ANCHORAGE — Near the end of the snowiest year on record for Alaska’s largest city, Larry Tunley took a plastic box tied to an old boogie board and pulled the makeshift sled through the trees to collect wood.
Tunley lives under a tarp in a homeless camp on the north side of the city, one of hundreds of people who spend the winter outdoors in Anchorage. The season’s snowstorms had made his tenuous living situation even more perilous: tents gave way under the heavy drifts; tree limbs crashed down. During a cold snap last month, at least four people in the city died from exposure or through their attempts to stay warm, according to police and advocates for the homeless. Tunley’s neighbors huddled together around propane flames or shared body heat to withstand the elements.
