The 1929 Kuskokwim Meteor

Sometime near the end of January 1929, Clark M. Garber and a group of Lower Kuskokwim Eskimoes were completing a roundup that netted thirty-three thousand reindeer. Mr. Garber, then the "Superintendent of Eskimo Education, Medical Relief and Reindeer Herds in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Rivers District" said it was the largest such roundup ever held in the area. The roundup was located three days' travel via reindeer sled from the Bethel-Akiak area--possibly at Kasiglook to the northwest in the Kuskokwim-Yukon delta.

Working inside his tent, Mr. Garber heard a distant high-pitched noise that grew louder as though it were approaching rapidly. At first he thought it was an airplane in trouble; then a herder burst into the tent asking him to quickly come and see the big ball of fire approaching from the southeast. The fiery meteor appeared to be heading directly toward them, but slowly enough that most of the workers were able to hide behind trees before it arrived overhead.

Writing in an unpublished manuscript held in the University of Alaska Archives at Fairbanks, Mr. Garber estimated that the meteor passed over not a thousand feet above them and stated that it had a short incandescent tail. Wind accompanying the meteor blew one man against a stump knocking him unconscious. It also more or less devastated the camp. Mr. Garber's tent was blown unharmed into a nearby ravine, while others were never found; it took all day to find the cookstove. The wind also blew down much of the nearby reindeer corral which, fortunately for the workers, was empty of animals at the time.

The next day, Eskimoes traveling from the northwest reported that the meteor had fallen into a small lake and exploded, blowing a five-foot-thick ice covering away.