Might be moving to Alaska

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Depends, I google the school and look at the comunity on a map. If it is accecable on a map I will apply, if it looks like a six week trip on mules in the summer and a 4 month trip on sled in the winter I don't think I will send them an application.

Its just an idea we are kicking around right now. Our oldest child starts school next fall, so if we are going to move someplace like that then now is as good a time as any to do it.

We both like the wilderness, camping, hunting and fishing life style. We try to be mostly self reliant, so I think the only bummer would be the lack of garden we would have, or the expense of housing. Our market has tanked like many others and I bet it has not up there. But again something we have to look at.

As most of you know there is a lot to consider when you are going to uproot 2small children and a wife and move across a country.
 
Lack of a garden? Have you ever seen pictures of those 100 pound cabbages and 900 pound pumpkins at the state fair? 20 -22 hours of daylight does great things to a lot of vegetables.
Much of Alaska has warmer winters than Idaho. Even the interior where you do get extreme winters, has gorgeous summers. I've never known anyone who has regretted moving to Alaska.

Giant Mutant Alaskan veggies: http://www.gadling.com/2007/07/16/giant-mutant-like-vegetables-at-alaska-state-fair/
 
I lived in Alaska for 25 years and over those years i drove the ALCAN hiway 13 times... I took the ferry a couple times too.

IF the weather is good, the ferry is great, if the weather is bad (more times than not in SE Ak..) the trip can be bad to horrible!!! Cold, lots of rain and low visability!

It is NOT dark in all of Alaska all winter, only in the most northern part of the state.

The giant cabbages ect that are grown there, are for SHOW, not for eating. BUT, you can have a garden... You are just restricted in what will grow there, and you have to deal with the moose ect.. getting into EVERYTHING! One moose will clean an entire garden out in one night, and there's plenty of them around all summer to do just that!

I would drive there with a decent vehicle, and you better take plenty of $$ with you! Until you learn how everything works there, it's going to cost you a LOT of money to live there.

How ever tough you think the move will be, it will be 100 times tougher than you think!

DM
 
Plonk yourself down in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Anchorage (The Stephen's park appartments have openings, 1, 2, and 3 bedrooms) That's reasonably close to providence hospital, University of Alaska Anchorage, and in the Roger's Park school district. (One of the better school districts in Anchorage.)

Oh, and it is right next door to the Marriott Residence Inn I mentioned. . .
 
Fairbanks is nice, there's TONS of outdoors activities to be had. Drive 10 minutes outside of town in just about any direction and there's hiking, LOADS of berries to be picked, Many many fish to be caught. Hunting in the fall (I don't hunt in winter). The only downside here anymore seems to be smoke in the summer from all the fires.

But whichever direction you get to come up here, GO DOWN TO OR COME UP FROM VALDEZ!!! It is absolutely gorgeous and worth the trip.
 
I think last winter we had a few days in January where it got down to about 12 degrees at night. That was as cold as it got, and that is a pretty normal winter here, and in much of Alaska. The "average" winter day (here) is about 35 to 38 degrees during the day and perhaps 25 to 28 at night. Winter precipitation is rain as often as it's snow.

Just flying to Anchorage from here (300 miles?) is a shock during winter. It might be 40 degrees here, and 10 below zero in Anchorage.

Alaska is a big place. The interior and the north are extremely cold. The coast is pretty mild. It's not at all unusual for the state to have a 100 degree temperature difference between say, Ketchikan and Barrow, on the same winter day. The Aleutians get over a hundred inches of rain a year, while some places in the interior get less than 10.

There are several Alaska's and they each have a different climate, different wildlife and a different "feel".
 
A true story.
When Alaska was being debated for statehood, a Texas senator stood up and (jokingly) argued that Alaska should be made into two states so that Texas could remain the largest state.
The Alaska delegate stood up and explained that if Alaska was two states, then Texas would be the 3rd largest state since both halves would still be much larger than Texas.
 
Canadians let you go through with certain hunting rifles, as defined by Canadian law. The only safe bet is to ship your weapons to yourself as suggested. The drive is very very very long, as folks have noted. I just had my car, full of my stuff, barged up from Seattle. Worked really well.

There are a lot of myths about this state. As KB notes, the place is huge. You can spend a lifetime here and see only a fraction of it. The weather is very different from region to region. Southeast tends to be like coastal BC, south central tends to have moderate winters and very long sunny summers. Western tends to have somewhat colder winters and is bush. The slope and interior can get brutally cold, but also very sunny in the summer. Plus the cold is different in the interior. It's very dry cold, so you can do way more at -40 f. than you would have thought possible.

