Community Chat

[Kachina624]

Has anyone else noticed how we're being bombarded with programs about Alaska? We've got Alaska, The Last Frontier, Life Below Zero, Buying Alaska on Destination Discovery with a similar program on HGTV and Alaska State Troopers. I've been there twice and agree it's gorgeous. I can see the attraction for outdoors types, fishing enthusiasts and hunters.

It's such a raw, hard life for many people. Just getting water or staying warm seems to be a monumental struggle for those who revel in "living off the grid". Life Below Zero features, among others, a middle age woman who lives alone in a tent on a remote outpost where she must kill her own meat, clear runways on her little airport and cook for paying guests in the summer. In the winter she is stalked by wolves and polar bears. She also has some health problems and had surgery recently.

Try as I might, I just can't see the attraction of this kind of lifestyle. I understand wanting to be independent, but why not do it where you can be reasonably safe and comfortable? That poor woman on tonight's episode was out in a semi-blizzard stringing ropes between her buildings so she could find her home in a whiteout. Wind was blowing like crazy and it was snowing. I'll say one thing...she's not afraid of hard work

Anyone here have a yen to "rough it"?

[croemer]

Yes I have noticed. Parts of Alaska would be spectacular but if I were a single woman...no way would I live out in the boonies.

[colliemom4]

It's stunning but I would not care to live there.

[Yuban3]

It's what makes them happy. Could I do it? No way. Living like that isn't for everybody. Who says that we all have to live a certain way?

[Kachina624]

I just wonder how many people give up everything they have in the "lower 48" and after their first winter, decide to go home.

There was a couple on the HGTV home buying show last week, recently married blended family with about 6 kids, from I believe South Carolina. He was a native Puerto Rican. They were totally clueless, looking for a huge home near Fairbanks. I bet they gave away a couple of kids after they got their first heating bill. I wonder if they made it through the winter. They knew nothing about the wildlife, had never driven in snow etc. Totally unprepared for life in sub-zero temperatures.

[Nancy Drew]

As far as the men ratio to women remember: the odds are good, but the goods are odd.

[Kachina624]

Yeah, they do keep the Alaska State Troopers busy. They have more than their share of oddballs.

[Big Sister]

But, but, you can see Russia from there!

[Shorty2U]

I think its a nice place to visit but I would not want to live there. This Winter in PA was enough for me. lol. Im a former city girl living in a country world. I am not a roughing it girl.

[Elstongunn]

I've seen the shows and have watched people's video series on YouTube of their life in Alaska. You really have to be independent, self-sufficient, and have a lot of skills generally not needed in the lower 48 to make it there. I think people get caught up in the beauty and don't think about the hardships. Like the young man who went there thinking it would be a wonderful adventure and ended up dying alone, starving to death, in an abandoned bus.

Nice place to visit, but not my idea of a lifestyle.