BETHEL -- At his farm carved out of the tundra near the heart of Western Alaska’s biggest town, Tim Meyers thinks about feeding the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta and looks underground. There he has built a massive storage cellar to preserve potatoes, turnips, beets and more through the winter. Underground is where he starts seeds each spring in a heated space under his house.

Meyers has transformed four acres of permafrost into a vegetable-producing phenomenon.

He is changing the way people eat in an isolated region where living off the land traditionally meant catching fish, hunting animals and picking berries, not planting cauliflower and plucking chickweed.

“I think I grew about 45,000 pounds last year, hope to do better than 100 this year,” Meyers said.

Loyal year-round clientele in Bethel starts lining up even before his twice-a-week store opens, anticipating fresh eggs, his first radishes of the season, and, during the winter, organic fruits and vegetables he orders from a Portland supplier. He ships produce to village residents and a few faraway schools, including in Cordova, where his potatoes are a hit. Just this spring, he started selling to Bethel’s main grocery store for the first time.

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