When she heard that some of her neighbors were eating squirrels for Thanksgiving, a local pilot thought she’d lend a helping wing.

Many people believe turkeys can’t fly. They can, actually, in more ways than one.

Esther Sanderlin lives in rural Skwentna and West Susitna Valley Alaska, where flying small single-engine or prop planes is a common mode of personal transportation.

“I was visiting our newest neighbor and they were talking about splitting a squirrel three ways for dinner, and how that didn’t really go very far,” Sanderlin told Alaska’s NBC affiliate KTUU on the Monday in advance of Turkey Day.

“And I just had a thought at that moment, ‘You know what, I’m going to airdrop them a turkey for Thanksgiving,’ because I recently rebuilt my first airplane with my dad and so I can do that really easily.”

Sanderlin grew up occasionally receiving turkeys at her home via air-drop after the roads froze over in late autumn. She combined these wild childhood memories with the news of the squirrel dinner and decided she ought to pay it forward.

This year she’s dropping 30 to 40 turkeys to ensure her neighbors have as much to eat as they like on the day to be thankful for friends and family.

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She doesn’t need to attach a parachute to them, as the soft snow below, and the frozen flesh of the turkey, means that a hard landing is no harm no fowl.

Speaking to the NBC, she said she hopes to turn her turkey drops into a nonprofit in the future so that she can extend her reach to more communities across Alaska.

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For the moment, she has a Facebook page called the Alaska Turkey Bomb.

“Huge shout out to everyone that helped with this year’s Turkey bombing! It was a success and thanks to many, we were able to deliver 36 Turkeys to the Yentna and Skwentna River area!” a post on the page read.

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Keeping up the old tradition alive, Alaskan authorities delivered Thanksgiving Turkey to residents in remote areas of Alaska by airplane this week. Esther Keim, a resident, continued a unique tradition for the third year by piloting a small plane and dropping frozen turkeys to families living in isolated, roadless areas.
Alaska’s limited road access makes travel challenging, especially in winter when roads are covered with snow and residents have to rely on planes, snowmobiles, and frozen rivers. Keim grew up on a homestead where a family friend airdropped turkeys and newspapers during the holidays.
Motivated by a family struggling to find Thanksgiving dinner, Keim revived the tradition a few years ago. “They were telling me that a squirrel for dinner did not split very far between three people,” Keim recalled. “At that moment, I thought … ‘I’m going to airdrop them a turkey,'” she added.

Social media posts have helped her expand her efforts. Keim delivered 32 turkeys this year, funded by donations through Facebook. She wraps the turkeys in plastic bags and stores them in her truck until delivery. However, weather conditions result in delays in deliveries.
Dave and Christina Luce, living 45 miles northwest of Anchorage, are among the recipients. The 90-minute snowmobile ride to the nearest town has become problematic for the senior citizen. “I’m 80 years old now, so we make fewer and fewer trips,” Dave Luce said. “The adventure has sort of gone out of it.” The delivered turkey will feed them and several neighbors. “It makes a great Thanksgiving,” Dave Luce said. “She’s been a real sweetheart, and she’s been a real good friend,” he added.
Keim flies up to 100 miles from her base north of Anchorage to deliver the turkeys, sometimes with a “turkey dropper” assisting. She contacts families beforehand and waits for them to come outside before dropping the birds to ensure they are easily found, particularly in deep snow. “We won’t drop the turkey until we see them come out of the house or the cabin, because if they don’t see it fall, they’re not going to know where to look,” she said.
While a ham has been lost, no turkeys have been damaged, as per Keim. “As far as precision and hitting our target, I am definitely not the best aim,” she joked. “I’ve gotten better, but I have never hit a house, a building, person or dog,” she added.
Keim’s long-term goal is to establish a nonprofit to expand her deliveries statewide and include other items for children. “There’s so many kids out in the villages,” she said. “It would be cool to maybe add a stuffed animal or something they can hold.”

In some of Alaska’s remotest areas this Thanksgiving, there’s a different kind of bird in the sky – a frozen turkey dropped for residents unable to pick up their own for their holiday table. 

Alaska native Esther Keim is now in her third straight year of the Alaska Turkey Bomb, a service in which she drops frozen turkeys from a small plane to remote areas of the south-central part of the state. 

Keim told the Alaska Gear Company that she remembers living on an Alaskan homestead as a child.

“I grew up in Skwentna, Alaska, which is about 50 miles northwest of Anchorage,” Keim said in a video about her efforts. “In the fall, in the freeze-up, families would be stuck out there because you can’t travel, everything would be freezing up. It’s not safe.”

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She continued, “We had a friend that would fly and drop a turkey for Thanksgiving. I just remember it being so exciting and so fun. He would drop a newspaper and inside the newspaper was a pack of gum.”

She said to a kid “that couldn’t just go to the store, a pack of gum just meant so much. You know, you can’t access the store so easily, and you have to plan in advance. “

Keim said freeze-up at the beginning of winter and breakup at the end are “three weeks minimum” when it’s hard to travel. 

Having since moved to Anchorage, she said she was inspired to start the Alaska Turkey Bomb by her childhood memories and after hearing of a neighboring family near where she lived on the homestead who were going to go without on Thanksgiving in 2022.  

“He was saying how one squirrel doesn’t split three ways very far for dinner, and I had a thought in my head when he said that that I’m going to airdrop him a turkey,” Keim told the Alaska Gear Company. 

She said it quickly turned into, “you know, ‘I’m going to do this for all the families that are stuck out there because I remember what that meant to my family and to all the rest of the families. It was pretty special.”

Keim noted that in “the bush” there are no roads and the only way to get to the home is by plane, snowmobile or boat at Thanksgiving time. “Everyone is stuck.” 

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She said airdropping the birds is efficient, “because we can get to so many families so quickly.” 

Keim added that she put “something special” in the turkey bomb for the three families she dropped to who have kids because “as a kid growing up out there I understand what candy meant, and the lack of it.”

Keim and her pilot Heidi Hastings flew so low when dropping the packages to the kids that she told the Associated Press she was able to see some of the children’s reactions, “and I could see their excitement.”

This year, Keim’s 30-some turkey deliveries included 80-year-old Dave Luce, who, along with his wife, lives northwest of Anchorage on the Yentna River. 

The Luces have known Keim since she was a child.  

Using her airplane that she recently rebuilt with her dad, Keim and her pilot Heidi Hastings fly over the homes until they see a person outside. Then they come around “low and slow” and drop the bird.  (Mountain Mind Media/Alaska Gear Company via AP)

They venture into the nearest town about once a month in the winter via a 90-minute snowmobile ride.

Luce said: “I’m 80 years old now, so we make fewer and fewer trips. The adventure has sort of gone out of it.”

“She’s been a real sweetheart, and she’s been a real good friend,” he added of Keim, who delivered them a 12-pound bird this year. “It makes a great Thanksgiving.”

Using her airplane that she recently rebuilt with her dad, Keim and her pilot Heidi Hastings fly over the homes until they see a person outside. Then they come around “low and slow” and drop the bird. 

Keim relies heavily on donations for the turkeys and purchases about 20 at a time, which she leaves in her truck until it’s time to fly. 

“Luckily it’s cold in Alaska, so I don’t have to worry about freezers,” she joked to the Associated Press. 

Keim said she wants to turn the Alaksa Turkey Bomb into a nonprofit. (Esther Keim via AP)

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“My vision with this is to make it into a nonprofit organization where I can get funding and more support that I can reach more parts of Alaska because there are so many families that live rural and that live off-grid,” Keim added.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.