A FEW WEEKS AGO, Mark Leary and his crew began to plow the snow off the frozen Kuskokwim River in southwest Alaska. Every year, after the river freezes and the snow is cleared from the ice, dozens of trucks, snowmobiles and other vehicles from up to 17 different villages whiz back and forth atop it. This is the Kuskokwim ice road, whose main stem can extend over 300 miles and which connects the bulk of the region’s population.
“Oh my gosh, you gotta see it with your own eyes,” said Leary, the director of development and operations for the road and an employee of the Native Village of Napaimute, the entity that leads the effort to
