Along The Rim of Alaska, The Once-A-Decade U.S. Census Begins In Toksook Bay

Near the iced-over Bering Sea, parka-clad workers for the U.S. Census Bureau are gathering in a remote fishing village along the southwestern rim of Alaska to resume a U.S. tradition seen only once a decade — a count of every person living in the country.

After years of largely under-the-radar planning by the federal government and months of turmoil arising from the Trump administration’s failed push to add a citizenship question, the 2020 census is officially beginning Tuesday in Toksook Bay, Alaska — population 590, according to the 2010 head count.

The bureau’s director, Steven Dillingham, is expected to arrive by plane to attend a ceremony at the gymnasium of Nelson Island School, where community members are marking the day with traditional Yup’ik dancing and drumming.