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Alaska Natives in Bering Strait Region Brace Against COVID-19

Cecily Hilleary

   WASHINGTON - Today, the small Native Inupiaq community of Shishmaref is
   best known for its struggle against coastal erosion: Set on a tiny
   barrier island in Alaska, just south of the Arctic Circle, it is slowly
   being eaten up by the rising Chukchi Sea.

   But Shishmaref is also known as the only village in Alaska's Behring
   Strait region to have thwarted the 1918 Spanish flu, which arrived in
   the port city of Nome in late October that year and quickly spread up
   the coast and within weeks, killed hundreds and left dozens of orphans.

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