Growing up in Alaska salmon was considered poor people’s food. You would go out, catch 50 or so salmon every year, stuff them in the freezer, and chew through dried out salmon loaf all winter. Eventually you’d throw out a dozen or so freezer burned chums and pinks or give them to the dogs.
Reds, silvers and kings are appreciated. Chums and pinks are dog food.
Moose is much more common to eat than caribou. Moose tastes like intensely flavored beef, very dense, and usually pretty lean. Moose is best cooked as pot roast or stew, the way you’d handle tough flavorfull cuts of beef.
The Alaskan Independence Party is a generally right-wing libertarian militia black helicopter nutball party. While the ostensible goal of the party is for Alaska to secede from the US, everyone knows that it’s just for pretend. There is waaaay to much federal money subsidizing the economy, with military bases, federal roads, etc etc etc etc.
Well, salmon wasn’t our first choice–crab was the first choice. We generally preferred trout. But it’s hard to beat red salmon. I would even lump silvers in with the pinks and chums. But man, you’re mother must have been one bad cook! We donate anything that burns to the local zoo, who feed it to the bears.
I agree about moose. Much better than caribou. Anyone that would eat bear meat would fellate a goat.
Your comment about federal money is a whole 'nuther thread topic. This state has been run by outside interests, Seattle politics and Beltway bullshit for so long, it’s no wonder we are constantly at the public trough. Most of the jobs in Alaska are either Federal or State positions. Without them, the economy here would be sad indeed, since nobody seems interested in attracting the kinds of businesses that could make a go of it. Instead, we have our idiot governor and legislators trying to revive the logging industry, fer cripe’s sake. Hello, 1965 calling, anybody home?
With Unca Ted setting records for pork in Washington (and everyone thinking it’s just swell), it’s pretty hard to take complainers about the government seriously. If you’re going to take someone’s money, you’re going to have to play by their rules.
My design for the Alaska quarter would be somebody standing in front of the Senate building with their hand out.
Not to delve into the AIP answer that Lemur gave, but in general, do Alaskans consider themselves to be part of the United States, or do they consider themselves their own country? When somebody from the lower 48 visits, are they considered as fellow citizens or clueless foreigners? If say, President Bush says something stupid, do Alaskans say “Can you believe what our president just said?” or “Can you believe what their president just said?”
Alaskans consider themselves to be individualists and free-thinkers, which is pretty laughable on the surface since most are Republicans. Now that’s pretty simplistic, as political thinking here is not quite that cut and dried.
Most longtime residents here have an innate distrust of ‘outsiders’, for reasons outlined in an earlier post. Opportunists and carpetbaggers have abounded here and much of the wealth has gone elsewhere. People still come here to work, then take everything south when they leave.
So to some extent, we feel like we are on our own, also laughable considering the huge amount of government handouts we get. This feeling is reinforced every time a business says they won’t send merchandise to Alaska, or won’t insure it, or want to charge a huge handling fee, when there is no reason to do so, every time we are asked if we take American money, etc.
Visitors are largely clueless, I’m afraid. Most treat the state as some sort of amusement park. When friends came last summer, I took them out to hike on one of the few accessible glaciers. I noticed that the guy kept lagging behind. Then I noticed that he was wearing sandals, for god’s sake. I asked him why he hadn’t worn decent boots or at least some hiking sneaks and he replied sheepishly that he ‘thought there would be a paved path’!
We of course refer to ‘our President’ like any other Americans, present occupant of the White House excepted in my case.
Yup. Still here. Commonly called Teh Roadhouse by a lot of people (who hung out there in the late 70’s-early 80’s) it’s official name is The Cabin Tavern. Built of logs with a sod roof.
Yes, it exists. Even with all of those things you require. It comes down to your own definitions of “easy commute”, major city, and affordability.
You can find undeveloped 20 acre lots for under $20000 in the Glenallen area, (which is astoundingly beautiful country) but Glenallen hardly qualifies as a major city. It’s 3 hours away from Anchorage.
In and around Anchorage however, you’d be damn lucky to buy 20 acres for $200,000. That much land near town can fetch upwards of $1 million.
If you’re seriously interested in buying some land up here, I’m pretty good at finding what’s out there. Send me an email and we can chat for a bit.
Disclaimer: I am not a real estate agent or any other sort of land purveyor.
I apologize for the namecalling. I have many Native friends and there was an incident last year where some local charmers were “hunting Eskimos” with paintball guns. They were arrested carrying a videotape of the entire evening of fun. You’ll forgive me if I got more than a little exercised with BlueMit11’s comments.
Hey, honkytonkwillie! Nice to see another Alaskan on the boards. I was beginning to think I was the lone voice in the wilderness. Thanks for chiming in with your info.
Thanks again for the info. I’m pretty far away, but I really want to go sometime. But if I do, it will be for a longer period (unless I’m forced to do the cruise ship thing, which has its upside, but is boring IMHO).
I envy you your location. I loved Prague and want to go back again for a visit. I was first there in about 1987 and was there when the huge demonstration happened in Wenceslaus Square in 1988(?). What a beautiful city Prague is. Are you there with an embassy or an NGO?
My wife is Czech. I met her at the University I study-exchanged at in Olomouc back in 1994. Loooooong love story cut short: she moved to Colorado, we got married the following year and then moved to Prague where we have been for 6 years now.
I am currently starting a hedge fund business with a few partners. I’m also hoping to go to the local English MBA programme over the next few years part-time.
Wow, so you were here when it went down, eh? Cool. Come on back, it really has changed…and not all for the better - there are 3 McDonalds on Wenceslas Square! Ugh…I know I’m in the thick of capitalism, but still…3?
Yeah, I’d been there on business several times and happened to be there with my family (buying garnet jewelry and crystal, and sucking down as much Czech beer as possible, doncha know). We came up out of the subway, turned a corner and holy crap, 200,000 people! As someone with a dip passport, I couldn’t afford to get caught in a full-scale street riot, if it broke out (it didn’t), so we turned tail and got back on the train.
The thought of McCrappo outlets in that gorgeous place is just sickening. At least they aren’t on the other side of the Charles Bridge. Hey, is U Tomas still open? It was one of the few decent restaurants back in the bad old days.
My RV is a small 21’ Winnie. It sleeps two comfortably.
An update answer to a previous question about the PFD (Permanent Fund Dividend) check. This year’s amount of $1,107.56 was announced last night.
For any who don’t know, every resident of the state gets a check each year from the oil revenues that are generated. The amount is based on a rolling five-year average of the stock market returns. Since Bush was elected, the amount has gone from nearly $2000 to the present level.
In the meantime we have a budget shortfall in the state, but continue to give money away to anyone who can fog a mirror, while cutting services to our residents who need it most. Makes no sense whatsoever.
As was previously mentioned, Roadhouse = Cabin Tavern. You ain’t alone here, Chefguy, I’ve been here for a while. I agree about the wanton proliferation of McDonalds - there are two of them in Tbilisi, Georgia, where I now work!
We donate anything that burns to the local zoo, who feed it to the bears.