Sports teams in Alaska Native villages face unique challenges. Practicing in very cold weather is one of them.

Finding competitors is another. With some villages thousands of miles apart, teams end up flying, ferrying and occasionally snowmobiling to the next game.

The kids definitely don't mind and see it as an adventure. "I feel sorry for those kids back East who just have to drive 20 minutes to the next suburb for a game," Nikki Dill of the Unalakleet girls' basketball team told The New York Times. "How boring." The team has to fly to games because there are no roads out of the village.

It's a rather costly affair. Bethel spends more than $200,000 on travel for its high school athletes. The teams on Kodiak Island and in the village of Unalaska pay other teams to come and compete.

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In Alaska, Getting There Is Half the Fun (The New York Times 3/2)
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