During the pandemic, Williams decided to get her college degree, while holding down her full-time job as a childcare worker, and raising five kids. Now, it's about to become a reality in Akiak and rural communities around the nation, thanks in part to the pandemic.įor Shawna Williams, getting broadband will mean being able to see her teachers and classmates. The village's remote location has made high-speed internet, which is typically delivered through cables, a fantasy for its 460-some residents. The only other way to get there is on a four-seater plane.

'But the internet was so slow and I thought it was wasting gigabytes so I turned that off before I completely finished how to fix the dryer.'Īkiak sits along the Kuskokwim River, which transforms into a frozen highway in the winter. 'First thing I did was YouTube how to replace a belt,' Foss said. She knew it was broken, but figured she could fix it by looking at tutorials online. Lena Foss thought she got lucky when she salvaged a dryer from the dump in Akiak, a Yup'ik village in Western Alaska.

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