Gardening is very popular here and we have a thriving local agriculture. I bought mass quantities of cabbage, potatoes, char, kale, onions, carrots and such from various Mat-Su farmers last fall and I JUST NOW unthawed the last of the stew I made from it. That food fed me lunches and dinners from September to May, and most of it was locally grown. The potatoes and green veges in particular are sublime. Dozens of varieties of potatoes, mustard greens of incredible intensity, cabbages that make fantastic home-made kraut. And onions so delicious they're like candy. Not to mention the rutabaga that redefines rutabaga! You don't see this stuff in the lower 48 because the shipping costs are too high, but I can never eat a lowly russet spud again. Not now that I've had locally grown purple vikings and yellow finns!

Two sample trips to the farmers market:

10123_1238607613471_1477701250_674173_5772440_n.jpg


39986_1573595227952_1477701250_1529680_1744532_n.jpg


For the complete Alaskan experience, you have your own moose and/or caribou meat ready to be cooked with that stuff.

The housing markets up here are distinct, and we never had the mortgage boom/bust seen in the lower 48. Prices have always been high, particularly when you try to find housing in southeast or in the remote areas. Land is pretty inexpensive though. I've just learned how to live rough and rent smart. Right now I'm living right next to a fish store so I shave about $300 a month off the rent in an otherwise excellent neighborhood. The fish is a side benefit. If you've never had raw Alaska grown oysters you're really missing something special.

Don't discount Anchorage, even though everyone here loves to hate it. It actually has a ton of park land and wilderness areas nearby. I've seen more bear and moose here than I ever did out in Willow. And I survive year round without a car.
 
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When I moved here I had to ship my guns to a dealer. If you are moving close to the Mat-Su Valley (Wasilla, Palmer, etc) Mat-Su Tactical on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway will recieve firearms for $10. I deal with him often. I'm not sure about primer and powder, but you can bring 5,000 rounds of ammunition over the border.

FYI: May 20th will be my first full year in Alaska. Advice: Find another job. :) I found it to be much colder than Kodiak Bear explained. My power bill said average temp in Dec, Jan, Feb and Mar was 13 degrees.

We have winds here in the Valley upwards of 90mph. Oklahoma? Get in the torando shelter! Florida? Prepare for a hurricane!
Alaska? Business as usual.
 
You can spend a lifetime here and see only a fraction of it
Click to expand...

That is so true, and that fact even evades many people who live here. You can only get to a fraction of the state by road. Heck, you can't even drive to the state capitol which is a city that is at least marginally cosmopolitan. I've been all over since my first ten years were on coast guard cutters. There are some mighty strange little towns out there in the bush, and some of them don't even have a bar!

There are some pluses to living off the road system. One of which is that you don't see many tourists, so you can fish or hunt without fear of having a bunch of people wearing pink LL Bean jackets marching past ringing bear bells and loudly exclaiming about the exquisite sparrow they just saw or screaming in terror every time some fox starts following them around begging for a hand out. The Kodiak Chamber of Commerce says there is a tourist season, but I don't shoot rare animals or stuff I can't eat.
 
Cosmoline-
Right now I'm living right next to a fish store so I shave about $300 a month off the rent in an otherwise excellent neighborhood.
Click to expand...

Fish store in Anchorage? 10th&M? And they knock off rent?

Anyway I hope the OP uses better spelling in his teaching position applications then in post #26.
 
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Gee's kodiak he could just be wired on coffee, which means he will fit in, or just bad at spelling, which means he will fit in....

Anchorage is big little city that thinks it's a little big city...
valley is almost the same palmer/wasilla, except they get to claim that they aren't anchorage, just in to anchorage twice a week. Past that it's the 'real' Alaska, where they turn up their nose to 'city dwellers' who might as well be in the lower 48

Oh, and your an 'outsider' until you make friends etc. so don't take it personally.
10'th and M, well, I couldn't live there, my wife would bankrupt me in a week, she really loves crab and halibut
 
Anyway I hope the OP uses better spelling in his teaching position applications then in post #26.
Click to expand...

I am sure your spelling is 100% perfect all the time.


Since this is basically A chance for my family and I to start a new we are considering all options. Our children are young, oldest is 5 and the youngest should be here in the fall.

I really like the idea of the ferry and being able to skip Canada. That would make moving guns and reloading gear less problematic.

I can only imagine the hunting and fishing opportunities.

I have been told that if you really want to hunt you have to fly to get to the good areas.

