For some years, I’ve been advising friends and family to do one thing: Get out of the cities. I know it’s not possible for everyone, and for some, it’s not even desirable. But if we’ve seen one thing in the last few years, we’ve seen that our major cities are, day by day, week by week, becoming uncomfortable places to live. We left our home of thirty years, the metropolitan Denver area, not for these reasons, mind you. I grew up in a rural home and never learned to live comfortably in a city, and for all those decades, I couldn’t wait to return to my roots, as it were. My wife grew up in the megalopolis that was and is metropolitan Baltimore, and despite her big-city roots, likewise wanted a quiet rural home. We worked, saved, and scrimped, and after our kids were grown and on their own, found our quietude here in the Susitna Valley.
There are lots of places one could go, many without the necessity of moving all your household lares and penates through another country. But for many reasons, my wife and I chose Alaska – The Great Land — and as we very quickly learned, some things make Alaska – and Alaskans – well, different.
How are Alaskans different? Let me count the ways.
- If you’re an Alaskan, you see nothing odd about eating ice cream when the temp is in single digits. Here in the Susitna Valley, a local institution and popular tourist landmark is Miller’s Market down in Houston. (Alaska, not Texas, obviously.) Miller’s is famous for its ice cream, which draws a lot of summer tourists – and winter Alaskans. Last Saturday night, my wife and I found ourselves with a hankering for a milkshake, so we proceeded hither to Miller’s to satisfy that, only to find a dozen or so other locals had the same idea. Someone in the line commented, “It’s seven degrees out – perfect ice cream weather.” Someone else in the line shrugged and replied, “We’re Alaskans.”
- If you’re an Alaskan, it’s an acceptable reason to be late to work if you can honestly report “There was a moose in my driveway.”
- If you’re an Alaskan, you know what the “dipnet fishery” is, how to get the permit for it, and where to go to take advantage of it.
- If you’re an Alaskan, you may well have asked around for recipes for moose roast.
- If you’re an Alaskan, you aren’t surprised to read about someone growing a 2,000-pound pumpkin.
- If you’re an Alaskan, you know that there aren’t many fireworks shows on the Fourth of July, due to it still being no darker than nautical twilight at midnight, but you’re also aware of alternative sources of patriotic celebration.
- If you’re an Alaskan, you probably know at least one person who keeps sled dogs.
- If you’re an Alaskan, you would likely suffer greatly to avoid giving away the locations of your favorite berry patches.
- If you’re an Alaskan, if you’re not on the roadkill lottery, you know someone who is.
- If you’re an Alaskan, you aren’t surprised to see something like this (full disclosure: My wife and I eat lunch every Saturday in the lodge at the right of the video.)
Alaska is built different pic.twitter.com/ihDKPMpCPi
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) October 30, 2023
There are many more, of course, as there are for all places. In the Allamakee County of my youth, you could be spotted by knowing what someone meant by “up top” or if they referred to “The Families” (which, when spoken, you could hear the capital letters thudding into place.)
It wouldn’t be the worst idea just now to find just such a rural homestead. Our cities are in trouble. See these links for examples:
- Democrats Being Mugged by Reality: Is There Any Hope for a Return to Sanity?
- Police Investigating Trio of Assailants Brutally Assaulting Jewish New Yorkers in Separate Attacks
- The NYPD's Slow Collapse Shows the Domino Effect of Democrat Soft-on-Crime Policies
- NY Times: Don’t Worry About the $112.1B in Shoplifting, It’s a Right-Wing Narrative
- Not All Giving During the Christmas Season Is 'Healthy'
- Black Chicagoans Ticked Off About Illegal Alien Invasion, Vow to Oust Democrats, Vote Republican
These kinds of things just don't happen here. The fact that, out here in the Valley, even the hippies have guns may have some impact on the crime rate.
Any number of rural or even semi-rural places would bring a person ease as well as a good distance from a major city. The Hill Country of Texas around Kerrville comes to mind, as does the Idaho panhandle, the Appalachian foothills (a former business partner of mine has 300 acres of timber in southeast Ohio, in those foothills, and it’s beautiful,) the Blue Ridge Mountains, parts of the Dakotas or even the Allamakee County, Iowa woods of my youth. There are many, many more such locations – feel free to give your own in the comments.
In his 1839 volume Voices of the Night, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow closed his poem Woods in Winter with these lines:
Chill airs and wintry winds! my ear
Has grown familiar with your song;
I hear it in the opening year,
I listen, and it cheers me long.
Alaska may not be for everyone. But even now, with the winter solstice approaching and daylight hours shrinking, the Great Land’s chill airs and wintry winds cheer us long. Find a place for you that does likewise; you will never regret it.
