I had coffee in Smithville, Arkansas a few years back.
I spent a week in Bemidji one day, nice town.

Yourself?

Too many third world chitholes to count...

Point Hope, AK. You'd have to see it to believe it.

Ed

Grand Riviere DuNoird, Haiti.

An Numiniyah. 100 km south of Baghdad.

Karachi, Pakistan. The harbor had so much trash and dead animals floating in it, you could almost walk on water

It's the only place in my 21 years in the Nav that when the ship pulled into port that I didn't go ashore!

One of our guys drank ONE beer, ate no food and was seriously sick for a week.

Chester, PA

high population density but it's about as "WILD" and "PRIMAL" as it gets.

Wish I was able to spend some time in a backwater area, lucky bastids.

Tripoli, Libya. I was going to say Puerto Maldonado, Peru, but then I remembered Tripoli.

A camp on the mid-SE coast of the Caspian Sea.

Binga Zimbabwe

Kavik River Camp AK is the most remote "place" I've ever spent time. Can't say I'd call it "backwater". Sue, her sister, the guides and pilots coming and going, and the other hunters pretty much behaved just as you'd expect in that sort of place. We had a lot of fun there and Sue is a very gracious host.

I spent 10 days in Bora Bora as well and that's probably going to wind up the pinnacle of as cultured as I'll ever be.

Some out of the way place called Tam Ky. Just a bit south of DaNang.

Any place in the civilized world is better than the best festering craphole I've spent time in in SE Asia.

Nushagak, Alaska - lived in a net shed. best times!

I'm in Leon Mexico right now. Parts look halfway habitable, but 90% looks like a total crap hole.

3 of us did eat at a very nice Italian place for $50 a few minutes ago though.

WOW - not even Sidi Yahia Morocco compares to the chitholes some of you guys have been in.

That was about as close as I got to 'primitive'.

Myron

I was stationed at Fort Riley, KS, where there are dozens of backwater towns scattered throughout the area. Some that come to mind are Alta Vista, Dwight, Industry, Navarre, St. George, Talmage, White City, Woodbine

For some reason, I remember that Detroit had a good bar.

Rethinking, 80 miles offshore Caspian Sea living "on" a man made island in a retired Russian cruise ship, the Schotov, first shot below. Winters sucked. Summers were somewhat incredible as the seals emerged.



The island(s). Unless one was single it was a pretty lonely for a 28 day hitch.

Tennessee.

Butte, MT

D.C.

Berkeley, CA. Serious. They have no idea how clueless and out of touch they are. It's like a closed system that reinforces ever more retarded behavior.

Rurenabaque, Bolivia

I went bass fishing on Kate Adams Lake in Arkansas City, Arkansas about 20 years ago. My bud took me to Grundy's Blue Front Cafe ( a house with 4 tables in the dining room) where we feasted on raccoon and chicken (from the front yard). It was an experience I will NEVER forget as long as I live! As "backwater" as it gets!

navlav8r,

I never understood why Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, among others, allow trash, dead animals, human sewage, and human remains to be dumped in the water supply. Then they re - use that same water for cooking and bathing, and I assume many of them also drink it, as they probably can't afford bottled water.

I realize they are backward nations without resources, but just dam n.

Seems they at least could spread this refuse on agricultural lands or compost it, where it would still be a problem, but not so much since it would bio - degrade and recycle into the soil.

What am I missing here ?

Myron

Nyamandalovau,Zimbabwe.

Killed the crap out of the local Kudu and reedbuk.

Got my ass shot at by "rebels." They missed.

Steve

Dordabis, Namibia

Bayonne, New Jersey.

Puerto lobos Mexico, a clapboard and tin ponga village, no electricity and water is brought in on a leaky water truck filling 50 gallon barrels in front of the 'residences'. No bar or restaurant.

Undisturbed sport fishing for the few americans that venture down there. One of those spots you could read in a Hemingway book.

Kent

Backwater place - - - Does the swimming pool in my backyard count?

> https://dennisup.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/waterfrontsewer.jpg <

Richard, ever been to Varina?

We used to sail our boat to Cuttyhunk Island off the coast of Massachusetts and anchor in that inner harbor.

Must be Iowa ........ the only person I know that lives there , wants to live in the bush in Ontario as much as possible.

I've been in the bush in NW Ontario, and that's pretty back woods, so ........ Iowa must be

F

Like krp, a tiny place in Mexico.

La Fridera on Laguna San Ignacio. A couple of fishermen's "houses" (shacks by our standard), water brought in over 40 miles of dirt road from the town of San Ignacio. Can't complain though, one of the fishermen let us stay in his "guest house" instead of camping in the ever present wind, insisted we accept his wife's invitation to dinner (lobster tacos, homemade tortillas, rice, beans, homemade cheese from the family rancho inland), all for bringing a letter out to him from his brother/cousin/some relative back in town where we got watered up.

We repaid the favor by our paying $20 each (about 8 of us) for him taking us out in his panga for a tour of the Laguna and to visit with the gray whales and their calves.

I think we may have passed through a few places worse off than La Fridera, at least my wife seems to think so.

Geno

Kent:

You should have seen Lobos when we first started fishing the gulf in the late 1950s, early 1960s. The only solid structure was an 8x8-foot concrete-block ice house where the locals stored what they called "vieiras" (scallops) that they stamped out of shark meat with cookie cutters. They'd sell buckets of them to the boats that brought the ice from Bahia Kino. Where those phony tidbits wound up nobody would say.

We'd fly down in a friend's Cessna, land and park on "Main Street", sleep under the wing, and rent a ponga and a "guide" to take us fishing.

Sonora has changed much since I started going down there. Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point) looked like what Lobos does now, and San Carlos and its marina were only pipe dreams of a Mexican developer. Guaymas had the only luxury resort on the mainland of the Sea of Cortez.

The absolute most backwater place I visited in those days was a place called "Abreojos" (Open your eyes) on the Pacific side of what then was the territory of Baja California Sur, a short flight south of the salt works at Scammon's Lagoon.

There was only a landing strip and two wooden shacks at Abreojos. A Mexican couple lived in one and rented the other to Americans who flew down to shoot black brant or fish. They had traps for longostinas (small lobsters) and charged $3 per person per night for room and board, which included three meals of coffee, lobster, beans and tortillas made on the spot.

It got very noisy in January and February, when most of the world's gray whales congregated inside the huge estuary. Floating around them in a blow-up rubber boat was interesting, to say the least. All night long, they'd emerge and blow, making it seem like we were inside someone's lungs.

Damn, I miss those days.

Bill Quimby

Chicken, Alaska where the town's restroom is called the"Chicken Poop".

Try Stebbins... just a bit smaller but WAY more primitive... or Point Lay, about a third the size of Point Hope I would guess... and a bit special...

Or McCarthy about the time the Pilgrims moved in and the infamous mass shooting happened... lots of places more special than Point Hope... at least there you have some!

Ahh good old chicken, been there.

True story... Chicken was named Chicken by default. They wanted to name the town Ptarmigan... but no one knew how to spell it!

Drove all the way around Taiwan shortly after the big 1999 quake... there were some very grim looking little towns in those days. The 7.7 quake did a tremendous amount of damage and killed thousands.

Brazzaville, Congo. 15 month tour back in 1982-83.

Experienced malaria, roundworms, and amoebas, among other things.

College students in Iowa have one of the highest attempted suicide rates for that demographic in the U.S. Coincidence?

I'm going to Grinnell College for the Midwest Conference Championship swimming and diving meet this weekend. Beautiful campus, very selective and hard to get into, but a large percentage of the kids who start as freshmen leave to finish their undergrad degrees elsewhere. The isolation of being in the middle of nowhere gets to them.

Lived in Stebbins for 6+ years (good years), that general area -(even smaller, Saint Michael) for the remainder of 30 years....went to school in Bemidji, MN.

I'd throw Carmacks, YT in the mix for spooky backwaters, but my impressions didn't involve any more time than it took to catch a (abbreviated) bit of shut-eye.

Naukati AK

Leesville, Loisiana famous for many things but especially
Ft Polk
whores
and the clap
The most backwards people and the most back water place I've ever been. powdr

Wabbaseka, Arkansas.

AKA,"Diseaseville".

Shkin, Paktika Province Afghanistan.

Please come back ! We love to make fun of loud mouth Yankees that talk through their nose . 😄

Matadi, Congo, back in the early 80's. Was on a cargo steamer dropping off 100 pound sacks of rice, 55 gallon drums of soybean oil, and some new locomotives. They were all "gifts" from the People of the United States to the People's Republic of the Congo. As we offloaded, instead of the cargo making it's way into the warehouses, it was turned right around and loaded onto a Soviet flag cargo ship. Seems the local feds made a deal with the Russians.

I watched a longshoreman get killed for stealing a bandanna full of rice.

MM- I was just down river from you!

