Alaska’s leaders say North Korea’s test of intercontinental missiles proves the need for beefed-up missile defense in this frontier state. That’s the politicians, anyway. Many Alaskans say they’re more worried about bears than bombs.

“I was surprised they were able to get a missile to actually launch,” Robert Church, a physician, said Thursday as he parked his mountain bike at a popular Anchorage park. Cottonwood seeds drifted to the grass all around him. “I’m concerned about the threat, but I don’t have a lot of confidence in the North Korea scientists making a functional rocket that could reach Alaska.”

Experts say the Tuesday launch demonstrated the ability of North Korea to put Alaska within firing range. Alaskans like 45-year-old Church, who grew up during the cold war, living closer to Russia than to the continental United States, have heard it all before.

“The Russians would come and we’d chase them off and shit. We’d scramble some planes,” said 40-year-old delivery driver David Brandt. He sat behind the wheel of a Ford F150 across town from the park, knocking ashes from his cigarette.

Certainly other Alaska problems feel more immediate. Governor Bill Walker spent the morning surveying flood damage to homes and properties in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley. Amid a pair of fatal black bear maulings, an opioid epidemic and a cratering state economy, the North Korea threat is just one of many worries making headlines in the state.

Walker said North Korea’s efforts highlight the need to “expand armed forces” here, including a strategic Arctic port.



“Given our proximity to growing foreign powers, and this week’s test, that need is now more urgent than ever,” he said on Thursday through a spokeswoman.



Meanwhile, Alaska’s only congressman, Don Young, is pushing legislation that would authorize an additional 28 ground-based interceptors south-east of Fairbanks.

“The recent actions by North Korea, a rogue and irrational regime, underscores the importance of the Alaska’s missile defense systems, including interceptors at Fort Greely, Alaska, and the future long range discrimination radar at Clear Air Force Station,” a Young spokesman said.

And Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, called the missile test a “matter of grave concern” and warned against complacency.



The test came as many Alaskans were distracted by hunting, fishing and fireworks over the holiday weekend. Mike McIntyre, a Yup’ik musician, took his kids to a parade in the rural hub city of Bethel, about 40 miles from the Bering Sea.

“Scary,” McIntyre said of the North Korea threat. Those living in remote communities like Bethel feel as if they there are on the frontlines of any conflicts with foreign powers, he said – particularly as sea ice disappears, increasing accessibility to northern areas.

“The Arctic Ocean ice has kind of opened up there and they could sail right to us,” McIntyre said.

A family of brown bears in Alaska. A recent spate of fatal bear attacks has some more worried than North Korea. Photograph: USFWS Photo/Alamy Stock Photo

In another riverside town, Paul Apfelbeck of Galena said random thoughts crossed his mind when he heard of the missile tests. Doesn’t he live next to a former second world war-era military airfield? he mused.

“I was wondering about being on some old map and having the North Koreans use it as a demonstration shot,” he said.



In a sprawling state where life is on pause during the sun-drenched summer days, news of the missile test has been slow to reach some village and community leaders.

“I never heard anything about [the missile test],” said Cassandra Ahkvaluk, a teacher’s aide in the tiny Bering Strait village of Little Diomede. The hillside town is on an island just two miles across the international boundary line from Russia.

Ahkvaluk, a former city mayor in the community of 118 people, says she’s too young to remember the cold war. As for North Korea, their missiles didn’t even rate water-cooler gossip this week. Her neighbors are busy gathering murre eggs and greens, hunting seal and walrus, she said.



Everything else seems so far away. “I don’t know what to think,” Ahkvaluk said.

Back at the busy public park in Anchorage, 30-year-old Alyssa Wehrli thumbed her phone as kids crawled inside a rocket-shaped playground slide.

“It’s always been concerning that Alaska is an easy target for our enemies,” Wehrlie said. “If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen.”

She avoided news of North Korea, she said, but did hear about the unusual bear attack that killed a runner on a trail just down the highway. Everybody worried and talked about that.

“They just pose a more immediate threat,” she said.