Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Alaska - What's it like now?

Saw a guy last week who'd hitchhiked up from the L48 to go "live off the land". He made it here with a 44 revolver, 22 rifle, and his cat, as well as his clothes but not much else. He sold his 44 ....

Saw a guy last week who'd hitchhiked up from the L48 to go "live off the land". He made it here with a 44 revolver, 22 rifle, and his cat, as well as his clothes but not much else. He sold his 44 the first day he was in anchortown. Saw him 2 days later and he was asking directions to the copper river. Seems someone told him that the Copper was the place to be so he'd given up finding work and was going to walk to the Copper. Said when he got there he'd head upstream cause that's where the game would be, where he came up with that I don't know.

Said he was only taking the essentials, fire making stuff, tarp, some rope, etc. no mention of water purification, dealing with the hordes of bugs, dealing with -50 winter temps, anything about any pesky hunting seasons or regulations, never mind the vast tracts of private land he'd likely be trespassing upon. Just that Alaska was the last place where he could "live off the land" with nobody telling him he couldn't, even though they kinda are due to things like hunting regs and residency requirements for subsistence hunting and fishing, not to mention squatting on either private or public land that isn't open to homesteading just wherever you want.

Wished him well figuring we'd either read about him in the paper or see him on the street corner with a cardboard sign.

He was fresh off the ferry the first time I saw him. Said he'd not been on a boat for any extended period before and the 4 day ferry ride had him rather rubber legged.

Seemed like a nice enough fellow, just horribly misguided.

...I got to thinking about the influx of people all heading to Alaska to strike it rich going for gold or on the crab boats or making a homestead out in the wilderness, living off the land.

The big uns are all gone

The big uns are all gone

They say that Alaska is the last frontier. In fact the frontier died with the invention of the bush plane and the satellite phone. But the wilderness does still live in the self reliant attitude of the Alaska residents that I have met. I haven't seen any place else where there is such a big percentage of the population that really lives free and independent lives. The land of the free and home of the brave is alive and well in the Alaska that I have seen.

.... you now have increase in crime, people coming with money and going home with none and people going into the wilderness and never being seen again.

There is no free ride to an easy life.

...people coming with money and going home with none and people going into the wilderness and never being seen again.

I don't feel that my tax dollars are owed to foreign born and damned few US citizens.

You know Vern, but you don't know Jack!



Buzinga!

The biggest problem in Alaska is the social programs that allow those who aren't willing or able to provide for themselves to live off the dole. The majority of the state's budget goes to those using and abusing the system and those government workers whose job it is to help feed, educate, arrest, prosecute, provide medical assistence, rehab or otherwise coddle them.

Lippy:

I'll give you a nonresident's view of what Alaska is and is not. I am a nonresident and I have visited Alaska on trips that lasted from a week to three weeks, ten times since 1987, doing climbing expeditions and hunting trips.

I haven't spent much time in the big cities of Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau. Mostly just passing through. So can't offer any meaningful insight regarding them. Nor do I know anything regarding employment. However, I've spent enough time in Anchorage and other cities on the road system to learn that prices there are only slightly higher than the lower 48. Juneau and Kodiak are big enough that prices there are only about 10% higher than the lower 48. Prices in hub communities are often double that and prices are even higher in bush communities.

I live in Colorado and there are a bunch of designated wilderness areas in my state. But the "wilderness areas" in Colorado are small and accessible compared to those in Alaska. At one time or another most of the wilderness areas in the lower 48 have been impacted by logging, mining, ranching, etc.

I have spent time on each trip in the Alaska wilderness and there is a lot of it. Alaska is big. Really big. In Alaska there are VAST tracts of unspoiled, mostly untouched land. You don't know what wilderness is until you land on a gravel bar 100 miles from the nearest habitation and then watch the bush plane leave.

They say that Alaska is the last frontier. In fact the frontier died with the invention of the bush plane and the satellite phone. But the frontier still lives in the self reliant attitude of the Alaska residents that I have met. I haven't seen any place else where there is such a big percentage of the population that really lives free and independent lives. The land of the free and home of the brave is alive and well in the Alaska that I have seen.

KC

years ago, and for a moment I felt as if I was in South Korea. Back in the 70's there were a good mix of races, with lots of "pale-face" folks in between. Anchorage today, no idea