim curves around villages and mountains and marshy tundra.
READ MORE: Stony River men raft down Kuskokwim River on run to sell firewood
Alaska Dispatch Publishing