....and giardia, let us not overlook giardia, all the yellow bubbly diarrhea you can handle


The embassy Marines in Accra, Ghana '80-'83 used to wear red and gold "Africa Corps" t-shirts off-duty. Of course they would hit on Peace Corps girls, prob'ly scored pretty reg'lar I'd expect.


Anyway, most BFE place I've been (besides East Texas, of course), this guy's place, somewhere on the Afram Plains....



Birdwatcher

Or no water. The Mississippi river left it in the flood of 1927. It was a major river port until then and is still the County Seat of Desha county. miles

Miles, I thought you were going to say Santa Elena, Tex. Rio7

No sheit? I have a bad 'ivory police' story from Point Hope. Hell, I could have bought a polar bear hide for $350. We only spent 2 days there.

Santa Elena is uptown compared to Mt. Judea, Arkansas circa 1985. Haven't been back since, but it was backward. miles

Bill, you guys had it good. My uncles used to haul a 18ft boat down and use handlines for groupers. I never went as a kid but they took me to Rocky point once late 60s. Fishing wasn't good.

Been out of San Carlos plenty as a contractor friend kept a boat that I'd captain while they spearfished off the islands.

Haven't been to either in a few years.

Kent

Here's a few around Point Hope. I think I only have a pic of town is the post office.

New York city, Washington D.C., L.A. Chicago, etc. Interbred small minded, ignorant clans and tribes of deviant individuals.

Jim

LOL When I first read this I thought where is Tam Kentucky I've never heard of it. Then saw the DaNang reference.

You can get a mighty good steak in Santa Elena, course, you gotta cook it yourself. And, if you have someone help you cook it, it's edible.

Backus, Minnesota

We stayed up in that area at a little resort for deer hunting one year. The resort was shut down as they owner was prepping to sell it. He'd dump his teenage son at the empty cabin that was the office each morning to keep an eye on the place while we were there. There wasn't a stick of furniture in that office. He left him a TV, a Nintendo, and a case of beer to get through the day. The kid was about 14 years old, and the beer would be gone by 2:00 in the afternoon. Him and the dad were never sober the whole time we were there.

We went to a local watering hole called the Grey Fox. The kind of place where when you walked in, they didn't ask you if you had a gun, they asked you if you wanted one. We got pretty friendly with the waitress, and invited her to stop by for a nightcap after her shift was done. She said "Honey, you guys can't handle me." There were five of us, and I have no doubt she was right! The locals were getting a little agitated that we were making time with "their" girl. It was time to leave. The waitress, and the bar got busted the next spring for selling drugs.

To this day we talk about the Legend of the Green Toothed Hag.

I had coffee and a meal or two in Wabigoon, Ontario.

I was stationed in Armstrong, Ontario for five and a half years.

Odessa Texas comes to mind, a whole city full of bass boats in the middle of a desert.

Jacobabad pakistan. There is a reason human life means so little to those people

Nyala, Sudan 1985

Probably Magalawa Island, off the coast of Zambales, Luzon. 27 hectares, pretty much all coconut plantation, it was owned by a first cousin of Ferdinand Marcos whom I was doing some things for at the time. 27 families lived there, no electricity, no running water. The overseer and I were good friends. He was a real, hard-case guy. Each family contributed two day's work per month on the plantation in return for being allowed to live there. Any work beyond that they were compensated at a rate equivalent to a dollar a day. Other than that they fished, often with dynamite. I was there once for the feast day of their patron saint, a real party weekend. Some of the men got drinking and a disagreement broke out between two factions, fights, knives... Jorge, the overseer, got his family back to his house which stood a little apart from the barrio and left me there with to watch over them while he went back to to the barrio to settle things down. He gave me his 12 gauge A-5 (FN) and said if I saw a lighter flash anywhere in the bushes around the house just fire a load of buckshot at it...his biggest fear is that someone, in the confusion, would take the opportunity to settle some old grievance by tossing a fish bomb in his house. One evening, patrolling around the island, he shot a coconut thief from the mainland out of one of the trees with his lever action Marlin .22 WMR. Didn't kill the guy, but he walked with a limp after that. Week or so later the local constabulary boss asked if he shot somebody recently...told him, only a fruit bat. Good times...

I think that was San Isidro. miles

Bayou Meto, Arkansas. We go every year and love it!

You don't have to travel internationally to find this kind of place. Anyone around a rez can tell you that. My vote is Lame Deer, Montana on the Cheyenne Indian reservation...

Upper Fruitland, NM


Sycamore

Wewahitchka, Fl.
Wasn't there more than ten minutes and a 5'8" 300lb sweat stained wife beater undershirt accused me of "lettin' awl da f'n ni gg ers loose!" more or less because I wasn't from there.

Jeffery City, WY. in the late sixties was a cultural center of interest as well. Even more so now.

Back in the early 80's, when I was still caving, I went with another caver to a cave in RockCastle County, Kentucky. This is REAL KY, FYI, not that one near DaNang. What I'm giving you is all I know about this place.

The name of the cave was Hail Cave. It's on the map. We drove to within a couple miles of the place and the road ended at a barrier. We got out and started following a path through the woods.

On the way through the woods, I was warned by the trip leader that we were going to be going through some hairy stuff, and that I should not talk to or look at any of the people I might meet. We could walk through and that was it.

After a while, we came out of the woods into a clearing. There were just about a half-dozen white frame cabins and a small white church. We were on what passed for a road, but it had zero sign of recent traffic. It was composed of sandy ground and grass. There were no vehicles of any kind in sight. The really creepy thing was that there were no people evident; I was told they had all gone and hid.

As we passed the cabins, I heard a door come open, and I looked up briefly and saw a 10 yr old boy in homemade bibs standing in the open door, watching us. Behind him, in the shadows, was a double-barreled shotgun pointed our way. In all the time were were there, I saw nothing that would have indicated we were anywhere except the mid 19th century.

We said nothing. We kept our heads forward and kept going. Within a quarter mile or so we were back in the woods and kept going. There was no sign of any roads leading in or out of the clearing except the path we were following.

Ras Ghareb (spelling?)

Some schitt hole port in the Red Sea.

At a Petrobras gas facility. We were over a 100 miles north of Natal, Rio Grande do Norte.

Nothing around besides jungle and wild burros.

Natal is kinda' cool. The Air Corp had a large base their during WWII. They flew planes from Natal to Africa, then north Africa and Italy.

You can get a real cheeseburger and fries.

Iraq. Some of the places were at least a time warp....

Made a port call in Karachi, Pakistan and in Bandar Abbas, Iran. Walked around a bit, had a beer(both places).
That was enough.

Diego Garcia, before the build up was pretty damn austere.

Several villages in Vietnam I "visited" would fill the bill.

. . .And while we're on the subject of Kentucky, here are some other places I've been:

From up around me:

Browningsville-- the last people there were a couple that honeymooned there for a week in the 1950's. For a while, there was a black bear living in the basement of the old mill.
Ely-- closest town to me. However, it hasn't shown up on a map since the 1850's.
Neave, KY. -- Things started to go downhill after the stage from Falmouth stopped running.
Bachelor's Rest, KY
Brownings Corner, KY
Hells Half-Acre, KY, south of Falmouth, KY. I went there once and could not find a trace of it, but it still shows up on the Rand McNally.


From my wife's part of the state:
Oz, KY
Yamacraw, KY
Rattlesnake Ridge, KY
And let's not forget the Greater Pine Knot/Revello/Strunk metroplex, your gateway to scenic Stearns-- at least if you're coming up from Oneida, TN. Look out on your right and you may catch a glimpse of Granny Holt's Knob!

Uzbekistan, was there on a business trip in the late 90s. Looked like what this country must have been in the mid 1800s.

You really can't appreciate how bad it is there until you try to fill your truck with fuel in the only gas station in town and there is a line a block long at each gas pump waiting to put 57 cents worth of gas in their tank. And while you are waiting in line, there is some Indian trying to sell you a broken screwdriver or a pint of his babies blood to get enough money to buy a can of Heet so he can go home and get high on some type of alcohol...

Ah yes, the Rez Life.

Conkins store out on Nameless Road, I thought I heard banjos when at the ajacent tire repair store.

Tetlin AK


It ain't for everybody but my redneck roots serve me well upon occasion

A little BCP several kilometers East of Khowst Afghanistan. It was about a Km. from the Pakistan/Afghanistan border and every once and a while the neighbors got a little noisy.

Back in the 90s I used to drive through a little wide spot on a mountain road. It was called Rafter, TN. I remember one group of shacks with the same last name on all the mailboxes. There were fighting roosters and hounds tied out all along the road, trash and garbage literally flowing out the doors of the shacks and three filthy kids playing in the open trunk of a rusted out 55 Chevy that was also full of trash. It was the embodiment of the hillbilly stereotype.

Spent a couple of nights at the best hotel in Ulan Batur, Mongolia on the way to a Maral Stag hunt in 1992. We were told to never leave the building because we might not be seen or heard from again. All of the hotel room doors had pry marks on them.

