How would you guys approach this?

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For a hunting place etc...Alaska is a great idea. As a survival location.....forget it.

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As a survival location there is probably no place better in the world. I do agree though that the SE section is probably best.

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For a hunting place etc...Alaska is a great idea. As a survival location.....forget it.

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Have you watched Alone in the Wilderness?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYJKd0rkKss

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Fantastic video.  But he certainly wasn't alone.  He got regular deliveries by air of Coleman fuel and food staples.

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http://anchorage.craigslist.org/reo/3163278956.html

My friends cabin on Afognak off Kodiak Island.   Ive stayed here for a couple of weeks.   It is ultimate BOL.  

Alaska is CERTAINLY a place that you could survive with very little outside help.   It'd be an assload of work, but dooable.  

All summer would be spent catching, cleaning, and smoking salmon, Same with Halibut.  Canning.   HUGE garden in the summer time.   Hunting in the fall.    

There are people on this island that live there year round.   They get a supply once a year.   They make their own vodka, grow / catch their own food... They are as self sufficient as you can get really.

Strongly disagree. EVERYTHING in Alaska is imported. The Coast Guard had to cut ice for a Russian ship to bring in gas to Nome this spring......etc....Unless you are 20 and like splitting wood all year by hand ('cause there won't be any gas) so you have enough to last all winter etc...it's not really a good idea. There are just a huge number of problems with trying to survive in Alaska.

To hard to get to with out a lot of planing/ advance notice, hard to survive winters there, hard to grow food easy,.....

There is a reason that native people lived in warm areas.

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In a true SHTF or TEOTWAWKI situation you can't count on anything to be imported no matter where you are. Alaska is a HUGE state, much larger than texas even, so the problems of Nome don't apply to many other places in the state. The Alaska Gulf never freezes. As far north as Valsez the ocean never freezes.

Imagine how much bigger the problem is when you are trying to survive in Texas. Water is a problem. Have 96 times the population density is a huge problem. Being so close to Mexico is a huge problem. Dryness and heat is a huge problem.



But the population was MUCH lower then. Now you have to factor in population density with regards to potential violence and ability of the land to support the food. No place else in America has a better formula for that than Alaska. The moose, incredible fishing on salmon runs (can provide most of your protein for a year in a few week span)......living near the ocean in the SE just provides incredible opportunities.

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I am very familiar with JWR and his analysis of Alaska. Hard to ignore how he contradicts himself with "expect and prepare for no resupply" with the comment about Alaska being isolated from resupply. And he makes his living selling products, books, and giving advice. He is not living as a survivalist, none of us are yet. So far a lot of this is theoretical, but a careful factual analysis reveals more pros for parts of Alaska than anywhere else

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For a hunting place etc...Alaska is a great idea. As a survival location.....forget it.

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For a hunting place, etc... Texas is a great idea. As a survival location.... forget it.

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James Rawles who probably knows a little bit more about it than you- or me for that matter- seeing as how he makes his living in "survivalism".....strongly disagrees.....Alaska doesn't even make the Top 20. He LITERALLY wrote THE BOOK on survivalist relocation

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This is a huge can of worms, my friend. JWR is the Bear Grylls of prepping literature. There are those in here who don't believe a thing JWR says. Just because someone makes their living at something does not mean they are credible or knowedgeable, or any sort of authority. Take a look at the bosses where you work. How many of them deserve to be where they are? Do you have access to all of the same stuff they used to get to where they are? My point is that we all have access to the same information that hack JWR does, and just because someone writes a book does not mean he is an expert. Mein Kampf comes to mind as one such example.

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OP, you thinking of something like this?

Surviving alone in Alaska

Long video but very enjoyable.

Mr. Rawles,
G.T. has some very good points regarding the feasibility of Alaska as a retreat locale.  Granted, the pros and cons of Alaska are almost as varied as such classic arguments as 9mm versus .45, and if I were there when TSHTF, I would probably beat feet for the American Redoubt as quickly as I could.  However, there are a couple areas of interest that his article did not touch on that may be relevant to the topic.

First is the feasibility of gardening.  It is true that for most of the state the summer is very short, as short as 2-to-3 months in some parts.  However, due to the high latitude of most of Alaska, those 2-to-3 months are a time when the sun never sets.  So, while the growing season may be very short, it's also 24 hours a day, so the plants will grow faster.  I did an internship with last summer with a missionary aviation group based in Soldotna, Alaska, and I was amazed by the number of people who had open air gardens and greenhouses in a region I had thought was impossible to garden.  I was also amazed by the number and variety of critters that many people kept on hand.  I'm not sure of the specifics of how they keep them alive through the winter, but many of the same people I saw gardening also had chickens and rabbits.  There were even a few ranches with everything from horses to alpacas.  I don't know how sustainable these ranches would be post-Schumer, but you could do a lot with only a few big animals.

