The airplane changed the face of Alaska and provided outlying communities such as Nome and Barrow with year-round connections. There was still a very high degree of self-sufficiency, but supplies and medical care were now hours away instead of weeks or even months. Mapping, photography, and weather observations were just a few of the things that now began to be done from the air. By the end of the 1930s, one report showed ninety-seven established civilian airfields, although only the bigger fields at Anchorage and Fairbanks had lighted runways.