We were allowed to take our hunting rifles to our rooms, and it was a comfort to have the Weatherby handy.

There is always Ingomar, Montana. Nothing around for hundreds of miles and here is a little bar/cafe with the toilet still outside. Everything from booze to Chicken fried steak and T-bones as well as sheepherder Hors d'oeuvres...

Soviet Nuclear test site in Kazakhstan

Amchitka Island , Ak

Enewetok Atoll, Marshall Islands

In 1988 I was in both Moscow, USSR and Peshawar, Pakistan and found the accomadations and general level of cleanliness better in Peshawar.


mike r

Covelo Indian Reservation back in the 70-80's had the rep of being a bad place to be after nightfall if you weren't from there.

In the early seventies, while working at the rocket test lab at Edwards AFB, I stayed for six weeks in Boron,CA.
Terminal boredom, good thing I was drinking a lot back then. I was replacing a guy that was fired and had to stay until a replacement was hired.
Was never so glad to get home.

North Fork Lake, I have no clue where its at, other than an hour from Aniak and we never saw another person for a week until we were picked up again.

I love trips like that.

shaman,

I ran into a couple of the hostile places like you described in Kentucky in south eastern Ohio some years ago.

We were out just driving around the more remote parts of the state, and as usual, if I see some little side road, I turn down it to see "where it goes". We ended up in some small group of houses at what appeared to be the end of the road, and amid some very hostile people. I couldn't turn around and get out of there fast enough !

Another time, I was looking for access to some Mead Corp. property that was open to the public for hunting, etc, and turned into a little one lane gravel road that the map showed as ending at the Mead land. I ended up in some guys little farmyard just short of the Mead property, and with a hostile owner. I beat a hasty retreat from that one also.

Myron

In the US, Elk City Oregon is one of my favorites. The store/bar/only business in town complete with dogs roaming the store, and a pot belly stove for heat in middle of isle "2" (ok, there was only two isles). The "bar" was next to the beer cooler and consisted of a cheap table and four chairs. To order at the bar you just grabbed a beer from the cooler, kinda self service bar. There was only 3-4 houses in town, but they did have a nice driftboat launch

That's my kinda town

Bayonne, New Jersey

You really haven't seen anything if you didn't get the chance to see Russia just after the wall came down. We went on a flyfishing expedition to the Kola Peninsula, stopping first in Murmansk to get a good look at what we had been afraid of during the cold war.

That country was third world at best, even in the big cities. We were out on the Ponoy River with the crudest of Russian technology and dropped off at a camp that even a GPS couldn't find. This is your best look at a typical Aeropflat helicopter. Crashlandings were a daily routine...

Coos Bay OR

I live at the end of a long road that goes way back in the sticks. Anyone who comes down that end of the road is either coming to see me, or they're lost or drunk or both.

I had this mean looking Shepard dog who was actually just a sweetheart, but he looked and sounded like death on 4 legs. My gag was to have strangers come down the road and then let the dog out, and then I'd come running out the door yelling in German for the dog to heel.

Of course, I'd never taught the dog a word of German, so he'd go straight for the vehicle, barking his head off, trying to get someone to pet him.. The occupants would see a mad dog and a German coming at them, and they'd burn rubber trying to get out of there.

Sprague, Manitoba

Sitting in the "bar" listening to some locals talking about the U.S. and the "leader of the bush people" telling the others that "in the U.S., if you have enough money in your checking account, you don't need car insurance.

Also, somewhere in between Knoxville, TN and the Smoky's there was a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood nailed to a post alongside the road and in crude letters written in red spray paint it said:

"BOBS BOBAQ" with an arrow pointing down a two track into the woods. Now I'm sure 'ol Bob could BBQ with the best of 'em but it kinda made ya wonder where he got the meat...

Any of several Sioux Rez in SD and parts of the Crow Rez in MT. It's like an alternate universe.

You live a sheltered life if you think coos bay is backwater.

True dat!

They sell beer right out of their trailer houses according to the plywood signs. One even advertised beer and 24 hour porn.

I'm not even kidding

Butedale in Canada. Ruby in Australia. Qualls in Okalhoma. Hmmm... there have been quite a few, on several continents I generally enjoy backwater places, though eventually they make me want to go to a real town for a few hours anyway.

Anyone that believes Russia is a 1st world country hasn't been there. I was once served a chunk of lard as the entree on a flight from Semipalatinsk to Moscow. After 3 months in the USSR I was hungry enough to eat it.


mike r

If you try and take the back way from RT 92 outside Williamsburg, KY towards Jellico, TN and you go over Wolf Ridge, there's a place way back there that sounds a lot like your BOBAQ shack. It's just over the TN line, and the KY side of the line is dry.

I drove fast, going by that place-- thought I heard banjos.

Its been years since I"ve been there, but was thinking the same...

I was in Moscow a couple years ago, it wasn't that bad. Of course I didn't beyond the city.

I was gonna say Browning or Lame Deer or name any other rezzville in Montana, but Shrap beat me to it.
The closest I ever came to a true Dueling Banjos experience was on an Indian reservation in Oregon when I was working with the tribal foresters. At some little ville on the way to the timber, we stopped to grab some coffee and junk from a scruffy little bodega with a gas pump kind of place.
Strange vibe, I bought my stuff, we piled back in the truck, and I just couldn't resist asking "What the heck just happened." Forester in the back went "twangity twang twang." We were laughing so hard we had to wait a minute before hitting the road.

Was on the Parker Rig when they were spudding the first Kashagan well. They added accommodations to the rig by putting living quarters on top of the EMD diesels that powered the rig and the sewage treatment system was basically recycling the waste water so you had a pair or ear plugs in your ears and nose when trying to sleep. Kind of a cross between sleeping on top of an old locomotive that was running through a sewage treatment plant.

Looks like Atyrau has built up quite a bit since '99, it was definitely a model of post Soviet satellite architecture when I was there and that's the most back woods place I've been.

South Louisiana has some pretty isolated places.

A little town on a river north of me....the day we boated in , to pick up our air dropped fuel..that never came ...they opened up the town store ( that BTW /the door knob and lock hasp was all shot up the nite prior, stole smokes and toilet paper ,beer).....at 1st they didn't want to sell fuel to the white men ....they/she did, as we left she wanted to be sure that we were going to move on and not camp nearby... As she couldn't garrentee our safety in the evening....the town had like 80 people max, about a 1/3 with the same last names..... Shot their own chit up they did ...😯

sounds like Bethel or some such from what I've heard.

Maybe it wasn't bethel, but I heard friends say they made sure they went by on the river in the dark so they wouldn't get shot at...

Anbar province.

Alaska's legends are longer, darker, and deeper than ordinary reality, thank goodness, though I'm sure many of them have grains of truth to them.

I wasn't entirely comfortable running the Yukon River as a Scandinorske in solo mode. What I learned a couple years later was that having a few coastal Natives in tow was cause for more suspicion.

I've never trusted strangers who were high on anything however, and therein is the stuff of many of the legendary problem interactions that are proffered as 'typical'.

I've spent a lot of time in Ridgecrest working projects out of China Lake and never felt a need to drive down to Boron.

I actually like Ridgecrest.

SBDCO,
Spent a lot of time in Wewa, the only part about the area was the Dead lakes for fishing, frogging and hog hunting.

DZ, did you shoot back?

Little Diomede, AK tops my list. Have been to a number of "special" places in AK, but I've yet to see anything like it.

A fuel stop in Dakar Senegal, gave me the impression that it looked to be a bit of a [bleep] hole.

Jeff

Shoulda seen Kramer's Junction out that way about 50 years ago. It's bigger now and the gas stations are always busy.

Not back then, flashing yellow/red light depending on which direction you were headed. Could be seen for miles and miles coming towards it. Gas station, I believe one only, but maybe two and even a trailer house or three I think. Had my first taste of alkali desert water from the drinking fountain at the gas station. Won't forget that pleasure!.

Geno

Oh yea! Trona, Ca. Spooky!

I wouldn't have appeared so hostile if you hadn't given every impression you were gonna steal anything loose.

Uncertain, Tx. Took the wife fishing up there near Lake Caddo, and the fisherman's cabins had doors that didn't latch. I don't mean lock, I mean, they didn't latch She vehemently objected, so we stayed in the nearby Metropolis of Marshall.

Then there's the Yangtze river:

Diomede is unique, that's for sure...







...but hardly scary/weird like some of the places we've probably been or seen described here. Good folks out there!

Ross River,Yukon Territory - The bar was mostly drunk natives (First Nations Peoples} with a few white trash who were shacked up with some of the native gals. The bartender was behind a screened in area - you ordered, slid the money through a small opening and she slid a drink back.

My only reason for being in the place was because I was with a friend who knew quite a few of the locals and he felt that I needed to experience the "real" Yukon. We spent most of the evening there - Once was enough.


drover

You reckon...??

Some of those family trees don't branch a lot, either.

Researchers find those isolated populations rich in unique recessive genetic disorders. Not much outside blood...