As for hunting and subsistence, even in populated areas like Anchorage, game is pretty abundant.  It may or may not be able to sustain a population the size of Anchorage or Fairbanks, but in the Kenai/Soldotna area, they average almost a moose a day in traffic accidents.  I had a few close calls myself, and I was only there for two months.  Between commercial fishing of the Kenai River, and what residents put away for themselves, the number of salmon harvested was several million just on the Peninsula, and this is apparently sustainable, as the Alaskans fish the Kenai year after year.  Granted, that particular location is literally the best salmon fishing in the world, but there are other places in Alaska where one can still do well with rod, reel, or dip net.

Another thing I found out from a gent who ran an alternative energy/battery shop was how feasible it is to run a mostly solar power system in Alaska.  During the summer, there's sun aplenty, but I had thought that the long, dark winters would put solar plans to rest.  As it turns out, the colder Alaska gets, the more efficient solar generation becomes.  I was informed that, if you keep your batteries warm and your panels and wiring cold, the resistance in the wiring drops off so much that you can actually generate more power in the short cold days of November than you can in the longer, but much warmer days of September.  Granted, you would definitely want some other form of backup power to get you through the darkest days, but that particular vendor said that he had personally helped over a hundred households go completely off grid, mostly by solar, in the last several years.  This was all on the Kenai Peninsula on the southern coast of Alaska.  G.T. was right about microclimates varying across a state.  Alaska is huge. ( Most map projections don't give an accurate picture of it's true size.)  These principles of gardening and solar power very well may not be valid in other parts of the state, especially up in the interior, but on the Peninsula, they seem to hold true.  Just some food for thought. - John in Spokane

SurvivalBlog's Editor James Wesley Rawles (JWR), lays out his arguments against choosing Alaska as a Retreat Locale in this static web page.

While I fully agree with him that Alaska is probably not a viable retreat destination for most people, for a variety of reasons it is precisely the area that my family has selected. We have a particular advantage here in that I'm a second generation backwoodsman and prospector, and I and my three sons have been prospecting in Alaska for 16 years, so we understand the various regions of Alaska and their strengths and weaknesses from a survival perspective. In the "Recommended Retreat Areas" page of your blog you've listed your specific reasons for rejecting Alaska, with a few of which I'd like to take issue.

The last thing that I want to do is produce a "land rush" to southeastern Alaska, so readers should understand that this approach is viable only for a highly experienced and close-knit small group that's carefully considered all the implications.

"A year ago, I heard one 'expert' on the radio recommend Alaska as a retreat destination because it has the lowest population density of any State, and has low taxes. IMHO, he couldn’t be more wrong!"

Not only has it low population density and low taxes, but also some of the least restrictive gun laws, home schooling laws, and zoning requirements of any State, with some of the least exposure to natural disasters. Alaska is earthquake-prone, but hasn't had a major one since the 1960s. Also, at least in the region to which we're relocating, vulnerable to forest fires and mega-tsunamis caused by landslides into the ocean (although not to ordinary tsunamis–– we're protected from that by barrier islands). Furthermore, the region of Alaska that we've selected is remote from "Golden Horde"-type activities. This is an aspect of survivalism that, IMHO, has received far too little attention. If it shows anything at all, then the Hurricane Katrina experience indicates that all communities within about 300 to 400+ miles of a major metropolitan area that gets hit with a significant disaster will be literally inundated with city-types, many of whom will be hardened gang-bangers of a kind that smaller communities are ill-equipped to deal with. Crime in the satellite cities of Houston, DFW, Memphis, and Birmingham in the aftermath of Katrina all registered significant upticks that were attributed predominantly to displaced New Orleanians.

"The biggest problem is that from an economic standpoint, Alaska is essentially a big offshore island. Many essential items are shipped or flown in."

Absolutely correct, with resulting higher prices. But as you'll see a little farther along, we'll be self-sufficient in food and power generation. Our major shortfall will be in clothing, but that will apply to everyone everywhere once the manufacturing and transportation networks shut down.

"Ironically, although it is the most lightly populated state, Alaska has the second highest crime rate in the country!"

In the area to which we intend to relocate–– the southeastern Panhandle–– people don't lock their houses or even their cars, and I've seen people go shopping while leaving expensive rifles in the rear window rack of an unlocked vehicle.

"There is insufficient refinery capacity to meet Alaska’s 'domestic' needs, and insufficient transport to get refined fuels where they are needed."

