Alaska is the land of struggle and opportunity.
Alaska is known as "The Last Frontier" in the United States. It was the 49th state (Hawaii was 50) and is very young. For most of Alaska's history it was not settled at all by Westerners, claimed by Russia, or a territory of the United States. It has the largest unpopulated area of any part of U.S., and you can still get lost here! Of course that is much harder with cell phones, satellite phones, emergency locator devices, better maps etc. etc. The cell phones still don't work in parts of the state however.
Alaska is a place you can still live somewhat off the land if you are willing to work that hard and be that isolated. I don't know a single person who lives exclusively off the land however. Even those who live hundreds of miles off the road system get groceries and supplies in by plane or boat. We had huge gardens where I grew up and ate a lot of salmon but we still went to Costco a few times per year and got groceries flown in by plane on a regular basis also. The Native people are even more connected than I was as a child. They may hunt and fish but I have never met a single one that did not have TV growing up though I didn't! They have stores, airports and all drive snowmachines instead of traditional dog teams. My point is you really have to work at living off the land. Even here it is not easy to come by someone who does.
This is largely due to the extreme environment. The winters are so long and cold that it is hard to find much food during those times unless you live on the coast in the southern parts of the state where the water stays open and you can fish or you hunt from the sea ice up north for seals and whales (which white people aren't allowed to do anyway). Otherwise, you may get caribou in certain areas but mostly you have to stock up enough meat or fish in summer and fall (during salmon runs and hunting season) to last through the winter. Then you still would not have any fresh vegetables or fruit or grains unless you grew them like we did and preserved them or shipped them in. So, life in the bush is not easy here.
In that way, life here is NOT easy at all.
In other ways it is hard also. The cost of living is high. Gas is some of the highest in the country (even though it is refined here!). Groceries are expensive since they have to be shipped so far. Everything is expensive here.
Wages are also higher though.
And you can get to know just about anyone if you want to. For example, I have met and talked to our current governor. Of course I am technically one of his thousands of employees in the executive branch of state government. I have also seen a former governor many times around town and in Costco where he does his own shopping and I went to school with his kids.
I had a door opened for me a few years ago by a sitting U.S. Senator from our state! I was going to a conference (The Alaska Marine Science Symposium) that I attended every year and he was speaking there. My husband met our Representative for a high school program as well.
There are many examples of this sort of thing here. You can end up knowing all the most powerful people since it is such a small state in terms of population. I often wondered if I stayed in Valdez where we lived after the homestead and before I came here, if I would have run for public office. I think I could have. I was the Community College Student Council President there and later the President of the Anthropology Club at my State College here. I was the student representative to the Community College Council (the only student seat) and held other appointed positions at both colleges. I traveled to Fairbanks and Juneau for statewide Board of Regent's meetings and was awarded the President's Cup Award at the Community College and a full tuition scholarship by the Chancellor when I transferred to the state college here. Now I am on the scholarship committee for my Union and I earned three scholarships from the Union previously which paid for much of my graduate school.
My husband had similar successes in high school and college. If he stuck with Political Science I am sure he would be in office now or in a good staffer position. The job market here is brutal though and his military service, excellent job record and degrees are somewhat meaningless. He chose History which is his love but is not valued in the job market.
Alaska is a strange place. In the bush it is not whom you know but what you know that matters. Your life depends on your skills at staying alive and not succumbing to extreme cold, drowning, frostbite, avalanches, wind, bears or starvation. You need to know how to build a fire, cross a river, not fall through the ice, and not become a statistic.
In the working world however, in order to get a job it is all about who you know now. You could have the ability, drive and references but you need a foot in the door to break through the competition so they even look at your resume. High wages and an economy better than the rest of the U.S. attract many overly qualified applicants. We have to compete against people from all over who come here to take the good jobs.
It is a rare thing to be comfortable digging in the dirt of a garden growing your own food or splitting firewood for heat but still be comfortable mingling with governors and senators and working in a high rise. That is what I have learned to do, be a chameleon. We still struggle financially. It is not easy, but I am doing my best.
Recent Comments
20
Thanks Jessica for this detailed description of your state. I never would have thought, that it's possible to live of the land in Alaska.
It isn't really possible for the vast majority of us nowadays. It is possible to provide your own heat and water, live without restrictions and even property taxes, and provide much of your food. The tradeoff is you generally need serious resources and health to do it though. Travel in rural areas requires equipment generally (airplane, boat, snowmachine etc.) or in rare occasions a dog team (we had all of the above), or skis, snowshoes etc. You need to be willing to travel by any means necessary. Different conditions, seasons, terrain and purposes require different modes of travel anyway. If you are using the machinery you need a lot of fuel to power it. If you are using human power you need to be healthy! If you are using a dog team you still need to feed them!
If you are growing a large garden you need an large amount of time to take care of it and either fuel to till it or a very strong back and arms! There is always a need of either fuel or food or strength to power all the work that needs to be done. Another example is cutting firewood. You can do it yourself or use a chainsaw...more fuel. You also have to be able to maintain and fix all this machinery. Pumping water...once again. You can haul it yourself or you can have a pump...more gas.
In our case, my Dad built a solar powered pump system. We didn't have to use gas but of course the solar system costs money and Dad needed the knowledge to build it.
Thanks Jessica for your reply. When People return from vacation I often hear then say how good things are where they have been on holidays. Especially how relaxed everything is, I hear very often. I always tell them, what they found cool during their vacation is exactly what they would hate most, if they were to live there. The same is with Alaska. On TV we see stunning pictures that make us think how great life must be there. But would we be living in Alaska we would very fast figure out how hard life is.
Amazing state Jessica. Have you ever met Sarah Palin? I was in Ketchikan when I was young. I remember the houses hugging a steep cliff over the bay!
No, I never met her but she was Governor when I got hired to my first position with the state. My appointment letter was on her stationary. Of course she didn't actually sign it herself but it was her signature on the letter.
Great story, Jessica! I like reading your stories about Alaska. I visited Fairbanks for a couple of days in February years ago. My flight to Tokyo detoured to Fairbanks because of engine problems. We were supposed to land in Anchorage, but the engine part was in Fairbanks.
Wow, Jessica, that does sound really challenging! We see a few programs on TV here about Alaska - it is a great fascination here in Africa as we have the opposite extremes of culture and temperature!
There is a TV program we see here about the Alaskan Bush People - the Brown family with 7 children who try to live off the land entirely, built their own home, but do go by boat to Hoonah I think it is, for their supplies.
It really is the opposite extreme to what we have here in South Africa - here our worst predators are the human kind, unfortunately, and many uneducated people in jobs that they're not qualified for because of "transformation". We have very short winters here (maybe 3 months where it's pretty cold (probably not to you), but if it falls below 16 degrees Celsius here we are freezing:). It does sometimes drop below zero at night, and it depends on where in the country you live.
We also have high unemployment here, particularly amongst the youth of all races, and the older white people, which leads to the crime situation. We are putting our 3 children through university here at crippling cost, which is why I need to do something here, otherwise, my husband and I will never get to retire. We're already in our early 50's.
I think it's tough in many places in the world these days, whichever side of the world you live in. Thank you for sharing your interesting post with us, and I wish you many blessings for the future.
Wow. I knew some of that, but not all. Obviously, many of us are familiar with the weather conditions, but I never really put much thought into the expense of importing so much and how it would raise prices.
I think it's pretty neat that you can, as you say, meet everybody. I assume that there is a small town mentality present there, which I imagine would be quite nice.
Given the way I have been struggling to find a job here, I would be virtually unemployable there.
See more comments
Thanks for sharing.