Photos: Alaska Bush planes and pilots

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A shoe box with wings. A flying bathtub. There's not one perfect way to describe the SC-7 Skyvan parked behind the offices of Alaska Air Taxi. But one thing's certain: It doesn't seem possible that something so ungainly could fly.

But it flies. With Alaska Air Taxi owner Jack Barber at the helm, it's flown all over the state, carrying cargo as varied as groceries, ATVs, fuel—horses. Roughly a third of Alaska's population is reachable only by boat or airplane, so pilots like Barber serve as a lifeline to the Bush. Skyvans, Cessnas and de Havilland Beavers are often the only option for getting people and cargo in and out of remote communities.

For decades, pilots have flown small cargo loads and mail to the Bush, mostly in planes like the Cessna 207, a single-engine freight hauler with 1,100-pound payload capacity that Lee Ryan, vice president of Ryan Air, calls "the mainstay of Bush aviation." But planes like the Skyvan and Ryan Air's CASA 212-200, which can haul 5,000-pounds of freight, now make it possible to get oversized goods to villages quickly, year-round. The change has radically impacted the lives of those who live off the road system.

READ MORE: Alaska's sky highway: the pilots and planes that keep remote Alaska connected