Read the article in the news tonight about the King Salmon fisheries in AK having some real hard times. One part of the story made me take notice of how high the prices can get in some of those Interior Villages...


"That means instead of making between $20,000 and $30,000 in the 1970s, fishermen are making just a few thousand dollars now, and that in villages where fuel costs $8 a gallon, milk is $15 a gallon and a T-bone steak costs $25, he said. "

I've known and heard about Gas going for $8.00 a gallon for some time now, but Milk at $15.00 a gallon and a T-Bone steak for $25. That was news to me!

Welcome to my Nightmare LOL...although gas just plunged to $5.65 a gl ...good thing we dont burn milk

It's got to be cheaper living down in the Anchorage, Palmer, Talkeetna areas!!!

Yes it is but if we lived there we might just as well live in NY

I was a pavement pounder in Alaska and really don't know if its more expensive being a bushrat or not. With all your recreation at your doorstep a lot of money is saved but it is taken by the extremely high cost of shipping things. The fact we have no real estate taxes and there are zero options for spending money other than phone or internet orders is hard to compute. My point is no temptation about driving into town for a night out or a quart of milk.
I'm amazed at the amount of people in the bush that consider themselves bush rats but spend a lot of time and a considerable amount of money traveling back and forth to the big villages. Airfare to the big village is almost $800 now and doesn't include the cost of getting to the nearest village.

Canvasback, sounds like you need to do a "boots on the ground" for you can make up your mind.LOL

You mean that I should NOT buy a house in Alaska "SIGHT UNSEEN "??? lol

( Yes, I know I should , make that HAVE to visit the particular areas in order to really get an idea of what they are like !! )


This is part of a letter I got from someone who not too long ago visited Alaska and the Talkeetna areas...


"VERY small tourist town. Its near Mt McKinley . We took a small plane and flew around McKinley , in and around the glaciers etc. Saw some bears and moose. It was a great experience but I would not want to live there. Everything is VERY expensive as it all gets trucked in from a long way off.
BTW you spoil your dog ! Got those pics. "

I'm sure this is not news to anyone but man are there a lot of blueberries this year! We've really enjoyed filling the pails this year. The blueberry goodies have been rolling out of the kitchen for a couple of weeks now and the freezer is starting to fill up with bags of frozen goodies!

Couple of weeks until the low bush cranberries are ripe but it appears there will be a good supply of them as well.

Hope to put some silvers in the freezer over Labor Day after our annual trip to Valdez. A few dozen grouse and a caribou by Oct. and we'll be in good shape.

Definitely a bumper year for berries.

CB: that letter has to be referring to Talkeetna

YES !!! They flew on the Talkeetna Air Taxi (Think that is what it was called.) while they were up there .

Blue berrys are not ready here yet..but lots of these

Looks good!

are those salmon berrys ?

'heard of them , don't think i've ever seen them .

Cloud berries.

Minker You can tell by the way they swim.

Went out today and the blue berries look bleek, salmon berries were descent earlier but they are about done for the year.

They are Salmon berrys, here out west....they do look like salmon eggs ..
not hard to fill a 5 gl bucket here this year

They're cloud berries on the Kenai peninsula. The salmon berry here grows on a big bush. (Google each of the above and look at
wikipedia's definition.) Of course different areas sometimes call
things by different names. Nagoon berries and dew berries is
another good example. A lot of people call the dewberry a nagoon
berry.

Any of you all get your mail through the Elmendorf or Ft Richardson Post Office ? They are on the list to close/

Those are military bases. I can't imagine they would close those.

no they are not going to close. If anything they are getting bigger