I finished watching Bearing Sea Gold and 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 easy life!

I can just imagine the type of people all heading to Alaska and all the problems that they are bring with unrealistic ideas of what it takes to live in Alaska....or am I wrong? Just asking.

Keeps the Coast Guard in business....

Nobody died when this 'gold miner' 'docked' at this reef a few hundred yards off-shore.

The salvage contractor who put $1700 in my pocket for a couple days worth of ferrying drums and pumps in my little skiff - just to recover 400 or so gallons of fuel obviously made out better than the gold diggers whose erroneous piloting efforts did. (That seems to be a rather common trait among 'gold booms'.)

These guys had trouble making their way north as well; it involved the Coast Guard then too. (Gold mining sure seems like an expensive hobby.)

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.

Alaska has changed just like every place in my experience

and while life is easier here, again mostly like every place else.

I'm not certain that's entirely for the good.

anytime you have a boom with good jobs, you attract hard working folks just lookin for a piece of the pie and folks that think they work hard, but really aren't that committed to doing so.


Alaska used to be the last best place, and I'd still rather live here than anywhere else. Lordy but I love this place, and it's been so good to us.

There's still lots of salt of the earth folks up here, but there's way more citified whiney liberals than the old days too it seems.

still a great place to call home and try and be thankful every day I live here.

Didja ask him if he had been reading the Campfire....how any old .22 is all you really need as long as you can aim tight? Was his name Kevin?

Wonder how he got the firearms through Canada?

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.

Used to be good folks movin up here to raise their kids away from big city temptations and crime

Now the filthy wretched sodomites are infesting skAnchorage, God Damned freaks are everywhere, stay away from upscale restaurants in town lest you get fed by the infected

Legalization of marijuana will lure more freaks in short order

Funny reading this thread.

The wife and I have been working on purchasing a business and relocating our family to SW Montana. We've run into numerous issues and not sure it is going to happen now.

While preemptively planning for this deal to fall through, we were discussing options. I would like to consider relocating the crew to Alaska, thinking about investigating business options there. Looking for a better place to enjoy our kids as they grow.

Alaska's what you make of it. Personally it's been the best possible place to raise our kids, even with city slicker living. Yes it's an expensive place to live, but if you have reasonable skills that are in demand, you'll be well compensated. It's a horrible place to live if you can't afford to enjoy it, and thats both the money and the time required to enjoy it.

The biggest problem is too many people living off the government teat, but that's not just starry eyed new comers, plenty of them of them born and bred in Alaska and plenty that have been shipped in or snuk in from various 3rd world nations.

I agree with 458 on this one. It's been a great place to live and raise a family, but the big cities (Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau) are being overrun by freeloaders and liberals; looks like the lower 48.

Darwin needs to eat too.

Most are moving up here for the gold rush of easy food stamps, welfare, medicaid, and pfds. I'm seeing a whole crop of those folks showing up.

Anyone that wants to pack supplies up the Chilkoot trail is welcome as far as I'm concerned.

Or, maybe you were talking about the more recent influx?

The big uns are all gone

Tie a 30-pounder onto 6 lb line and a 5-piece pack rod noodle and it doesn't matter.

Nice trout!

That guy is "long arming" that fish...

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

dam ...I can't say a thing ...I need another beer just to go to sleep an put the food stamp sour dough's (who get the same "so called vote" as u ) out of my mine...dam ....just dam ....u hould see the libs at the legislative office begging for "our moneys" @#$%^&*()_+

Pretty sure that's a Columbia river fish, the original Kenai. Too bad we didn't learn from that disaster and save our amazing river before it fell into the sad state it's in these days.

358----AMEN!!!!

Well said kc.

Lots of truth there. But one doesn't have to travel by air nor use every modern contrivance to enjoy life here.



Traveling the state under one's own ambition, even with the aid of modern horsepower devices, still provides a great sense of the immensity of the state. There probably aren't many places anymore where you can drop an 11-year-old on a snow machine and let him traverse 200 miles of country without violating some rule or regulation. There is no small irony when the machine you put him on was constructed by aid of the internet: eBay, from pieces and parts from over 10 states. There are still frontiers; they're just changing.

What I was thinking of was the people chasing "the pot of gold" and heading for Alaska. That's the type that want the reward without the work.

Gold mining, Crab boat fishing and just surviving in the wilderness is no picnic. Work is work...the same as its in the lower states as it is in Alaska.

What I can guess is with these shows on TV, 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.

That has been the story of Alaska since 1898.

We could use more of these.

The pot of gold seekers are really nothing new and you can pretty much chase that back to Western contact with the Russian fur traders on through the various waves of gold seekers, the oil boom, and so on.

The good thing about Alaska is the environment has a way of taking care of itself to a degree. There seem to be two types of people who are in Alaska, those who couldn't possibly leave, and those who can't wait to leave. I've yet to meet anywhone who makes enough money for them to justify living in Alaska if the state is not for them.

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.

Alaska has almost always been a place where neighbors helped each other and I think the social programs are, in a sense, an extension of that, taken to extreme of course.

social programs have never been an extension of helping neighbors.

Thats always been good thing to do between neighbors and folks voluntarily. Live in a good place with good folks and it comes natural.

Social programs are Robin Hood so to speak, they don't ask me if I want to contribute to the pool. And I don't get to pick who gets it or how much or what requirements like drug testing, work centers etc... are involved.

Social programs COULD have been a decent thing. But have not been for so many years now. Not only in Alaska, but in the US as a whole.

Undoubtedly these social programs attract a pile of people to Alaska and many of those are foreign born.

I don't feel that my tax dollars are owed to foreign born and damned few US citizens. The various social services programs and "entitlements" are only part of the cost as I see a huge taking of wildlife by the same people.

Vern's right on all of the above

and I'm in total agreement


one other aspect to life in AK that I forgot to mention though


and it's a BIGGIE

if you know Vern, life in AK is golden

if you don't it can be a struggle


sorry for the earlier oversite el Presidente!

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



Buzinga!

Vern for President 2016!

Jack who? Mehoff?

why don't you ever pick on someone that has control of their faculties?

(almost) sorry bud.

Well said!

In reality, in most Alaska places it's a lot more expensive to live than most places in the lower-48. I am referring to the cost of living, not just certain products. And yes, there are a few places in the left and right coasts (CA, NYC, Boston) where the cost of living is higher than Anchorage, Juneau, and Fairbanks. But take this into consideration: the cost of living in Fairbanks and Juneau this winter was around 136 points (some winters around 140 points). Anchorage's was a tad lower, however. A lot of places in the lower-48 the cost of living ranges from the mid 80s to the 90s.

For details, visit this page and open the link to "Winter 2014," then look at the Cost Of Living in pages 28-32:
http://www.co.fairbanks.ak.us/communityplanning/CRC/default.htm

By the way, the last time I visited Lost Anchorage was maybe 25 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

I had to cook for 100+ a jewel lake park two years ago .....between the music and "people" ...I felt we were the only American's there > all day-it was verified by some old dude with a dog/big beard and a bottle...I agreed, by the way I have had to do the same job/cook since than ...I "gold streak it" from the banks .....