DF

Uncle's AF sent me to some really crappy places with two overseas deployments but my early years in the coal fields of Southern West Virginia were by far the worst experience as I reflect today..

The timeline was 1954 I was six just didn't realize how deplorable the little town of Maybeury was! [ that's right Maybeury not Mayberry as in the Andy Griffin show].

This Methodist church was my Dad's second charge after Seminary moving us from Neelys Bend Tennessee which was NE of Nashville to the Southern WV conference.

Maybeury was a typical coal town in those days folks barely scraping by for the necessities of life but nobody starved and all us kids had no clue how really poor we were.

The church provided Dad with a meager salary subsidized by furnishing the church parsonage [a company tract house built in the mid 30's] ,paid electric/water bills and all the coal for our winter heating needs. Summer brought fresh produce by parishioners,baked goods and gas cards for the local filling station.

Just a slice of my history in a different time and place to remember and relate to my children, grandchildren and future generations.

Always be thankful for the blessings God has granted, don't ever judge the poor or downtrodden as their shoes may have walked a thousand miles.





We lived in a row house similar to these built in 1939 by the coal Co.



The Company store before it was demolished.But where everyone shopped in those days.



Generally what I remember as a kid...dirt, soot and foul smelling air.

funny some of ya'll mentioned louisiana. i didn't want to offend any of our louisiana members but theres some places betwixt shreveport and baton rouge that seem like a different country. swamps with houses growing out of them on stilts.

Agreed. I didn't mean it in the scary weird way. More of the extremely remote/isolated kinda way. Have been to virtually every corner of our state, and have never been scared of any of the people. Big cities in the Lower 48 are another matter!

Thanks for the photos BTW!!

Jeff

On my way home from a hunt with Greg W a few months ago, I went out of my way to drive thru Boron. I wanted to see where Pancho Barnes used to live.

Well Flyer, you have me there.

mmm, gonna have to look that one up, Pancho Barnes. never heard of him..

Geno

Miles,
I live not too far from Mt. Judea but I would have to say that Witts Spring is more backwater IMHO. Most backwater place I've been is desert along the Iraq-Iran border near a little town called Badra. Really slow going until an Iranian border jumper stepped on a land mine. He isn't half the man he used to be!

All the third world countries I've been in, including rural India and Nepal, nothing prepared me for Romania under communism (pre-1989). Of all the Soviet Block, only Albania was as bad. Russia wasn't anywhere near as bad...

here's a large metropolis in N Cal.

Tionesta, CA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tionesta,_California

and the one it was named for:

Tionesta, PA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tionesta,_Pennsylvania

Yep, I've been to both and they mostly qualify as "backwater" types of places.

Geno

Got a call to do a small job at China Lake. When I signed in and identified the company I worked for, the lady at the desk asked me if I was with "the Oak Ridge group."
I wasn't, I was with another division, but that pretty well verified some things I was pretty sure of.

Flyboyflem---Great post and pics. An interesting look back in time when hard work and toil was normal.

East St. Louis

Been to Point Lay, just didn't spend any time there.

Too much time in Point Hope. Never made it to Stebbins. Dad and I hunted in around McCarthy before the Pipeline, so it was even lonelier.

Ed

First time I spent the night in Tetlin was in the early 60's with my Dad on a bunny/ptarmigan hunting trip. We went back a number of times over the years. Definitely "backwater".

Ed

You fellas reminded me I spent a day or two at friends home in Altus, AR in the 70's. quite the backwater town then. Still only listed at 750 folks there.

Those places you mentioned seem awfully "rural" too.

Geno

PS, for those that don't recognize the name:
"Altus was the location for the first season of the television show The Simple Life, starring Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie."
from the wikipedia Altus AR page

Jeff, meant to be clearer in not aligning you with that idea. I know many - like with the Stebbins, or Point Hope references- sometimes think some of these places are a bit "off". (And one can't totally overlook legends/stories...) But nearly always, people are only scary when they are a bit scared themselves....or inebriated, and scared/bold.

It was kind of funny (and eye-opening) one time after running the first 500 miles or so of the lower Yukon. My boat had the commercial fishing number painted on the side as required by law. However, instead of simply free-hand spraying the number as many village boats do, I stenciled the number neatly. To make matters worse, I had a VHF radio on board and the antennae erect. Out on the coast where we usually run our boats, nearly everyone (who isn't foolish) has an antennae and VHF on board. Not so upriver. Anyhow, I tried to converse with a fellow up around Anvik, and he really didn't want to say anything in response to my query. Finally he just asked,"Are you Fish and Game?" He was totally cool after I said "no". When I realized how he was looking at my boat, I knew I better lower the antennae to help avoid further communication difficulties.

Sometimes there are still lingering issues of distrust or initial uncertainty among various ethnic factions within the Native community however when they cross traditional boundaries.

Can't say that I've ever spent any time in any kind of serious backwater. But it made me think of a Canadian acqaintence of mine who is a Captain in their military.

He had done a stint in Haiti and a couple in Afghanistan.

He said that he much preferred Afghanistan,...said the people there live a fairly crude, basic existence, but they got up every day and did their work,..took care of their business.

He said the people in Haiti just sat in squalor day in and day out doing nothing.

That is all

Washington DC........... largest cess pool on earth!!

A young man (then) that I used to work with hunted around
Whitts springs, but I was never there. We would eat lunch down by the Buffalo River between Mt. Judea and
Western Grove and watch the Elk. That was before hunting was opened up, and there was some nice bulls there most days. miles

cuznguido,

"I wouldn't have appeared so hostile if you hadn't given every impression you were gonna steal anything loose."

Which one was you - one of the three-toothers in that shanty town, or the old codger at the end of the road ?

I'm not sure why anyone would think my wife and I riding around in an old Chebby seedan would look threatening, and I didn't even have my burglary tools with me !

Myron

I originally put that down as bait for a certain member from Crackwhore Holler, but sadly he never bit.

Port au Prince, Haiti during Baby Doc's time (80-81) was pretty nasty.....probably still is. Antananarivo, Madagascar was pretty "backwater" in the late 70's.

Chung Ju, South Korea
Sheik Isa, Bahrain
American Samoa

Numerous points around AK: Naknek, Chicken, Bettles, Shemya (I might have a story about getting drunk there and causing a wee bit of trouble - note to self, there is nowhere to run when you're on an island!). Sand Point, Manley Hot Springs (There's a Medal of Honor recipient that used to run an air taxi service there).

And a good number of places in the south that certainly qualified for backwater. I remember one BBQ joint we were given directions to near McAllister Army Depot, OK. They must have laughed their asses off as we set off for some dinner. It had the name (forget the specific name) and Bar B Q spray painted on the outer garage wall. We just happened to have one each Englander and a black fella with us. The music stopped when we walked in.....

I can remember another time getting lost in either Virginia or West Virginia. We came around the corner on an old road and there sat the General Lee....I schitt you not! I thought I was going to die laughing.

Mombasa, Africa 1977

My girlfriend is from Dwight. When folks from Dwight want to experience backwater, they go to Kelso!

Grandfield, Oklahoma and Stamps, Arkansas.


What a couple o' $ch!tholes.

Otis, otherwise known as Scrotis, Oregon. Could be a beautiful place if they nuked it and started over from scratch, but my hell, what a backwardsass dump! Every other shanty has a blue tarp for a roof, broke down vehicles in the yards, three legged dogs, and the most inbred looking people you've ever seen! Reminds me of The Hills Have Eyes.

Second is Hilldale, Utah, home of polygamists. You want to talk about backwater....that's it.

JOKE. C'mon man.

Heck, that's dang near a metropolis compared to Pipe Springs on the rez a few miles down the road in AZ.

Geno

I spent a week in Wolf Point Montana visiting my sis. I was 15. It was August. No car. No friends. Great time...

Tulsa OK lol. Cracker Barrel there went silent and this hispanic got a lot of stares sat in the very back that night. Made my wife and brother in law uncomfortable.
Northern AZ, around Fredonia, Jacob Lake and that stuff is pretty deliverance like, can't imagine what colorado city is like if I thought those were like that.
Border towns in AZ are pretty weird too.
Of all the places tho, I would have to say Elfrida AZ and that Sulfur Springs Valley is pretty odd. I think the devil roams that valley at will. I've read too many kids killing their parents/grandparents and murders in general for a population of that size.

Kique

Houma, New Iberia, iiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!

Borneo, dining with the village chief in his thatch hut.

How could I forget the booming hotspots of

Hyampon and Hayfork CA

Mora, NM

Pittsburg....................TX

Rosa's tienda at Km 39 in Baja south of Tijuana (back in the 70's not sure it still exists)

Lovely places, all, but not for the folks who are

"Fools for the City"

Geno

I respectfully disagree. DC is a great place and full of wonderful history.

Every American should visit DC at least once.

