Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska What does it mean to you to be an Alaskan?

I asked our late friend Dennis Neill that a few years ago, and before he answered that question, he said he wanted to think on it. Unfortunately, he never got around to aswering that question.

I received a nice note from his wife Faith this past week that included Dennis' obit and his highlights. Moving to Alaska was one.

Can you Alaskans tell someone from the SE lower 48, "What does it mean to you to be Alaskan?". Independent? Pioneering spirit?

No takers?

A couple things;

You get out of the truck, you enter the food chain

Snow melts, its time to cut firewood

You can go so far in about any direction, it'll turn into a matter of survival getting back.

There are places so quiet, you can hear your hormones.

All I can say, we are not Alaskan.

My wife has never ever wanted to move anywhere, wanted to stay here on the farm and die here.

Until she fell in love with Alaska.

And on her OWN, set a time line for us to move, hell or high water, and try semi retire early and see if we can make ends meet while we still are young enough to sport around the state.... I"m in full agreement too FWIW.

I"d say that the wife making the decision, says a LOT... IMHO.

I'd have done it in the 80s if I could have talked her into it....

I don't know that I consider myself a "true Alaskan" since I wasn't born or raised here. As far back as my earliest memories I always wanted to live in Alaska. I can still remember my kindergarten teacher asking my class "What do you want to be when you grow up"? While there was the typical answers like fireman, police officer, etc., my answer was "a mountain man and trap for a living in Alaska". Well I'm not a mountain man and I've never made a living off of trapping, but I did make it up to Alaska for the first time when I was 21, worked on a commercial fishing boat in the Bering Sea for a stint, then eventually made it back up when I was 23 and never left. So, while I still don't know if I can call myself an Alaskan, I have always wanted to be an Alaskan, and now at 49 years of age, I've lived in Alaska much longer than any other place I've lived. I don't know if that answers your question, but that's the only answer I have.

It takes thought to put the feeling into words. I'm not sure I can describe it, but it's what keeps me here. Being Alaskan is completely different than being from most other states. I'd say 47 of the states people are all the same. I hesitate to ever move because being Alaskan is part of who I am. Almost like I could take it with me as part of my heritage. Alaskan American?

This might seem like I am crazier than hell but I don't know of any other state where we actually feel that our state is a living creature. If you die in Texas, you don't meet your Texas. But in Alaska we are part of it. When you die here you meet your Alaska. Alaska to long term Alaskans is not just a state that we owe allegiance to but a state that we belong to.

I dunno, some of us are fond of our Texas. But its not what it was 100 years ago. I'll take TX over many other options... but not over one.

Maybe thats what we like about Alaska, a step back in time most places, that is not current and up to date.

Wife always says I was born 50-100 years to late....

I don't have to ask how old a caribou has to get before it becomes a moose?

I don't have to ask when they turn the Northern Lights on?

I don't have to ask how we got Denali so high?

I don't have to ask how cold is 60 below?



It means I'm home, and found it at 20.

Not sure about that part, but it is so quiet in plenty of places that you can hear your heart thumping when you open your mouth sometimes.

Was watching for a small gaggle of moose to make their way up a snow-covered, rocky hillside one winter. I had been snowshoeing after them when I stopped to listen while I caught my breath with an open mouth. I thought for sure I heard their hooves clicking on the rocky hillside until I realized what I was hearing was my heart beat telegraphed up my trachea, echoing inside my open mouth. Kinda freaky!



Well put, Thomas.

Alaska can be a lot harder than most people would imagine. Then again, there are so many folks in urban Alaska who insist on keeping and imposing the amenities and rules they've known in the lower 48 on themselves and those around them. I know it seems snobbish, but I think there are probably a fair number of people who live up here who have never actually spent any significant time 'in Alaska'.

It's not just a state. It's a state of mind.

If you have to ask, you can't afford it

Even if you don't have to ask, you can't afford it.

True! I am in a unique situation myself. Everything is brought here by boat. I order my groceries once a week, and I count on the grocery store to send me what I actually order. I can literally fish off of my back porch though, as I live in a float house. It has been moving around a lot with this north wind.

I wouldn't have it any other way though.

And that kind of sums up a significant part of the 'Alaskan' thing in my view. A great many people come here/live here for the scenery (or something), but they resist the "unique" part (perhaps because there's often some significant challenges involved). So we end up with our fair share of Pittsburgh-lite, Minneapolis-lite, Atlanta-lite, and Portland-lite.

Did I ever mention that I hate plastic-clad homes in areas which have banned good ol' basic T1-11 as a siding? (Yes, they're doing it in Fairbanks, Alaska.)

I remember a pawn shop in fairbanks, back around 1980. It was a cluttered mess of trails throughout the store. The owner had asked me to join the KKK several times as he didn't like what he called "Zionist Jews".

Anyways, I bought lots of guns from him, but never joined his group. I was in there one morning when a couple natives came in wanting to sell gold. They laid a nugget on the counter the size of can of WD40 on the counter. The owner weighed it and paid em, then pulled 2 different metal tool boxes from under the counter. Both were so full of nuggets, nothing else would fit. Finally he pulled a third one and tossed the behemoth nugget in there like it was a rock and kicked the box back under the counter.

A couple minutes later a seemingly pissed off fella in boxer shorts and a t shirt comes in wanting to buy a pair of thumb cuffs and a baseball bat. After purchasing his tools, he went out the door with a look of satisfaction and a purpose.

Fairbanks has surely changed.

Yup! I don't have phone service of any kind here, would drive most people crazy. I have running water and power, I figure I am doin ok.

Do you have internet?

Sometimes

Hughes Net is doing some pretty decent upgrades. Showing speeds that approach GCI. At least in SE.