Silver-lined clouds hung over the Yup’ik village of Kwigillingok the Thursday before a weekend storm was forecast to pass through.
Dan Winkelman was at the community health clinic for a ground-breaking ceremony, a commemoration of the facility’s much needed expansion. The renovation – part of a $100m effort by the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation (YKHC) – was an example of the non-profit matching its money to its mission: to represent “the healthiest people” in south-western Alaska.
For the YKHC, this translated into about 30,000 Indigenous Alaskans belonging to 58 federally recognized tribes in the region. As president and CEO, Winkelman started that October weekend on a high note.
“I met with the council. I met with the community. We had a nice groundbreaking,” he said. “And then this storm happened.”