In early November, the last bits of open water on the north bank of Kwiguk Pass finished freezing. Snowmachines, dormant for months, could be seen ferrying locals across the ice to check on traps for Emmonak, the Yup’ik word for blackfish and namesake of the community.
Just a month before, small fishing boats and giant barges buzzed across the open water. It was the community’s first season using a brand-new dock championed by the late Martin Moore Sr., the village’s city manager for three decades. His successor, Dave Roland, said the project owes itself to Moore.
“This goes all the way back to about 2009, he had already made inroads to Congress, state house and everything,” Roland said.
Moore’s name is stamped on dozens of documents to state and federal legislators. In them, Moore envisioned a massively expanded dock that would serve as the economic hub of the upper Yukon.
Moore died in 2022, but not before he was able to convince Congress to award just over $23 million for the project. Construction began in 2020 and finished in 2024.
In the past, Emmonak typically received large freight from Nenana, over 900 miles upstream on the Yukon River. Now, Roland said the hub community can receive freight from larger, ocean-going vessels up to a month earlier than before.
“This year was the first year of the dock where we actually had an ocean-going vessel come in. And it was a monster. I mean, it was 122 feet tall with connexes,” Roland said. “We never had anything like that in here. You know, it was amazing.”
Matt Sweetsir owns and operates Ruby Marine based in Nenana and has decades of experience running cargo up and down the Yukon. Sweetsir doesn’t envision the project fundamentally changing his operations. Instead, he views the massive metal dockface as a game-changer for Emmonak’s shoreline, which is battered by fast-flowing water and ice moving out toward the Bering Sea.
“In my mind the advantage to that dock has got nothing to do with it being a dock,” Sweetsir said. “It's an erosion control project, and it did exactly that.”
Sweetsir sees the former city manager, Moore’s fingerprints all over the project, which was initially pitched as a potential hub for liquefied natural gas.
“The greatest success of that thing was he did a combination project. And this is not what he sold, it's but it's what has occurred,” Sweetsir said.
Pivoting Emmonak's economy
The new dock isn’t the only development near Emmonak’s port. Kwik'pak Fisheries, once a stalwart engine for the local economy, is pivoting its business as salmon stocks decline. In 2021, the sole fish processor on the Yukon traded its gillnets for trowels and began growing and selling vegetables.
Kwik’pak is also in the process of converting its cannery into a sawmill, with plans to turn lumber from Grayling into three-sided logs for housing.
According to the Alaska Department of Fish & Game, chum salmon stocks haven’t reached escapement goals since 2020, leading to complete closures of subsistence and commercial fishing for some salmon species. The agency hopes the emergency measures will give salmon stocks a chance to recover.
Sweetsir said communities all along the Yukon are feeling the pain.
“Emmonak, it used to be a dynamo. It's still more dynamic than most villages on the Yukon but it is struggling the same way the rest of the Yukon River villages are,” Sweetsir said. “The only source of true activity was the fishery, and that's from end of the river. That's the single greatest loss.”
Roland said his community of about 800 people will persevere.
“It's not just same-old, even though fishing is gone, they're not down in the dumps about it or anything,” Roland said. “There's other opportunities, bring in the mill, find other ways to do things. Hopefully it stays that way, kind of on a positive.”
He said the city has also secured funding for a new heated storage building adjacent to the dock that's scheduled to arrive in 2026. The facility will be used to stage and stockpile materials for use year round.
The future is still bright for Emmonak, Roland believes, thanks in no small part to the legacy Moore left behind.
“He got pounded by people every day, no help from anybody,” Roland said. “Pretty solitary. Now we get a lot more help from other people.”