Haiti in the time of Papa Doc, then there was Guadalcanal, lived in Bethel Alaska for a bit! But I would have to say the Island of kauai Hawaii, the people there were just down right rude! I enjoyed my time on Guadalcanal, its a 3rd World Mess but Marines are held in very very high regard, and they were still digging up and disposing of bombs at the Airport in 1996 when I was there, Got in tight with a old local who was a kid when the Japanese had the place, took me all over! And then there was the Steak house run by a New Zealander- you could get a decent steak dinner to boot!

FWIW, Main Street America 2016.

Hyampom and Hayfork are both booming metropolises compared to Ruth Ca or Zenia Ca. Heck Hayfork High School was at least 3 times the size of Southern Trinity.

Ever been to Pine Ridge, Batesland, or Sharps Corner South Dakota??

Been close to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. It is the second poorest county in the United States. As for me, the most backwater place was no doubt Quetico N.P Ontario and the most stunning beauty I have ever seen. Place is indeed desolate. No cars or motors and it is all water. Most desolate place most likely in southeast california on the Arizona state line in 1981 or going through Utah when it said " next gas 103 mi". Then we get gas and it said" next gas 106 MI." Worst SHHHithole , if that is the O.P's question , Well, I did H.U.D. houses in Milwaukee in the early 1980's and go there sometimes. . Milwaukee is really getting bad. A zip code in Milwaukee has the highest welfare in the nation. Truly , a third world city. Been through bad places in Chitcago, went through Detroit , Buffalo NY. Seemed the scariest for some reason but I was a kid.

Victorville, CA. What a pit.

cuznguido,

"JOKE. C'mon man."

I knew that - it is why I answered the way I did.
Got a bit of a chuckle out of it.

Myron

Any where in Texas. True chit hole.

Pine Ridge, or Red Shirt SD

Kaunakakai, Molokai in Hawaii. I was born and raised here and 6 decades later - still here. 2 gas stations (4.06 gal) a couple of stores, the barge from Honolulu cones in on Mondays and Thursdays. if you want whipped cream in an aerosol can or other stuff you have to get to the store as soon as it comes in or do without for another week. One pizza joint, one burger joint and a few restaurants. Probably since I was born here I don't get "rock fever" but lots of folks do and move to "Vegas" but soon return. Lots of "snow birds" come here in the winter to escape the cold and support our economy. Had a Ohio snow bird come in today to buy 22 ammo! Goggle Molokai, Hawaii to find out more. Mel

Sounds like a paradise compared to Red Shirt, SD count me in!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Shirt%2C_South_Dakota

Jeez, Man,....ya' just have me rollin' here.

Uh,...you DO know what the number of that highway runnin' through there was, not that long ago, dontcha ?

I was hoping to get your attention lol. Ive miss you cabron
Yeah it was 666 before they changed it to 191.
I swear there have been some pretty sick murders down in that area. Last one I remember I think it was 2 grandkids took out their grandparents. Havent followed the news much to know if theres been any lately.
Whats interesting tho is people there are hit or miss, but most of them seem so nice. atleast they did in 2003 when I worked at vision quest.
What do you think of the area since you are close to it?

Kique

Forgot about Zinia and Ruth, but just to let all those folks out there know that Cali isn't all L.A., San Fran, and San Diego we could add to the list all along the NW coast of the state.

Orick, (with more than a handful of teeth you might be the handsomest man in town!)
Gasquet, Salyer, Hoopa, Forks of the Salmon, Maple Creek, Kneeland, etc.


And for those really interested, I think I heard the other day that the town of Bridgeville is for sale.............. again. Yes folks the whole town.

Geno

PS, I don't know how I could have forgotten Orick, what a reputation that place had when I lived near there in the 90's.

You got a purdy mouth boy...










West Virginia

Spent some time in the jungle on the Peru-Colombia border. One did not go out at night and look to hard at the river traffic. Food was what you caught, and the water was undrinkable without a lot of purification.

The worst, scariest backwater i have ever been at was on the way to Weatherbys (the old one in Southgate) when i got turned around and had to cruise through the neighborhood around the Watts towers. The Yanomamo tribal warriors looked downright friendly compared to these porch monkeys drinking beer at 10am...

Kaktovik, Alaska was a [bleep], probably still is, Scorbysund Greenland was probably the most backwater. St Paul and Akutan deserve a honorable mention as well as most of the coastal villages along the Bering Sea coast

Haven't you Dudes ever been thru rural Nevada? Ewwwww...

Try Montello, Denio, Tuscarora, Midas, Owyhee and Carvers. A little bigger, but also Hawthorne, McGill, Austin, Pioche, and Beatty.

There ain't a late season buck tag in Nevada worth any of this.

For you I thought It would have been the dry out center.

We are talking here about places.....not your old lady's snatch.

[quote=Hombre][quote=dawggone][quote=Hombre]Haven't you Dudes ever been thru rural Nevada? Ewwwww...

Been through southern Nevada , southern California and through Utah. Very desolate.

USA - Detroit (every American should tour it for an education in reality)

World - Alborz Mountains, Afghanistan (It is about far away from civilization that you can get. If it wasnt for an occasional motorcycle, you would think you were back a 1000 years)

How about Teec Nos Pos, Arizona?

Overseas......the entire country of Oman.

Tuscarora's got some interesting characters for sure. But I'd pack a pistol in every pocket if needed if you gave me a late season tag for that area.

now you are getting close to home, my grandparents lived in Hyampom, spent pretty much every summer there. Lived in Bridgeville, and spent a lot of time in Ruth and Gasquet!

Biak



I also lived in Many Farms, AZ

Question: what's the definition of backwater?

Long ways from civilization?

Backwards people?

Dirty, disgusting?

Something else?

I'd say the most backwater place I've been (given that where I spent most of my pre-Army days are on the list already!) I'd say the Farah Province, Afghanistan takes the cake. Several villages there are about equal for desolation.

Now you fellows have me remembering being on the interstate between Fort Worth, and Dallas.
Many lanes wide and me getting run off the far right lane doing 80 MPH.
The first exit I came to I pulled off to settle my nerves a bit.
The first street sign I saw read, "Congo Street".
If it would have after dark, white eyeballs would have been all I could see.
As you may well imagine, I made a rather brisk tour, then got back on the highway as fast as my 14 inch radial tire would allow.

I looked the street up on Google maps a few years ago.
One block long, and I found it!

Fordyce, Arkansas!

My Dad told me once that if Hitler was captured the USA should send him to Fordyce and not give him any snuff!!

Don't forget Norris SD, over on the Pine Ridge/Rosebud line.

Good PD shooting, and nothing else. Come to think of it, ANY rez in SD would qualify as backwater.

Rattan, Oklahoma.

We have some places kinda like that. Cocke co. And the beech creek area can be pretty rough Del Rio is backwards also.

On a class trip in the 70's ...they took us on the big charter bus ...right down the center/main drag in south central "Chit cargo"...omg ! A zombie fest ! Nobody doing a thing ..everyone hanging out in little groups ...we were told to just look no making faces / waving etc...to just look ...😱😱😱 Wow !!! A real Eye-opener for a bunch of farming folks!

Me and another guy made that run about 3am once, going from Merrillville Indiana to O'hare airport. Route looked good on the map.
Couple of white guys in a big rented Mercury, must have looked like a couple of cops, cause about all we saw was the low lifes heading away.

Went through Zinc Arkansas once. That's where the Grand Wizard of the Klan and his brainless minions live. To quote Eddie Murphy in 48 hours..."Never seen so many backward assed country f-cks in my life".

I remember making a mental note of Green River, Utah and thinking 'why would anyone live here'

Lots of places like that in Nevada. In the middle of nowhere, no grocery store for miles, no gas station for miles, not freaking trees to provide shade in the desert, yet there are little "houses" scattered about. Different kind of life I guess.

Driving through, or working on a highway overlay project?

Sycamore

Thats pretty backwater. Only someone from Pinon or Low Mountain could top that!

Sycamore

Forgot Kyle SD

Flooded oak flats. Arkansas.

I am blessed.

What's wrong with Porcupine? Or it's suburb Sharps Corner?

actually i have a relative currently stationed at edwards. Boron is right next door, and has one of the best mexican restaurants you would ever want to step foot in. The walls are covered with pictures of astronauts and other famous people that flew into edwards and had dinner there. Great place.
You big city boys are funny.

hillsdale isn't so bad, you just have to mention some familial names that everybody is related too.
i like it up there.

Last fall i took my grandson up in that area gino is talking about. I warned grandson about the banjo's and everybody seems to scratch a lot and have no teeth. And don't ever leave the vehicle without a gun. He didn't believe me i think till i took him through some areas. There are some BAAAAd people living up in those hills.

many many years ago, my brother in law and my sister were south of the border. Coming back they were asked at the port of entry if they were U.S. citizens. Now my deceased brother in law was very germanic. My sister on the other hand is short round very pima/mexican looking, which she is. My brother in law said he was, but she was just some hooker he found walking the streets. Couple hours after being in detention, she didn't find it as funny as he did.
There are a bunch of small areas in arizona, that you have to have your guard up in or around.
I think you are right about the devil walking the ground.

i sure do know the number, and it was that for a reason. My habits of wandering the deserted parts of the state brings a certain capability of the hair standing up on the back of your neck at various times. And it ain't no buffaloing, it's true.
I was cohabiting with a mormon girl for about five years, a long time ago, so that northern arizona stuff is easy for me, i'm right at home mentioning a few names. That everybody is related to.

