The 2010 United States Census officially began yesterday when Census Bureau Director Robert Groves traveled to Noorvik, Alaska for the ceremonial first polling. The first person polled was World War II veteran and village elder Clifton Jackson, who invited Groves into his house for the 10 question inquiry. Said Groves after he exited Jackson's house "It's all downhill from now," referring to the fact that there was one person down and over 309 million to go. Noorvik is an Inuit community with around 650 residents and can only be reached by plane or dogsled. After arriving at the airport, Groves was brought into the village in a convoy of dogsleds and was treated to a feast of whale, caribou, and moose meat. The U.S. Census has began its survey in remote Alaskan villages not accessible by roads since 1990. The paperwork for the census will be sent out to all U.S. residents in March, with the Census wrapping up on April 1. I think tallying these remote Inuit communities first is a good idea for two reasons. First, it gets the difficult places to reach done earlier in the process so that census officials don't have to scramble and be hindered by the complicated logistics of reaching these people when time is running short in March. Also, events like this provide good publicity for a sector of the American population that is often forgotten - the Alaska natives, otherwise known as the Inuits. As we learned in government class, the census is required by the Constitution to be conducted every 10 years to help determine how to allocate federal funding and to help in the reapportionment process for seats in the House of Representatives. Read more at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122938726.
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