Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska When Anchorage was MAGICAL

One would not know it now, but there was a time.

The 70`s and early 80`s were real good.

My father in law went up when he was about 10 or 11 which would’ve been about 1949 or 50 and didn’t leave until the government plucked him from bush flying and he spent the next 10 years 65-75 flying for Air America. His stories of Alaska from the territory days are of some crazy times and interesting people. I’ve been looking for his photos from that time period. I remember him showing me a picture that he’d taken one day when he flew over Lituya Bay before the landslide. Cenotaph island sat stately on guard and the ancient forests stretched up to the clouds….

ETA….He started out on Kodiak and then Tennekee and Elfin Cove, Fairbanks, Sitka and Juneau iirc.

I think many things were MAGICAL when we were young.

Before he passed away he and I were talking about Alaska and he mentioned that returning to see those places so changed by population growth would have been a heartbreaking site. I told him that some of the places he lived and loved were relatively unchanged by time. Elfin Cove and Tennekee isn’t much different and doesn’t suffer from overpopulation and other places like Thorne Bay are actually much smaller and less populated than he remembers since logging has been reduced. As a kid he worked fishing and running out to secure the log rafts in logging operations. He bought his first fishing boat at 15 with a down payment and a handshake from the banker in Sitka, within the year he had paid it off in full. He credits Alaska with saving his life and I would loved to have been alive and up there back then. His stories I miss but I’m thankful that I paid attention to them while he was alive.

That sure is the truth!

To think that our children will look back in 30 or 40 years when they’re our age now and they’ll think of this time with nostalgia and fond memories of this “magical time”. I could gauge whether it was a magical time or not by the number and size of the king runs and game on the hillsides. 😀

There are so-so many magical things I cherish about Anchorage and Alaska. Just one is the legendary men and women I knew and worked with (often employed by).

Big differences in SE towns from fishing there in the '70s and going back10 years ago...

I had a relative (Hans) who moved with his wife to Alaska in 1932. He was a guide, bush pilot, hunter, surveyor. During WW II they selected him and other to travel to the lower 48 for resistance training against a potential Japanese invasion. They left Alaska in 1958 when Alaska became a state. He said it lost its allure. I spent many a night going through his scrapbooks when I worked on his Oregon ranch in the mid 1960s.

When Anchorage was magical for me was in the mid 90's........
I was on a hunting and fishing trip on Kodiak Island when my guide told me and my friend that we would have to fly back to Anchorage 2 days early because of a huge storm coming in, upon arriving back in Anchorage we found out that there was not a Hotel room available until our flight back home.
We spent 48 hours in the Great Alaskan Bush company and it was truly MAGICAL !!!!!!!
It also cured me of ever wanting to go to a place like that again.

I lived in Anchorage from the mid-70's through the early '90's. During the first 10 years or so while living there Anchorage had THE highest per-capita income of any city in the USA. Working in the oil industry during those boom/growth years gave many of us the hope that it would continue. Silly now looking back on such a feeling, but it was widespread through the community. Built a nice cabin on the Upper Kasilof and floated that river many times before you'd normally see a single other boat from slackwater down to the beach. Sure, there were sad sights to see - homeless people here and there, but absolutely nothing like the dystopia present now. Those early days were magical times indeed, at least for me.

Now when I go back every where I turn I see homeless squatters, drug addicts, and depressing shuttered buildings. There are still a few bright spots - Marx Brothers Cafe, Orso, The Double Musky, and a few friends still alive and there to enjoy and relive old times. But overall Anchorage and the Kenai both have really gone downhill sad to say. I still love it there and will continue to return for visiting and annual hunting out of Tok, but the penny isn't nearly as shiny as it was 40 years ago.

Ahhhh.......

As the bumperstickers begged;

Please let there be another oil boom! I promise not to piss it all away this time!

I remember when Muldooon was paved...

I've only lived here since '92, so I can't speak to how it was prior to that, but man, it sure has had some big changes over the last 30 years. Not related to Anchorage, but one of the biggest changes I've noticed is the amount of boat traffic on the upper Kenai, and especially in the fall and down in the canyon to Skilak lake.

Alaska's story is much the same as the west of today and yesterday. They will ruin it all. Now the Colorado mob is moving here. Things are not going to be good for long!

The Kenai Peninsula is still magical, but not the Soldotna/Kenai City areas. Last 24 years I have resided in a beautiful (11 mile long) valley with a total population of 11 humans. While not exactly, for the most part it is like living in the long'ago, late 1800's. but with electric.

Completely surrounded by Seven Million Acre, Chugach National Forest. World class King Salmon, and massive run of Silver Salmon, and Trout. Few if any outsiders fish here, in the beautiful SIX MILE CREEK.

Dall Sheep, Mt. Goats, Caribou, Moose, Brown Bear and Black, untrodden wilderness. Every "LOCAL" resident enjoys, Federal Subsistence Rights, for Hunting, Fishing & Trapping.

This is true.
Still Alaska is not the same as it was 40 years ago. Never spent much time in Anchorage as I had enough of cities before I moved to Fairbanks.

Was headed to Anchorage initially and a act of destiny interfered and I landed in Fairbanks.

It was just after the pipeline and still pretty wild and wooly. I think the pipeline ended the magic.

Still a great place to be and the last civilized place on the planet! At least as far as I am concerned.

Magical? More like price gouging. Locally owned stores gouged the average Alaskan every time they sold something. Even when Gary Kings used to have their annual 1/2 off sale on fishing tackle the stuff still cost more than buying the same stuff at Cabelas.
The big box stores finally started making the playing field more level.
The good old days were often not that good.

Now, hunting and fishing opportunities were much better back then.

Long Drugs was a win win for reloading components.

Anchorage was never magical to me, but I do remember when Northern Lights BLVD was Gary King, B&J? , a few other places, but mostly untouched forest.

Fireweed was more like it.....Cut Rate Kid sold a case of Oly for $2.33.......