Absolutely correct. We therefore considered alcohol fuels, methane, wind power, water power, steam, solar–– and then we heard about wood gasifiers. We downloaded the free FEMA plans for a system, bought another from The Mother Earth News, and picked up a couple of others until we had a total of four. We're presently in the process of learning how to build a system from the plans, but it looks like we'll be able to generate enough power from wood chips to operate a house. This will require a wood chipper, a gasifier, and a gasoline generator to burn the wood gas and provide the electricity. Once we've got that system up and running we'll build a smaller unit to power our boat.

"In a long term collapse, the residents of Alaska's densely populated coastal cities will likely starve and/or freeze to death."

Unfortunately true. That's why we've chosen an island southeast of Ketchikan. Even near Anchorage, where land is much cheaper due to the government's sale of public lands, they've got a 6-month winter with nearly a foot of average snow cover lasting for 4 months, and average minimum temps Dec. thru Feb. of about 10º F. In the Ketchikan area they've got a three-month winter with the month of highest snowfall being January, with 2 to 3 inches of accumulated snow cover, and average minimum temperatures from Dec. thru Feb. of about 30º. Average accumulated snow in Dec. and Feb. is only about an inch. We won't freeze.

"Meanwhile, those in inland towns, albeit better fed, will be geographically isolated so that commerce with the coast will be difficult if not impossible."

In southeastern Alaska there are virtually no roads, so seasonal buckling of the roadbeds and consequent road maintenance aren't issues. Transport is by bush plane, or by boat. You're right that the planes will be grounded by lack of fuel, which will also depress boat traffic; but our power boat by the onset of TEOTWAWKI will be powered by a wood gasifier, which we also intend to make money by designing and building for paying customers. By then we also hope to have a sailboat. The question is whether or not by then we'll want to visit any of the cities, where things may be getting pretty desperate.

A SurvivalBlog Reader in Alaska Adds: "Even if land were available, most of it is inaccessible if you can't afford a helicopter or float plane."

True, but that doesn't apply in the southeastern portion of the state, where access is by boat.

"The economy of Alaska is driven by oil income and government spending, both of which would cease if the U.S. economy collapsed. There is very little local manufacturing... even most natives have lost the ability to live off the land..."

All true. In our region one of the main challenges is that most of the land consists of exposed bedrock, so that we'll have to do most of our gardening in raised beds. Eventually, if we have time before TSHTF, we'll cover these beds into greenhouses. A compensating advantage of this approach will be higher yields. Between this, keeping chickens and turkeys, and hunting and fishing, we'll be self-sufficient in food. Although your reader says that game isn't as plentiful as most people think, I've never gone more than a week without seeing deer, moose, bear, and other game, and usually a lot more frequently than that. Fish are even more plentiful. Feeding the gasifier with wood chips will be labor-intensive, which is why we'll invest in a powered wood chipper as soon as possible. Meanwhile, we have plenty of kids to make wood chips and keep the thing fed.

"Home heating is a huge expense in Alaska; $6,000 or more per winter for some households."

In southeastern Alaska, because of the Japan Current, the climate averages as mild or milder than where I presently live in Wichita, Kansas. You get only 4 to 8 weeks of what we in Kansas would call "summer", but you get much longer spring and fall seasons.  

The point is this: I know of an extended family of survivalists similar to ours that farms a secluded hollow in the mountains of W. Virginia, producing plenty of food to feed themselves with enough left over that they sell the surplus. They're 'way outside the States that you've recommended for preppers, but they're also far enough off the beaten track to be difficult to find, and they're better-prepared than 95% of the other preppers I've seen. In a TEOTWAWKI situation they'll do fine.

In almost any State, there are micro-climates and small-scale situations that make for suitable environments for survivalism. I'm sure that you'd be one of the first to agree, it's probably better to find and develop a situation in an area with which you're thoroughly familiar than to travel far afield looking for the mythical "ideal".

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When Alaska produces enough food and fiber internally to feed and clothe every one of it's own people let me know. Texas ranks #1 in the nation in cattle production and cotton along with hay and sheep/goats. We're number two in peanuts and third in sunflowers. Over one third of the beef raised in the ENTIRE WORLD are raised within 50 miles of where I'm typing this.

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Have you watched Alone in the Wilderness?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYJKd0rkKss

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Let me know when it doesn't. And regardless, nothing like assuming that the way things are grid up is the same way things will be "grid down". And by the way, how will you irrigate Texas in a grid down situation? And how do you expect to deal with the crowds from San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, Austion, Ft Worth etc? Not to mention, MEXICO!

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I never said he was the end all in the matter. However, I'm going to listen to what he has to say over a random poster on the internet.

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There aren't places like that in Idaho?