Man Sails 14 Hours On Boat Each Week To Stock Up Food For Neighbors In Small Town

Jun 11, 2020 by apost team

Alaska is known as a land of extremes: extreme weather, extreme mountains, and extreme animal encounters. Now, Toshua Parker and his staff at Icy Strait Wholesale are going to extreme lengths to keep their town of Gustavus supplied with groceries and other necessities despite the damage COVID-19 has done to the supply chain.

Parker felt like he had no choice but to make the 14-hour journey by boat to Alaska's capital himself in order to keep his store and his town supplied. This may seem like an unreasonable amount of effort for some groceries, but for Toshua Parker and his staff, this has become a regular weekly necessity.

Toshua's store—referred to locally as ToshCo—is the only grocery store in the small coastal town of Gustavus that 446 people call home, reports Anchorage Daily News. This already remote village has become truly isolated after a recent storm and the devastating effect the pandemic has had on the state's ferry system. Since ToshCo is the only supplier in town, it became Toshua's responsibility to make the weekly journey to America's smallest Costco located 50 miles away in Juneau. He does this by traveling on a converted military landing craft that is 96-feet-long and doesn't need a docking station due to its unique design.

Parker displayed a truly Alaskan mindset when he told CNN:

"It's funny because for us, this doesn't seem like a big deal. Alaskans are fiercely independent and resourceful; you really have to be to survive here. So when a problem arises, we don't typically look to someone else for help, we just find a way to do it."

The company’s staff and the local fisherman of Gustavus displayed this sense of comradery and resourcefulness by chipping in to help ToshCo make the weekly supply run for the town. Residents of Gustavus will request everything from basic grocery items like eggs and fruit to more necessary items like medications. This creates the shopping list that Parker will follow when he reaches the Costco in Juneau.

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Once the requests are in, Toshua and his team will make the difficult journey to the capital. The trip takes about seven hours each way, but they have to keep a close eye on the weather for any impending storms and their accompanying tide changes. Parker and his crew have been making this run once a week since March, so they are no strangers to the challenges along the way. If a storm rolls in on the journey back, the team has to stay in Juneau until the weather clears. They unload the groceries and store any cold items in coolers until it is safe to travel.

Once they can take to the sea again, all the supplies are reloaded onto the ship and the crew sets off once more. The residents of Gustavus are extremely grateful for all the effort the crew of ToshCo puts into these runs. They don't take their grocer and his staff for granted and praise Toshua for stepping up and taking care of the town when they needed him. Toshua is quick to pass all the praise on to his staff, though, complimenting them for "going to work every day during this pandemic to make sure our town stays supplied."

Despite the challenges the town is currently facing, Parker believes they will stay strong and continue on. For him, and for many who live in rural parts of this wild state, going to great lengths for basic groceries and supplies is just one more hurdle to deal with.

"The town needed to be supplied with groceries so we just did whatever it took to make that happen. Just another day in our world. Next year it will be another obstacle to overcome and we'll buck up and deal with it," he explained.

Let us know what you think of this man's extreme grocery run! Be sure to pass this story along to anyone who thinks their grocery trips have gotten bad, or who may need an encouraging example of the power of human resilience and ingenuity.