Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Eek, AK

Eek is a city in the Bethel Census Area with 404 residents and 107 households in the 2020 census, and 91.8 percent of its residents were American Indian and Alaska Native.

Eek was incorporated as a city on July 9, 1970.

Eek takes its name from a Yupik word meaning two eyes, and it has been noted on lists of unusual place names.

Eek Village was originally located on the Apokak River and moved to its present location in the late 1920s after flooding and erosion forced the people to relocate, and it appeared in the 1900 census as Apokagamiut with 118 residents.

Eek received a post office in 1949, and it lies along the Eek River, which feeds into the Kuskokwim River.

Eek is served primarily by the Eek Airport, and a town dock provides access to the Eek River, while in winter residents travel by snowmachine on trails to Quinhagak, Tuntutuliak and the Bethel area.

The Lower Kuskokwim School District operates the Eek School, a bilingual pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade school with 120 students and six teachers as of 2018, and the state awarded 34.4 million dollars in 2020 to build a new school to reduce severe classroom overcrowding.

Before 2019 the city had no running water, with water distributed by truck at 25 cents per five gallons, until piped running water was completed in 2019 with help from the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.

Most households in Eek rely on traditional Native subsistence, and in 2020 more than three-quarters of the students at the Eek School were below the poverty line.

Houses in Eek are not numbered, which makes gaining identification difficult for residents.