Alaska’s first native female bush pilot
Ellen Evak Paneok, 48, credited as the first native female bush pilot in Alaska, died March 2 at Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage, the Anchorage Daily News reported. The cause of death was not announced.
Born in Bedford, Va., Paneok grew up in Kotzebue and Anchorage in what she called less than ideal circumstances. She told a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News that she began flying in the mid-1970s to “save my life.” She said that elders in her village would mull over the words “Eskimo? Woman? Pilot?” as if the combination would never fit.
For much of her time as a pilot, she flew a modified Cessna 206 and specialized in landing on beaches and sandbars. She was said to have a unique knowledge of high arctic flying.
According to the Daily News obituary, she worked for the Federal Aviation Administration as an operations inspector, and then for the Alaska Aviation Safety Foundation as the statewide aviation safety coordinator.
A writer as well as a pilot, she published in Alaska Magazine and was included in an anthology of the publication’s best work.
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