Anyone been to Alaska before?

Alaska is a grand place. It is a vast land of beauty and awe. It’s people are unusually quite friendly and helpful to one another, especially when you get away from its two big cities of Anchorage and Fairbanks.

It is a land of long darkness, snow and cold in winter but the extra long days of sunlight in summer make up for it in summer.

In Anchorage and Fairbanks you have most of the amenities found is similar cities outside (outside is the definition usually applied to the “lower” 48 contiguous states).

Anchorage, Alaska’s biggest city with approximately half of the state’s 683,478 population, is, geographically, the largest city in the United States, covering almost 2000 square miles – roughly the size of Delaware. Within city limits you can fish for King Salmon, get assaulted by bears (grizzly and black bears), though that is rare, or even be confronted by moose.

Alaska is a great land of opportunity and freedom. It has many resources such as oil, coal and many minerals. It has a Permanent Fund that is funded by income from its resources with a percentage of the funds earnings being returned to all its residents each year in the form of a dividend. This year’s dividend (to each man, woman and child) was over $2,000 plus a onetime distribution of $1,200, each, as a surplus income distribution from the excess oil income taxes on the oil industry (windfall profits tax). That means that, for example, a family of four received almost $13.000.

I came to Alaska (Anchorage) 44 years ago. I think I got the “bug” to go to Alaska when I was a child and used to read the poems of Robert Service. My three favorites are:

The Spell of the Yukon

http://www.geocities.com/heartland/bluffs/8336/robertservice/spell.html

The Cremation of Sam McGee

http://www.wordinfo.info/words/index/info/view_unit/2640/?letter=C&spage=26

The Shooting of Dan McGrew:

http://www.robertwservice.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=94

A link to some of Robert Service’s eight hundred plus poems:

http://poetry.poetryx.com/poets/46/

        Simply a Rose to brighten your day,         And maybe lessen the cares in your way;         And also, too, to help you to know,         That in knowing you, many others grow!

Edit:

Fun Advice is dealing with a few bugs since their site upgrade. If the links don’t work, you can copy and paste them into your browser’s address box then delete

http:”//www.funadvice.com/redir?url=http:” (the part in quotes)

from the front part of the link, then click Enter.