More likely, they will work in fishing or construction. Ironically, the school has no shop building for woodworking or mechanics. Except for the ribbon of road leading in from North Fork Road and the Sterling Highway, the village of Nikolaevsk looks like any of dozens scattered throughout rural Alaska. It is made up mostly of simple frame homes, with an occasional larger shed for fishing gear. St. Nicholas Church, with its distinctive onion domes and crosses, looks just like dozens of churches constructed throughout the state by the Russian Orthodox Church.
Some families keep chickens and other small livestock.
Nearly all of them have large garden plots, where they grow produce that will be canned and stored away for use through the winter. Clothing is still made at home by the women of the community, who can get all the dressmaking materials they need at the Fefelov Mercantile, a combination general store and post office that serves as the town's one year-round business. Nikolaevsk's 1991 girls team qualified for the Class 2A state tournament, and the 1997 boys squad earned a berth with a surprise district tournament win over Homer Community Christian after absorbing several horrendous defeats at the hands of the Knights during the regular season. Polikarp Kalugin, a member of that state team, very nearly became the school's first college player when he redshirted a year at a college in Canada. But he left the school before playing a game.