UPDATE: A group of state officials are headed to Emmonak this morning to meet with locals, said Nicholas Tucker, who has been seeking help for the village.

Few details so far, but Tucker said someone from the labor department, the division of public assistance, community and regional affairs and possibly one other department were en route from Bethel this morning.

"We’re going to hear what they have to say, what they intend to do and go from there," he said.

From Kyle Hopkins in Anchorage --

Emmonak wasn't the only village slammed by fuel prices this winter. As the state and Legislature debate how, if or when to help, here's a quick roundup of what other Yukon River villages are saying:

Kotlik
"There are some people who trade wood for stove oil, and there are some families who are forced to use their wood stove all day, all night because they cannot afford to buy fuel," writes Tribal Administrator Della Hunt.

Marshall
"It was heartbreaking to hear elders in tears broadcasting on the VHF that someone had emptied their fuel drums in the darkness of night. These are people desperate to heat their homes for their families who knowingly committed crimes out of desperation," wrote Tribal Administrator Nick P. Andrew, Jr., in a letter published on the Tundra Drums Web site.

Nunam Iqua
Ann Strongheart, who runs the local youth center, is calling for donations of diapers and baby formula, noodles and pancake mix. Even the toilet paper is running out, she said. The village grocery store closed this fall, and people go to Emmonak to buy food. (On the to-do list: What happened to that store?)

...

People in rural Alaska have been talking about many of these issues - heating oil theft, runaway prices, turning to wood for heat - for months. This video is from the Alaska Federation of Natives convention in October:

That said, how are things in Emmonak this week, after local Nicholas Tucker brought widespread attention to the village's struggle to pay for food and fuel?

Fuel prices jumped again recently, locals say, presumably because the village corporation is starting to sell the fuel it brought in by plane -- at an added expense -- after missing the fuel barge. But help is starting to arrive.

Alaska Newspapers Inc., a subsidiary of Calista Corp., announced today that people have donated more than 4,300 pounds of food to the village after the company started a food drive in response to Tucker's letter.

Tucker said that as of Friday afternoon, the local tribal council had received about $3,000 in donations, with more on the way. "As we get those cash donations, we'll try to help those households get gas needed to get logs or at least a few days of stove oil."

Over the weekend, the village held a potlatch and gave supplies to roughly 100 households.

"They brought me a box of food the other day, and that really helped me out," said 37-year-old Samson Kassock.

He's one of the people Tucker wrote about in his letter.

Kassock said he'd been living mainly on moose and seal meat, eating leftover soup for breakfast. Now he has cereal in the morning and was able to use the money he'd saved for food to buy fuel for his snowmachine.

That, in turn, lets him go out and gather wood to heat his home.

Still, Kassock describes a hardscrabble life for himself and for his family. His parents - 68 and 73 years old - go out to gather wood every day, he said. He tries not to ask his folks for money to fuel his snowmachine because they live on a fixed income, he said, and need the cash to pay their power and water bills.

Tucker said to watch the Legislature this session for proposals to help the village.