I hear people say this all the time, cept it's not. You just have to look.

I guess I'm a big city boy now, my 900 population "city" just added 70 new homes last year.
You should have seen Boron in 1971.

actually i did, use to run through there early as the 60's.
there are a lot of interesting places in the upper mohave, in the arizona, california, nevada area. Use to like to visit those old ghost towns.

American Politics...

One winter long ago I spent a week in Rawlins, Wyoming. Longest six months of my life.

I lived in Montello... and I liked it ! Worked for Southern Pacific Railroad there. Quiet little town of 150 people with a post office, a gas station, 2 restaurants and 4 bars.

Just anyplace in Mexico!

Mingo county West Virginia.

What the back does back water mean?

McCarthy Alaska and Katalla Alaska are pretty backwater, but a bunch of villages along the Yukon are even worse...

had a job at one time that sent me to various paper mills across the south, ended up spending quite a bit of time in that area.

I decided back then that of all the states , Arkansas was the worst. (never been to Alaska though). Driving around the area I saw power lines that were down next to the road and that's just how they were - they weren't considered "down" at all, no shortage of dirt roads and the only place to get lunch other than a vending machine at the plant was a gas station with a little sit down in the back where you could get a burger, grilled cheese, hot dog or chicken sandwich. Had good sweet tea though so it wasn't a completely horrible. The closest real place to eat was a whataburger about an hour away. Luckily it was open 24 hours so we'd end up working late into the evening and stop there on our way back to the hotel, get up the next morning at dawn and do it over again.

Did some consulting in Camden, NJ. The place I was at was across from the jail. I'd sit in the afternoons and stare out the window watching inmates give hand signals to people on the street who were dealing drugs around the corner. It was getting dark early so they told us we should leave before 5 to make sure we weren't driving thru down when it was dark. The 3rd shift people had permission to run redlights because if you stopped at a redlight you got carjacked or shot at.

I'd rather be in Arkansas living off whataburger.

Leon Iowa. OK, Leon was close but Gardez and Khost Afghanistan are the other 2
kwg

That was going to be my answer as well. Though Bethel was pretty special in 1984

Binga Zimbabwe

Kinston , North Carolina

It's a nasty little 3rd world schithole and there is really no excuse for it's continuing existence.


Mike

Too many schitholes to even care.

Coober Pedy, Australia about 25 years ago. Fortunately, we were there the one day a week in which they received a shipment of fruits and veggies.

Afghanistan driving through KG pass will give one a real appreciation for good ol America..

Has the Optics Forum been mentioned yet?

The team we relieved in Afghanistan got hit on their way up to do the changeover with us while going through the KG pass. At the time only one guy on our team had been shot at before so we were a little puckered up heading to Khost/Khowst and going through the pass. Didn't get hit, but it was interesting to say the least, that is some rough country.

Another team from my company had a pretty good scrap up there near the end of our rotation.

What I remember about Colcord Oklahoma, there was a curve in the road and the gravel road went straight. I went straight up the gravel and you had to go around a beer joint. The back door was left open, dust blowing in and full of Indians.

Taos New Mexico, I saw a Indian passed out in the parking lot at Walmart. No car, just laying on the pavement.

Roma Texas is a pretty decent sized town, I'd guess 8 to 10 thousand people. A pretty decent sized grocery store by the border had birds nested in the light fixtures and flying around in the store.

Word.

Been to some fairly remote, isolated places, but as far as backwater I'll go with the Fla. interior swamps as a kid. Nicaragua and Turkey come to mind. sure made me appreciate the USA. Infrastructure.

Monroe, Louisiana

Southeast Oklahoma

I just built a house in Marion MT, 1 gas station, 1 bar/restaurant, 1-8 school, post office, 1 camp ground, 25 Miles from Kalispell MT.

South central ..chitcargo. 1979 on a big tour bus/last year of school...they took us northern WI ..kids thru there to show us how good we got it on the farm.......what a fing dump of human debre.. 15 minutes it all it took!

Other than that I live 15 miles north of nowhere AK

Was about to post similar.

DF

That's funny. I have family in a mausoleum there. When my son & I were driving back from New Orleans I wanted to stop and pay our respects. One of my son's co-workers told me there is nothing in Monroe. What he failed to mention is that there is pretty much nothing between Baton Rouge and Monroe.

I thought I lived in about the most backwater place in the world. The population of our County hasn't changed since the Civil War.

Kalispell is an Amtrak stop for Glacier isn't it?

Dulce New Mexico

Jarbidge NV back in the early 70's. A neat place but primitive a hell back then.

#1 Holton Michigan.
#2 Coopersville Michigan.........

I am on my porch playin the banjo......... stay away

Hell Norm Marion aint backwater we have amenities....

Jefferson city Wyoming, now that is backwater, except there is no water to be found?

Gads...Holton is a metropolis next to Bridgeton...

Was there a couple of years ago, it must have improved.

Places sure change.
Was in Silver City Idaho 30 some years ago. only people we saw was a couple of guys we talked to that were living there.
Was there again a few years ago and the place was completely over ran with hundreds of tourists, ATV's, 4x4's etc. the dust was so terrible we turned around and left.

China

Delta Airline started in Monroe, LA...

DF

Same for me, Atyrau onshore and when I was offshore it was the Parker rig that was drilling the first wildcat hole into the formation.

Jarbidge is awesome, took me two days to recover.

Jarbridge is cool little whistle stop.

I thought it was Naknek Ak, until an ex-girlfriend from Montana walked through the door at the Fisherman's Bar.

Holton is scary........Everyone has three eyes.

Borneo, in a grass thatched hut dining with the village Chieftain and his harem of at least a dozen 'Big Lovelies"

That whole place smelled like piss and blood, not to mention that barrel of fermenting rice beer in the corner.

Arapaho WY

Lima Site 30, Laos (Long Tieng)

Douglasville, Texas in the northeast corner of the state. I swear you can hear banjos playing in that part of Texas. Hunted there once as a kid with some friends of my father. There was an old man who did nothing but drink moonshine the entire weekend. He'd wake up long enough to slug a few down and then back out he would go. I was about 13 I guess. Some older boys in camp, probably 18-20 tried to take me into town to have some "fun" with the local girls. I never will forget my dad dragging me out of the back of that pickup by my coat collar as the pickup took off for town. Dammit I miss those days!

A Pygmy village in the Republic of Congo rain forest, only accessible by pirogue.

How about needing tree houses or a boat to sleep on because of tigers, 70's era Java. There's a noise that makes you think about leaving the tree house to pee at night.

.Alaska has some remote and clannish villages that qualify. My wife is some where around a 1/4 to 1/2 Athabascan Indian and Yupik Eskimo, depending on what elder you talk to. She was born in Tanana and raised in a place called Nulato for awhile. Her Dad was a U.S. Marshall on a big stretch of the Yukon River during Alaska's Territorial Days. In 2007 we launched our boat from the Yukon River Bridge and by the time we came back with a big moose we has been gone a little over 3 weeks and had covered a little over 1,000 miles between the Yukon and Koyukuk Rivers. Saw plenty of "back woods" places.

In 2015 after I retired I fired up the Duramax and hooked on to the 36' Toy Hauler and me, the wife and Otto the Mini Schnauzer left Alaska and took a 22 state road trip that lasted about 3 months. Hit most of the Western states and tried to camp in remote places and miss the big cities. Saw lots of beautiful country for sure.

Coming up from Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma and parts of Missouri were an eye opener for me. So many of the little towns looked economically depressed, full of trash and poorly kept. They looked best in my rear view mirror and I am fine never returning. I am sure plenty of fine folks lived in those places and it all depends on what you are used to. Made me think my little hick town in Alaska was more then I thought it was. But, I have been in Alaska for 53 years and it is really all I know.

We were just passing through on the way to work but needed quite passage, had to honor the Chief by having dinner with him, we ate [I puked, on purpose] then moved on.

An Numaniyah, Iraq.

I took several elk and mule deer from that general area over the years. In the '70s you could walk for a week w/out seeing a person in most of the northeast 1/2 of Nevada. Rule #1, never pass a chance to fill up w/ gas and water.


mike r

Some of the small town bars in northern Minnesota are pretty hilarious. It's like a different country up there.

had lunch here the other day..........

had to bring my own sandwich.......

no lines......no traffic..........or people..........

My best friend lives in Elko, we hunted Deer in area 6 for about 25yrs. It was an annual ritual to spend the last day in Jarbidge trying to drink the bar dry.
There were only about 20 residents back then. The south road was snowed shut for about six months and the north road wasn't much better. They'd spend the winter snowed in and screwing each others wives....or so the bar tender said. He also said that most everyone that moved there left after their first winter.

