NOORVIK, Alaska — The director of the U.S. Census Bureau on Monday began the 2010 count of the nation’s residents in a village in Alaska’s arctic hinterlands.

Bureau Director Robert Groves flew to Noorvik for the counting of the first household in the Inupiat Eskimo community of 650.

The first person expected to be tallied was Clifton Jackson, a World War II veteran and Noorvik’s oldest resident, but there was no immediate confirmation from census officials.

Groves and other arriving officials were taken to the village school by sleds, with dog teams driven by schoolchildren.

Residents prepared a day of festivities to welcome officials with traditional dances, an Inupiat fashion show and a feast of subsistence foods including moose and caribou.

A school will serve as lodging for Groves and most of the 50 visitors, who will bunk down in empty classrooms before departing Tuesday.

Census workers who stay behind and who trained locals will spend the next week interviewing the remainder of Noorvik’s residents using the same 10-question forms to be mailed to most U.S residents on March 15.

Census workers also will visit 217 other rural Alaska communities in the coming weeks.

Alaskans in rural communities such as Noorvik that are not linked by roads have been the first people counted since the 1990 census.

It’s easier to get census counters to the villages around Alaska before muddy conditions brought on by the spring thaw make access more difficult, said Ralph Lee, director of the bureau’s Seattle region, which oversees Alaska.

Lee also said it’s important to reach villagers before they set off for fishing camps or hunting expeditions.

Noorvik Mayor Bobby Wells said a handful of people spend winters in their camps but were expected to be in the community for the count because of its influence on federal funding and congressional representation.

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