Alaska. Would you like to live here?

[Don Alaska]

I don't know if this is the right place for this, but @Smithy can move it if need be. I came across this video, and, while I don't agree with everything here, most of it is quite accurate. As someone who moved their family here and has made the state home for 36 years, I can identify with most of the video.

Questions??

 

[Jacob Petersheim]

I was tempted in my youth, but also drawn to western Australia. I suppose all they have in common is gold, but that wasn't the motivation in either case. Maybe it all comes back to feeling quite out of place as a kid, like somebody who had been dropped here by aliens or something.

 

[Jacob Petersheim]

Before retiring my youngest went to school in Houghton (MTU) which had begin as a mining and geology school before branching into engineering. I had toyed with the idea of buying a house for him and rent-paying roommates, maintaining this until I was ready to retire, then doing some remodeling and moving in.

Going up there to explore available real estate gave me the excuse to drop in on Steve and then spend the rest of a long weekend exploring. It took me west into Ontonagon, just outside the Porkies (Porcupine Mountains). Soon I began to think about settling there in retirement. They get enough snow that during winters 4-wheelers and snowmobiles can become standard transportation.

Then the Great Recession came along, the cardboard factory shut down, things fell like dominos, and as workers fled it became a dicier proposition and many businesses folded as tourism dried up. So much for that dream.

 

[Nancy Hart]

It would be nice to spend summers there. How long is your summer? (Say between hard freezes at night) I would be afraid to live all year there anywhere but in a city with other people around, or near the ocean in the south. What if there is a problem with the heat in the dead of winter?

 

[Susannah]

I thought I might like to live there as a young woman. As it turned out this old lady doesn’t like being cold or the number of dark winter hours in the lower 48. I wish I had visited Alaska, especially Denali, but not live there.

 

[Krystal]

At the time, I did like living there but I was also young and that was nearly 50 years ago. I liked the summer months when the sun was up all night. I thought that was really cool! If I remember, the sun became dusk-like at around midnight just for a bit. I don't think I could live there now at my age. I need sunny days and those long cold dark winter months would be brutual to me at my age now.

We drove the Alaska Highway and I remember how in awe I was at all the wilderness-- and those BIG Moose!!! Alaska's scenery is so beautiful and majestic! It was an experience of a lifetime!

 

[Marie Mallory]

I thought I might like to live there as a young woman. As it turned out this old lady doesn’t like being cold or the number of dark winter hours in the lower 48. I wish I had visited Alaska, especially Denali, but not live there.

I agree, maybe in my younger years, but I get cold at 80F now.

I hear it is a beautiful country.

 

[Axel Slingerland]

When Cindy and I got together, she talked about wanting to move to Alaska. So I had to tell her how much I hate winter anywhere that gets really cold and it snows a lot. I told her about living in Flagstaff, which gets brutal winters. She was disappointed, but she knew she couldn't handle winter in Alaska either.

However, I knew she wanted to see it, so I saved my nickles and dimes for a cruise up there. It took awhile, but I finally did it. But by the time I had enough money to do it right, take cruise ship up and back from Seattle, the train to Denali, nice hotels, restaurants, etc., it was too late. She passed away.

 

[Don Alaska]

Our

It would be nice to spend summers there. How long is your summer? (Say between hard freezes at night) I would be afraid to live all year there anywhere but in a city with other people around, or near the ocean in the south. What if there is a problem with the heat in the dead of winter?

summer is generally between the beginning of June and the first week of September, so a little over 3 months. What people have the hardest time adjusting to are the light-filled summer days (no sleep) and the dark winter days (depression). Everybody who lives anywhere that has deadly cold winters should have a back-up heating system that does not rely on the grid. We have wood stoves.

 

[Don Alaska]

When Cindy and I got together, she talked about wanting to move to Alaska. So I had to tell her how much I hate winter anywhere that gets really cold and it snows a lot. I told her about living in Flagstaff, which gets brutal winters. She was disappointed, but she knew she couldn't handle winter in Alaska either.

However, I knew she wanted to see it, so I saved my nickles and dimes for a cruise up there. It took awhile, but I finally did it. But by the time I had enough money to do it right, take cruise ship up and back from Seattle, the train to Denali, nice hotels, restaurants, etc., it was too late. She passed away.

You only saw a very small part of the state, but glad you enjoyed it.

 

[Axel Slingerland]

I didn't see any of it... But I'm sure Cindy and I would have enjoyed it immensely if we had actually been able to go. It was practically all Cindy talked about for months when we first met. She wanted to move to Talkeetna, and live in a house with a big living room window overlooking the mountains. I hated to tell her no, and that was one of the few things I said no to.

I chose Eureka to retire in, and she said she had as well, so that was where we stayed. Sadly, she never knew I saved up enough money for a cruise. My plan was to take her to Alaska for our 25th Anniversary, which would have been September 6th, 2023. As a former employee of Wahweap Lodge in Page, Arizona and The Defiance House in Bullfrog, Utah, Aramark was going to give me a 20% discount at the Denali Park Village, making the cost of the whole trip about $4,000 for everything. But she passed away in January of that year, just eight months before our Silver Anniversary. She was the love of my life and I wasn't going to up there without her.

We were really looking forward to ordering an Alaska Moose Burger somewhere...

 

[Don Alaska]

I didn't see any of it... But I'm sure Cindy and I would have enjoyed it immensely if we had actually been able to go. It was practically all Cindy talked about for months when we first met. She wanted to move to Talkeetna, and live in a house with a big living room window overlooking the mountains. I hated to tell her no, and that was one of the few things I said no to.

I chose Eureka to retire in, and she said she had as well, so that was where we stayed. Sadly, she never knew I saved up enough money for a cruise. My plan was to take her to Alaska for our 25th Anniversary, which would have been September 6th, 2023. As a former employee of Wahweap Lodge in Page, Arizona and The Defiance House in Bullfrog, Utah, Aramark was going to give me a 20% discount at the Denali Park Village, making the cost of the whole trip about $4,000 for everything. But she passed away in January of that year, just eight months before our Silver Anniversary. She was the love of my life and I wasn't going to up there without her.

We were really looking forward to ordering an Alaska Moose Burger somewhere...

Sorry. I misunderstood. The loss of a long time partner is terrible.

 

[Hedi M]

Um maybe. I do not handle freezing well any more. It was bad enough we moved from homeland Texas to Kansas. If younger I could try

 

[Jacob Petersheim]

School kids.