Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Aleknagik, AK

Aleknagik (Central Yupik: Alaqnaqiq) is a second-class city in the Dillingham Census Area of the Unorganized Borough of Alaska, at the head of the Wood River on the southeast end of Lake Aleknagik, about 16 miles northwest of Dillingham.

The city was incorporated on March 26, 1973, and the 2020 census recorded a population of 211, with 72 households and 116 housing units.

Wood River and Aleknagik Lake were historically used as summer fish camps, and the name was described by the resident Yako family in 1930 as meaning "Wrong Way Home," because Nushagak River residents returning home upriver would sometimes become lost in the fog and find themselves swept up the Wood River with the tide, arriving at Aleknagik Lake.

The 1929 census found 55 people living in the "Wood River village" area to the south, and during 1930 there were five families living on the shores of the lake year-round: the Waskeys, Polleys, Hansons, Yakos, and Smiths.

A log cabin territorial school was built on the south shore of the lake in 1933, with Josie Waskey as the first teacher, and a post office was established in March 1937 with Mabel M. Smith as postmaster.

A two-story framed school with a teacher apartment was constructed in 1938, and by 1939 Aleknagik had 78 residents, over 30 buildings, and a small sawmill.

In the late 1940s a Seventh-day Adventist mission and school were established on the north shore, and during the 1950s a Moravian church and a Russian Orthodox church were built in Aleknagik, with over 35 families living along the lake.

In 1959 the State of Alaska constructed a road connecting Aleknagik to Dillingham, which was passable only in summer until the late 1980s, when it was upgraded and maintained year-round.

Over 24 additional square miles were annexed to the city in April 2000, and Aleknagik now covers about 43.5 square miles, of which roughly 39 percent is water.

In August 2010, an airplane carrying former Senator Ted Stevens crashed near Aleknagik, resulting in the death of Stevens and four others.