Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Good Bye Alaska

LOL I bet you are to the native gals

At least Libby MT is near some gorgeous country. A guy could do worse. Good luck!

Alaska is for visiting, Montana is for living...

That's right folks, nothing to see here. Horrible place to live.

I agree nothing to see in Alaska fishing sucks, no bears to shoot, caribou are all gone, moose are nonexistent... Move to Montana please have a nice day!

To the OP, good luck with the move.

I moved to Bethel when I finished college in 99. I met some really good people there. In 01 I moved to Wasilla. I loved it there. I had a great job and knew many wonderful people.

With my schedule, I was able to travel and hunt several times in a lot of places in SE, out to western AK, down the Kenia Pen. and the AK Pen below King Salmon. Plus trips to South Central, the AK Range, four North Slope trips, and out of Barrow. Not counting fishing, scouting, camping etc., just hinting, I have over 240 days afield throughout AK.

In 06 I lost my job and also had to deal with a degenerative eye disease and lots of trips outside to work with specialists. Also, while I thought I'd just spent seven years in paradise, (Yes, the mosquitoes and tourists can be annoying!), my wife had really struggled with missing her family and with the dark. (And my being gone A LOT.) So rather than relocate in the state and travel back and forth to see the doctors, we moved by my wife's family in SE Idaho.

Last July we moved here to SW Montana. I like it here a lot. I don't like the crowds and private property and the boats on the river being end to end, but it is beautiful here. The weather is nice and there is a lot of hunting and fishing relatively close by.

Plus, I haven't lived by family in over twenty years and I'm really enjoying it. I've thought about moving back to AK, maybe out to Kotz, but my wife and kids really like it here and are doing well. Besides, my health issues mean I'm not getting out to hunt and fish like I used to, so moving back just for those activities wouldn't make any sense. My mom, aunt and uncle, and grandparents all live a few blocks away. We are in a position to help here as they get older. (My grandparents are 90 and grandpa has dementia.)

But with all that that said, there hasn't been a week that I haven't missed AK. I mean, it's literally painful. From catching fish until my arms ached, to hunting brown hear, sheep, and goat with over the counter tags, to seeing hundreds of caribou and on and on, the experience I had were amazing and they changed me. I am so grateful I had the chance to live in Alaska.

Sorry for the long post and again, good luck with the move and the transition. If I can't live in AK, MT is great, too!

I'm moving to ! ...eeer... I mean I think I will get up an move toward my fridge and get myself another beer .....anybody leaving AK HAS to take a wolf and two foodstamp sourdoughs with'em !! less folks is better ..I remember being on my 4wheel- 4wheeler back in the early 80's (nobody had one!) the place to myself and no tracks other than mine .....maybe those dayz are coming back ? good luck to those that are leaving, but you'll be back ...I see it all the time.....

PAK, has to do a monster thread on smoking salmon, the best ways/the old ways to, ie: the finger size, smoked in a oiled jar ... complete with pictures....before he can go .....The Alaskan salmon gods have spoken !!!

Good luck on the move. I moved to Alaska in Jan 81 and finally left in June 2013 to move to Idaho. Still going through withdrawal. But I've been back once already, my son still lives there so there will be plenty of visiting.

If I couldn't live in Alaska, Idaho would be my next choice, I enjoyed my 3+ years living there.

Same here I would live in eastern Idaho, Rigby Idaho to be exact.

You can send me to hell or NYC; it'd be about the same to me!

You oughta write country songs...oh wait, HJ mighta edged you on this one!

Yeah, blatant theft!

I was born in Libby. All my relatives from there are dead or have asbestosis, since they used vermiculite (zonolite) for everything. Pretty country, but dangerous IMO. I used to visit there as a kid from Alaska, but wondered why nothing ever really happened there like in Alaska. I haven't been back since the early 2000s.