I just googled it.....it's definitely changed. Looks like the north RD into ID is open all winter these days.

Driving truck, and just living here and spending time in the Hillbilly state, I have seen a lot of American backwaters.
But, those are the places I love.
They comprise my list of "places I would like to live, if I didn't have to work for a living."

Now as too chitholes, any city that has 10k or more population.

Rule #2.......always carry two spare tires.

couple of places in mexico when i was young.

El Indio, Texas. Small? Both town limit signs are on the same post. As my stepdad used to say, "It aint the end of the world but you can see it from here with a good pair of binoculars".
Another vote for Port Au Prince, Haiti. Unbelievable poverty. If the cops caught you with a camera they would confiscate it. '79.

Outside the US-- Kerachi, Pakistan, and Bandar Abbas, Iran
Hard to describe how much a sh%t hole they were

and anyone with any sense flew out on same.

Primitive camp on the beach 40 yrs ago at a place called (iirc) LaPesca Mexico where a big freaking river ran into the Gulf.

No town or stores, just a shark fin fishing camp of Mexicans. Waded the surf to catch snook.

Ghost, I'd like to have a cup of tea at the Funkly bar. There are often severe rigs parked there.

Hazelhurst, Ga. 1974

Guadalcanal

until you see a naked man walking down a path and haul up and squat to take a crap in the trough next to a crowded street eatery and no one notices or cares, you haven't seen backwards. That is China. At least in India they speak English. Spent a lot of time in Mexico and there is no comparison

Carbon, Wy




Not much water, front or back, but decent Antelope hunting.

I think Carbon is just like home

We sure enjoyed it, but then I'm from the country. Nearest town is about 3k, 60 miles to the nearest town of 20k, I like it that way.

This is a tough one. Some areas I have been to are really remote, such as a several inuit villages in Alaska and some South Pacific islands. Other areas such as the Middle East and parts of Africa are absolute shïtholes but for straight up backwater;

Jarbidge NV
Lots of places in WY
Some areas in the Florida Panhandle
Browning MT

Working in gulf of Mexico in mid 70's and docking navigational survey boat in Fourchon LA! Nothing but a bar that was a old Shrimp boat and fuel. Mid 70's

Mine are easy, Frogmore Louisana-- 1975 They had one quick stop shop, which was a shed where a one eyed girl (and it twitched) sold 3 items. Camel Cigarettes, the small bottles of coca-cola and Budweiser. And a screened in pavilion, we rented the pavilion for $100 a month, during the day we walked down the Mississippi River and held a rope while a boat charted the river channel. That's the summer I learned to love water.

Lafe, Arkansas--I have a farm there, my wife's family. To this day, they are on a party phone line--4 houses are served, each a different family. My ring is 2 clicks, we love it.

You would not believe Fourchon today. It's a major energy hub.

Darwin, Austrailia

San Fran Sis Co.

Tikkanut,
You need to quit posting these pic's.

You just might find me moving in next door, and there goes the neighborhood, well at least for a few months of the year.,,,,

Jail for 18 hours before all charges were dismissed...Jail is beyond suckville! 😎

In 1959, 4 other young airmen and myself, nobody over the age of 19, got to having too much fun in a cantina one night, wound up spending two nights and two days as a guest of the mayor of Juarez, Mexico. Maybe it wasnt what you would call a backwater, but it sure seemed like it at the time.

What everyone has told me about Fourchon. It was one canal through marsh and two docks in the day. We docked and fueled and got groceries and water and supplies. Drank a lot of beer in that bar. Saw first stabbing there. Rig worker came in and stayed two days at bar till wife came looking and oh well stabbed him in argurment.

My grandpa was a farmer in Mabel MN and was friends with some Amish people there.
A couple times I would go with him when he went to pick something up at one of their farms.
They live in their own world.

I dunno - maybe the hamlet of Dahu, on the island of Hainan.

A friend's grandmother still lived up there, she couldn't stand the city. It was up in the mountains, so no nearby rice paddies, but it was a purely agricultural area. In the nearby town of Wupozhen, there was a betel nut warehouse? Processing plant?. So there were quite a few of the betel palms in the area, as well as latex rubber trees. It did have electricity though, but it hadn't been long. It didn't feel like a chithole though. Things were pretty well kept up, though looking at the home construction and the fields, it could have been 200 years ago.

Here in California, there's the scenic burg of Iowa Hill. It's maybe 5 miles or so as the crow flies off of Interstate 80. When I first checked it out, there was no telephone or electricity service. They have phone now, piggybacked off of a wifi signal they get from Foresthill, but still no power from the outside. It's either solar or generator..

Utley, Texas

The Mayor

Mayor drinks good beer at least, snappy dresser too.

That's the look he gives speeders that the constable brings into "court" when he says, "Maybe we can make an arrangement so that you don't have to pay the fine....."

RS

That will work too. Last fall in Matetse.

I was there from feb 2009 to feb 2010 with 1-40 cav.

Nuevo laredo,mexico,gretna, la. malcom x blvd,brooklyn,ny

Can't you just go over the side?

UTLEY, TEXAS. Utley, seven miles northwest of Bastrop in western Bastrop County, was established in the early 1850s by James Harvey Wilbarger as the site of his commissary and trading post for plantations in the area. It was named for Wilbarger's wife, whose maiden name was Utley. In 1892 a post office was established, and four years later the community had two general stores. In 1914 Utley had a population of twenty-five and a general store. The post office was discontinued in 1922 but reestablished in 1923. In the 1930s Utley had a school for Hispanic children. From the 1930s into the 1940s the population was listed at 250. It dipped to thirty in the late 1940s, and estimates remained at this number through 1990, except for a brief rise to fifty in the late 1960s.

By 2000 the population had returned to fifty.


Lot's of constituent's there Bob..

Jeff!

One old store is still there on the old Barton place! It was closed way back in late 50's. Front arra of old store was used in that John Revolta movie "Michael" as the Milk Bottle Motel! LOL!

Also old metal truss bridge over Wilbarger creek 1/2 mile from the house here, was used in Chase scene in Costner's "Perfect World".

Montgomery County TN

Went duck hunting on the Illinois River in 2003, we stayed in Liver Pool Illinois, Very crazy people! love it!

I suspect the Hi Line where I was raised and still reside is probably sort of a backwater place.

I see that Browning made someone's list a while back.


Funny, Browning is a pretty well stocked town.

Browning MT is one of the few places that as an adult, I’ve felt uncomfortable in broad daylight.

I have been to a couple of remote locations..
















Welcome to Durka Durka Raq.

I don't know about you Mac, but, a few times, when I got home, I wanted to eat a bowl of U.S.A. dirt.

Hands down, Sierra Leon back in the early 90's. By far the most nastiest out of control schithole in the world. Makes Afghanistan look like a resort. By the second week I kind of got used to seeing people brutally murdered in the street daily. The RUF was the most unpredictable, crazy and violent group of retards I have ever witnessed on this earth. They would warm up with some kidnapping and rape until they got all hopped up on drugs and put their crazy colored wigs on and went to shooting and hacking people to death.

And Africa as a whole, pretty much every place I have been in Africa was the complete butt crack of the world. There may be some bearable places on that continent but I have never been there. The natives suck, their bugs suck, their snakes really suck...Africa just sucks.

I remember in Iraq, nice houses (by Iraqi standards) next to lots full of trash, and goats eating the trash, and the locals eating the goats.

And nobody bathed.

I was at Chapman in Khowst during 04-05. 09 - 2010 I was in Iraq and we were training and working with ISOF.

You beat me to it Mackey. I’ve got pics of the same type of terrain. The Iran-Iraq border is a complete wasteland!

Stateside I would say 29 Palms, CA would ranks near the top for me.

The Salton sea is truly a weird backwater place.

Yep.

The LA Offshore Oil Platform (LOOP) is out from there. I served a 6 year term on the LA Board of Regents. A fellow Regent was a ship builder and we were invited down to Grand Isle for the sea trials of a brand new 105' Coast Guard cutter his company had built. Coast Guard people were on board, but the maker provided the pilot to run it. Coast Guard won't operate a boat until it's officially theirs. We went out and circled the LOOP, came back to port. Quite a ride. That thing would do 40 knots in the open Gulf, seemed like it was moving pretty fast, had two 4,000 HP British diesels.

Paul is right.

DF

I haven't had the privilege of Point Hope, but I have done Mountain Village, St. Mary's, Holy Cross, King Salmon, Nek Nek, Bethel (which is an improvement over many), Chicken, and various others.

I stopped in a gas station there once and there was no restroom, the non english speaking man just pointed to a back door that lead into an alley way of sorts, That alley was a disgusting and gross as any third world country slum. My only question is how is there so much human feces and no toilet paper................ maybe I am just spoiled.

