A family living remotely in Alaska.

[sethorly]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-39418054

An essay with photos of a family living in a very remote part of Alaska. Great stuff if you're into the Boreal forests.

[Straight Shooter]

Love it,love it, love it , i wish.

[Mortblanc]

Hippies in the backwoods!

I know a lot of folks that live in Alaska, off grid part or full time.

Land in Alaska is not free. Homesteading ended back in the middle part of the last century. It is actually more expensive than in the civilized parts of the world and about the same as farm land in GB. There is a huge problem with squatters and the state of Alaska has rangers appointed to burn down any illegal shacks/cabins they find. they do not have to go through eviction process or fight in court for months, squatting on public land is not tolerated. Squatting on private land is downright dangerous.

Alaska also has very strict hunting and fishing laws which restricts taking game to short and intense periods of time. It is possible to kill enough meat to last a year, but you do not hunt year around. Most of your game is taken in a span from mid August to the end of Sept.

Even up there one must have some form of income, those canned goods are not free, neither are the chain saws or the gas they use and that kind of money is not to be made on a trapping line in this day and age. Most Alaskans work a town job to fund their off grid entertainment. Some write books, sell their stories to others or get featured on reality TV. That seems to be the biggest income source for the past decade.

As for the supposed isolation, It works great until you break the odd leg and help is two days snowmobile ride and a plane trip away.

[Straight Shooter]

Well that,s me sorted MB .....i could write funny stories about my past and the goings on around here....should see me through for at least a fortnight ...you lift me up..you are the air beneath my wings !

[Mortblanc]

There are several Alaskan homesteading forums on the internet but be aware that if you think I am blunt you will be shocked by them. They will set you down and tell you how things actually operate and when you start to look like you are going to they will slap you upside the head and ask you want part of "listen to me!" you did not understand.

Most of them are old timers who have retired from the woods or folks living in the "accessible parts" such as the major cities or the Keni Peninsula where communications are available.

There is a point when one can no longer function in the bush without young family members to do the hard physical stuff. When they hit that point they come into the city, get their "council flat" or move in with family and finish their days conversing on the computer.

Not too many internet cafes, wifi hot spots or fiber optic networks in the AK bush.

[Straight Shooter]

I admire those who try ...and have a go ,i admire them even more if they do it right and succeed at it, but not for me as you rightly point out MB not the place for old farts ...my problem is i think i am 3o years younger than i am....a major part of growing old ....is the realisation and coming to terms with the fact fitness ,health,and energy starts to falter ...when you'r not looking....just life ! But i can still bore the tits off any given unsuspecting member ...even thousands of miles away.

[harrypalmer]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq0rZn8HFmQ is well worth watching.

[Mortblanc]

As stated above, Heimo earns a good living working with reality TV shows. He has been on screen almost constantly for more than 10 years. He is a very slow talking and likable old fart. You might note that he habitually carries a stainless steel .44 magnum pistol on his belt.

He and his wife entered the preserve before the government closed down homesteading 30 years ago. No homesteading is allowed now and the family is "grandfathered" in until the last daughter dies. if one of their daughters does not decide to take up the homestead it will revert to the State and it will revert automatically when the daughters die.

Every necessity they require has to be flown in and out of the homestead and they are above the permafrost line where crops can be grown.

[harrypalmer]

It does highlight the fact that nobody lives completely alone/off grid... even Dick Proenneke (a man I admired) needed stuff flown in.

[Mortblanc]

Mind that I am not being oppositional or claiming that people do not succeed in the bush, it is just that most do not succeed as shown on the A&E network or the Discovery Channel. They do not show the divorce rates for couples living in the bush, or the fact that some of the people they are filming are simply "not quite right".

I also hold many of these people in high regard, but often the film edits do not show the entire story and the life is not easy, and is unacceptable by many.

And even folks living in the bush have financial problems to deal with. They live under pressure just like the rest of us and if they fail in their endeavors there is no safety net for them.

Only a woman that had grown up in a hippy van parked down by the river would consider a shack surrounded by 15 foot snow drifts for 8 months a year a good life. Heimo is married to a native woman who grew up in the bush and considers a can of peaches and a head lamp luxury items. A few years back their cabin burned to the ground and they spent the rest of the winter at -50 in a tent. Fortunately they had their 'remote location" set up just for an emergency of this sort. He spent a good deal of the next summer scrounging nails from the burned ruin, waiting for building materials to be shipped in. Miraculously his cabin was finished in time for winter even though the materials were delayed until the first snow flakes were flying.

Most women would have been on the next bush plane headed for civilization, and who could blame them? It would be the sensible thing to do when you are already past the age of rebuilding a cabin in the wilderness without help.

I am not as old as Heimo and it is all I can do to maintain a modern shack with the home improvement center 20 miles away. I am wondering who exactly rebuilt the homestead? Might that have been the discovery Channel crew doing what they had to do to keep the old reel rolling?

His constant on screen ramblings include meditation on how much longer the couple will be able to live in the bush.

Dick Proenneke was also an admirable man and I envy his ingenuity and craftsmanship. He was a single man in his late 40s when he entered the bush and had no family to consider. Only a single bachelor, high ranking member of the geezerhood, could consider a temperature of +5 indoors a cozy situation.

And Dick Proeneke was on disability income from a work related injury. He had steady money coming to him to pay for all those supplies flown in my bush plane every few months.

And in the end Dick did not die in his cabin. He died in an old folks home in the city.