Bristol Bay Air Services

About Bristol Bay Air Services

Dillingham sits where the Wood and Nushagak Rivers spill into Bristol Bay, a town reached by plane or boat and never by road, so the airstrip has to open before anything else in town can move. Bristol Bay Air Services clears that strip and its taxiways first, when wind off the bay has usually packed the runway snow into ridges hard enough to catch a ski or a wheel. From there the crew works down to the harbor, pushing snow off the boardwalks and boat-ramp aprons where the fishing fleet sits out the winter hauled up on blocks. Weather off the open water can close a morning down fast, so the plowing happens in short, decisive windows between squalls. By midday the strip is bare pavement, the ramps are sanded, and Dillingham is, for a few hours, connected to everywhere again.