Interior Alaska breaks ground on the nation's northernmost veterans cemetery

Interior Alaska veterans will soon have a place to be buried close to home. Construction began June 20 on Alaska's first state-owned veterans cemetery, a 257-acre site in Salcha about 30 miles south of Fairbanks — and when it's finished, it will be the northernmost veterans cemetery in the country.

The $16.7 million project, funded by a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs grant, is scheduled for completion by Sept. 30, 2027. It will eventually serve more than 12,000 veterans and eligible family members across Interior Alaska, VA Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs Sam Brown said at the groundbreaking. The grounds overlook the Tanana Flats with the Alaska Range behind them.

The cemetery will belong to the state, but the company building it is Alaska Native-owned. HC Contractors, a North Pole civil-construction firm owned since 2022 by the Ukpeaġvik Iñupiat Corporation — the village corporation for Utqiaġvik, on the North Slope — is the prime contractor. Its crews are handling the major earthwork themselves: excavation, burial-crypt placement, and paving.

"Being a part of building a place for the men and women who served our country is a great honor," said general manager Travis Malin. "While everything we do is tangible, like building a highway or an overpass, this is definitely different. Our entire team of men and women really feel it."

The June 20 groundbreaking drew Sen. Dan Sullivan and Rep. Nick Begich — two of Alaska's three-member congressional delegation — along with Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom and state veterans affairs director Verdie Bowen, who joined Brown at the site.