Gas hits $5 per gallon in Alaska

By The Associated Press

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"We don't even want to talk about that," said Joyce John, a clerk at Midnight Sun Native Store in Arctic Village, in far northeastern Alaska.

The high prices in isolated villages stem from the cost of delivering fuel by airplane.

One of the major fuel carriers, Fairbanks-based Everts Air Fuel, uses cargo planes to transport as much as 4,500 gallons at a time, corporate administrator Karen Wing said. Other companies deliver fuel in 55-gallon drums, landing on airstrips too short for bigger planes.

The cost may force subsistence hunters and fishermen to pare back their trips. Electric bills will rise because most power comes from diesel generators. And some villages may struggle to buy a year's worth of heating oil, because of the high price and because state aid has expired.

The Energy Department reported yesterday that the average gasoline price nationwide was almost $2.02 per gallon. Anchorage-area stations straddled that mark, according to the price-tracking Web site GasBuddy.com, with prices around $2.

But an informal survey of rural Alaska communities shows prices well above that and climbing. Arctic Village shared honors with the Kuskokwim River community of Nikolai for peak prices at $5 a gallon.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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