Alaska Minnesotans

It isn't hard to find someone from Minnesota in Alaska.  In fact, it is nearly impossible to not meet someone from Minnesota if you are out and about.  We were in the ATT store a week ago and I was wearing my Minnesota Viking sweatshirt.  The gal that checked us in said that she wished she could give us a discount because of that shirt.  Evidently her dad is from Minnesota and is a Viking nut...has a whole room dedicated to Viking paraphernalia.  And while waiting a guy came up and started to talking to us.  He is from White Bear Lake and has been here for about 7 years.  He works on the slope as a valve technician.  Seriously..you can't go a day without finding a Minnesotan here

And when you read about the history of the Mat-Su valley and how it started to be developed, you will soon learn that many of the people that are here now had roots in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.  During the 30's the Great Depression was in full swing.  The Alaska Territory needed to colonize and to be able to grow food.  The U.S. Dept. of the Interior sent out a guy from Washington D.C. to the upper midwest because Washington knew that there were people there that would be interested in a "fresh start".  He was directed to look for married couples between 25-35 years old that had children.  He was to find people of Scandinavian decent that could handle the climate here.  PBS had a fascinating program on the colonists that came to Alaska.

They say that history has a habit of repeating itself....and that is often the case.  During the 30's the U.S. unemployment rate was at all time highs, banks were failing, and the housing market took a hit the likes of which it had never seen.  Until now.

When the tea leaves settled and it became clear that Alaska was where we needed to be, the "signs" began to appear.  Have you ever bought a car or truck because it was unique and you had never seen one before.  And as you drive away, you start to see them all over the place?  Or learn a new word, a word that you have never heard or seen before and then it suddenly seems to appear everywhere?  That's what it was like.

The day after the decision was made to investigate Alaska further, there was an ad in the Brainerd Dispatch classifieds.  It said "free household items...moving to Alaska"  I just about fell out of my chair in the office.  It was the very same thing that I saw the night before on PBS about the colonists that came to Alaska.  Each person was allowed 100 pounds of belongings to put on the ships that delivered them to Alaska.  They sold what they could, and gave away the rest.

As we tried to sell the unnecessary items in garage sale after garage sale, it became clear how depressed the economy was there.  When you had to give away gallon jugs of windshield washer fluid because you couldn't sell them for 50 cents, it became clear that the end was no where in sight for an economic recovery there.

It is very refreshing to see people doing things and enjoying life.  I recently talked to a couple that moved here from Menagha.  He is a builder and left Minnesota about 4 years ago.  He didn't have real work for years and decided that he wanted out.  They came up and have carved a new life for their family.  It sounded like they all have went through periods that they missed friends and family there and have often thought about going back.  He recently sold his home here and scheduled a family meeting.  He had made enough money on the sale of the home and that if they, as a family, decided that they wanted to go back to Minnesota, that they could.  The result?  No one now wanted to go back.

When we were trying to decide what to do, we had friends whose parents spent a lot of time up here and they had a stack of Alaska magazines.  We poured through them trying to learn about Alaska.  And in one of them was a photo of a guy wearing a belt with a big buckle that said, "Alaska is what America was".  In fact you can pick one up on ebay for $30.  http://www.ebay.com/itm/Alaska-Pewter-Belt-Buckle-Alaska-America-/330555208344  What a statement... 

There is life out there... but you may have to move in order to find it again.