For those of you who live there what are my available opportunities for Moose Bear and Caribou if I live someplace like Anchorage? Are there really animals behind every other tree or bush? I suspect that hunting is not nearly as easy as some of the hunting shows make it out to be. But I am more interested in great tasting meat than I am a set of antlers hanging on the wall.
 
Flying opens a lot of country, but isn't cheap. The rivers are good ways to get around much of the country. Need a good riverboat tho. A good flatbottm boat with fair size motor, and jet setup will run a lot of water. Some do drop offs from roads or fly-ins and take rafts, and take out downstream somewhere, or get picked up by air later.

Depends on how much guns and reloading stuff you have as regards going thru Canada. They allow a certain amount of ammo, powder and primers to go thru without any problem, and it's "per person" so if the wife is along, that doubles it, not sure how much your kids can take. Handguns and military type self loaders are the only guns that are problematic going thru Canada, hunting type guns haven't been a problem for me. I thought driving thru Canada was half the fun of going. I drove thru Banff and Jasper, then thru Prince to Dawson Creek. The Cassiar was on my list also, but havent been back to do it. Wanted to do the Top of the World also, and maybe a run to Inuvik.

Guns had to be unloaded in BC when crossing the border, but not in the Yukon. There was a sign at the Yukon/BC border saying guns were supposed to be unloaded in vehicles in BC. They just asked me if they were loaded when I went in on the BC side, they didnt even look themselves. They wanted to see the guns, I just opened the cases, they looked, said "OK". That was about the most trouble crossing I had.
 
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Are there really animals behind every other tree or bush?
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There's a lot of wildlife in Anchorage and up in the Chugach next door. And you can actually hunt quite a bit of it within an hour's drive, though few do. Most hunters get flown out or drift in, or some combination of the two. It tends to be a big expedition and a lot of work, though whether it *has* to be that way is another question. Nothing keeps you from going out and just shooting small game in the nearby GMU's which is a lot quicker and easier. Alaska F&G has its manuals posted on line which have a ton of info. The Alaska hunting forum also has a lot of info. If you are serious about hunting you have to learn the rather complex rules, which change from GMU to GMU. Hunting laws are very much enforced esp. when it comes to moose.

As far as the city wildlife, here are a few I've run into when I happened to have the video camera ready:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DqZLe1AQ5g

Chased by a bear cub--the ultimate humiliation!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYenxZOkW2M

Over the years I've had maybe half a dozen serious moose charges. But that's out of thousands of moose encounters. They're all over the place here. The brown bear are around, but tend to stay clear of people. You're most likely to see them around salmon spawning streams during that season. Black bear are extremely abundant. That cub was the only one to charge me, but I've nearly tripped over other ones on that same trail. They use tunnels through the devil's club to get around so you can't always see them in time. But they pose little real threat. They don't get super big here and are not the top of the food chain. Brown bear will maul a few people a year in the city, usually not fatal and sometimes little more than some scratches and an ear bitten off.
 
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Well thanks for the extra info. Like I said I am more interested in having quality meat in my freezer than I am horns on my wall. Don't get me wrong I would like to take trophy quality animals while I am there, but if it comes down to time with family or Horns, I will pick my family.


Where are some of the better areas to live that are fairly civilized and within a few hours drive of decent hunting?

We don't like to live in town, we both prefer living in the outlying areas where neighbors are not so close.

Plus I breed Labs and would need easy access to a major airport so they could be shipped if I needed too.
 
90% of the population lives on the road system between Anchorage and Fairbanks, and out the Kenai. Hunting there is probably equivalent to the northern rockies. So yeah, to get good hunting you have to fly off the road.

But... once you learn the ropes there are inexpensive ways to do that. For example, you can take a commercial hop to some village with a rubber raft, then float a river for 50 or 100 miles and take a commercial hop home from some other village. Even the charter flights aren't all that expensive if you share the tariff with a couple of good friends. The value of the meat you'll bring home will defray the cost of the hunt.

And you don't have to live on the road system. Most of the towns in southeast are pleasant places to live with good hunting and fishing on your door step. The two vid links I posted above in #31 were all taken right outside of town in Kodiak. You can hunt bear, deer and goats right outside town with little hunting pressure.
 
Down on the Kenai peninsula south of Anchorage may be a good place to start looking seriously. Relatively close to civilzed stuff, and some room to get out without it being a huge expedition.

You should consider that the scale of the country is possibly larger than even what you're used to in Idaho. Whats "close" to those living there may not be exactly what you would think of as close, but still may be as good as you are likely to find regarding access to both towns/airports, and wild country. If you've been in the east or other more settled places, it will be similar to being in Idaho to those places, its just bigger country yet.
 
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