Ross River, Yukon Territory - the only place I have been where the bartender was in an encaged closure and it only had a small opening for him to take the money and then slide the drinks out.

Some jungle town that I can't even remember the name of. in Panama.

Thule, Greenland many years ago.

drover

Anyone been thru Cut and Shoot, TX...?

DF

Delta still has 4 flights a day, to and from Atlanta. Other airlines with 3-4 flights a day to and from Houston and DFW.

So, quite a busy airport, serves a large NE LA, SE AR and MS Delta area. You can see where Delta got it's name.

DF

I spend a couple of days in Bemidji every month. About 2 hours from here. Most backwater place for me would be hard to pin down, in a lifetime of intentionally going to such places.

One that stands out is Ruso, ND. Population, 4. Had a bar there, the Goose Nest as I recall. The owner, an old, fat, ugly, mean lady happened to be a state legislator from the area. I was in there once, cooling down from hunting sharptailed grouse and hungarian partridge.

She was quite intoxicated, and decided to give me bunches of crap. Strange, as the guy I was hunting with and I were the only two in the place except for her. In a town of four, just about everybody who comes in such an establishment is from out of town, so the fact that we were strangers should not have raised her ire. I had a very strong impulse to smack her ill-fitting dentures out of her mouth on the way out, but decided that discretion would indeed be the better part of valor in that instance.

Diyarbakir, Turkey
Agadez, Niger

Tetlin. 28 of the 34 students in the k-12 school had the same dad. Dogs were so inbred that they had two eyes on one side of their face like halibut. There were bullet holes in the school from a guy who lost his wife in a basketball game.

Diego Garcia

Honduras is quite the "backwater" . . .





. . .So is Tunisia, but there ain't any water!

It didnt look that bad from the air.

Leesville, Louisiana....Ft. Polk!

Both on the Kintyre Peninsula, Scotland.

Heck anyone can drive there as long as you don't mind a sixty mile drive up and drive back on a two lane road but after sleeping in a tent in the rain at the Kennacraig ferry landing I climb on the bicycle and pedal towards Clachan. No town apparent from the road, just a gas station and little store. Shoulda been BFE, or at least about as BFE as Scotland can reasonably get, WOULDA been BFE fifty years ago in my youth.

But this is the age of the innernet and cable. The young guy behind the counter tells me that, thanks to the 'net he had become a huge NFL fan, was flying to Vegas next year to watch a game. Small world ennit?

Ten miles down the road, Killean (again no town visible) and a ruined chapel, 800 years old, roof all fallen in except for the crypt, sealed with an iron grate. Over the entrance carved in stone "Here Lie the Bones of the Largies." and inside a number of armored knight grave effigies, some graves despoiled. It was in a beautiful spot on the shore with a view of the Isle of Gigha, shoulda been tourist attraction. But a real creepy vibe. I'll bet that place could tell some stories, not sure I'd want to hear 'em all

I'd have to think about that. I've been to several of those backwaters. Hughes has to be in the top 3. I actually enjoyed Holy Cross, King Salmon/Nuknuk and Barter Island. Most people I know would rather be in Pt. Hope than Pt. Lay or Nuiqsut.

Out here in Aleutian Hell, False Pass and Nelson Lagoon are both pretty backwater. Cold Bay sucks too, but they do have those big-ast, paved, crossing runways that can handle a space shuttle allowing a direct all-weather flight to skANC. Further out, Nikolski.

I've heard it said, if Louisiana needed an enema, they would insert the nozzle right there...

I'm sure you're not the only one with that opinion...

It's 50 miles from my house.

DF

DF

That's not quite right! The enema should be inserted in Baton Rouge at the state legislature!!

drought

I've been to Leesville. My late cousin was a a school principle and counsel member in New Llano. There are a lot worse places on the planet.

Now, that's a hard one to refute...

May need two enema bags, probably more...

DF

East of Alexandria, LA heading towards Natchez, MS are several places that would have made good locations for the movie Deliverance

Future City, Illinois, just outside of Cairo.

Passed though a number of times on the way to goose hunting, never spent time there. All black population, extremely poor. Their homes are made from combinations of old barn siding and hammered tin cans. Drove through one time when there was a funeral procession: the casket was made of old plywood, etc.

A very ironic name, and quite depressing.

We have some "special" area in LA. If you get too far from the blacktop, be careful. When you run out of gravel and hit dirt, you done gone too far...

Years ago, I went with some other young folks, leaving Lafayette we went to Henderson, then down the Achafalaya River levee around 10 miles. Went to a local bar...

I was glad to get out of there,,, Those "river rats" can be a rough bunch.

Geneticists seek out isolated areas to study recessive genes. We have some pretty tightly bred native groups that are of interest to genetic scientists.

I guess it's OK to pick up a date at a family reunion. They seem to think so.

And that doesn't happen over night, it takes years, generations...

Over the years, I've seen Darwinism in reverse. There'll be a batch of kids, maybe one or two goes to school, leaves the nest. The remaining ones keep the home fires burning. After a few generations of "negative selection", strange things start to happen...

DF

I know the Salton Sea area, it's the real life version of "The Hills Have Eyes". Don't eat the fish out of there. They're toxic, full of selenium.

Hyde County N.C. not a traffic light in the entire county , the only jobs are guard at the prison or guide the goose hunters around Lake Mattamuskeet. Not a grocery store in the county have to ride 40 miles one way to Belhaven

Couple of places in Baja Mexico fishing somewhere in the La Paz region.

North Georgia back in 1971 and 1972....

WHERE THEY FILMED Deliverance... and when they WERE filming it....

All of the background people in the movie, were actually locals and they didn't
have to really do the make up etc routine on them....there were plenty of local people
just like they portrayed them in the movie......


other spot is where I live now......wasn't 23 years ago when I moved here...

but the drug use in our society, the welfare programs, legalizing dope etc..
its becoming like the Oregon version of Deliverance...2018 style.

Must have been Red's Levee Bar, near Bayou Benoit

Vidor, Tx & Jasper, Tx

There WAS a little town in Illinois, about seven miles from Hannibal MO, on US 36, that is now gone from the '93 flood. There was nothing there except a little motel, where some of us competitors would stay (for CHEAP) during the USPSA/IPSC Nationals. You had to go to Quincy or Hannibal to get something to eat, and the TVs were still black/white. It was a cheap place to stay, with a short drive to PASA Park, so it met our needs well enough (A roof over the head, little road noise) but it was about as backwards a place as I've ever been, excluding the Sioux Reservations in SD. I can't even recall the name of the place, but the big flood of '93 finished it off.

I have friends there but have never made a visit, yet.

When we lived in Kodiak, I used to tell my wife if we ever visited Dillingham, she would jump in and start SWIMMING back home.

Certainly, 24hrcampfire has to be in the running. That's part of its "charm"

Well I think you are far above this lowly place and should move on to a place more suitable to a person of your stature.
May I recommend the democratic underground. You could be among your peers

Good bye

Never been to democratic underground. I do find this place entertaining, so why switch?

The democratic underground is a place where lefties like you can wail and scream in your safe space without rebuttal or truth interfering in your collective ignorance. They don’t allow free speech there like Rick Bin does here. The guys that support the 2A also support the 1A not like your hypocritical ideologues over at DU. 😉.......ironic doncha think......you associate and argue with good men here because your brethren are scum.

Mexican Hat, UT is pretty backwater. So is Upper Fruitland, NM.

Sycamore

What boat and when was that? There weren't any 105's

If it had Brit engines, those would have been the 110's that Bollinger built.

Ace, it sounds like you spend a lot of time there. Keep it up and post reports.

Apparently, you and irfubar are not too receptive to free speech yourselves. March in 24hr lockstep or be invited to leave - it's a theme here. But then all sorts of unAmerican things are a theme here.

Carry one. I'm good.

guess poteet tx might count.

Some truth to that.

How about " Broom " Texas right between Odessa and San Angelo ! party central .

I've heard of Future City , Kentucky, its about an hour from Cairo.

Cairo is a horrible, horrible place.

look at these houses and the prices they are asking for them in Cairo

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Cairo_IL

Respectfully disagree. My family farm is/was located on the South Carolina side where they did most of the filming. The area up there has some of the most beautiful mountain scenery you’ll ever see. Agree that the locals provided most of the talent in the movie, with about all of em just plain ordinary folks like you and I. The banjo picker is quite the normal fella in real life....nice guy who enjoyed his 15 minutes of fame. He may still be around, but I have not seen him in years. Good ol fella though.

Our farm, as well as others, on the SC side was lost at that time for contruction of the largest nuclear power facility east of the Mississippi River. We lost the farm and were “flooded out “, exactly like the movie script. Families had the right to move graves before the land was flooded. Some chose to, others didn’t. At the end of Deliverence you see a scene where they were moving graves to cemetery plots on high ground. It was not a staged scene.....that was my family!

That means you're within 30 miles of a Chick-Fil-A and a Five Guy's. That's not even in the same region as what would be considered backwater.