Immigration to Alaska: complete noob
#18
Banned
Joined: Aug 2016
Location: Cascade Mountains, WA
Posts: 1,089
Re: Immigration to Alaska: complete noob
I have in-laws that work in Alaska. Miners. 20 days there and 10 days at home here in Washington. Rinse and repeat. The money is good for miners there. So good that their wives don’t need to work (one of them does work part-time but purely for something to do and because her friend works at the same place too). But they travel back and forth because they couldn’t imagine raising their families there. One brother-in-law did move his wife and children there to see how it would go. I think they lasted a year. They used to work in mines in Nevada but they make double in Alaska.
#19
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: Nov 2012
Location: bute
Posts: 9,740
Re: Immigration to Alaska: complete noob
Historically most migrants went to the colonies with no prior information. We have gone soft in modern times. Many will only go if they have seen it on TV first ! As for the OP, looking at Pulaski's spin on Migration to the USA - no chance !
Last edited by scot47; Sep 29th 2018 at 4:33 pm.
#20
Account Closed
Joined: Jun 2011
Location: UK
Posts: 4,891
Re: Immigration to Alaska: complete noob
So you do realize, with the ever increasing ease of international travel, that needing a visa to enter another country isn't always something that the uninitiated might consider from the get go?
#22
Re: Immigration to Alaska: complete noob
At least one should visit in the dead of summer and in the dead of winter for a minimum of 2 weeks each to get a "feel" for the place. I know just from being in Fairbanks what it was like to go from Denali National Park with a lovely 60 degree weather to Fairbanks where the temps a week later were over 95 and darkness was all of 2 hours is like. Juneau is considered the rain forest and yes, it was just that, rainy and dismal.
Alaska is home to millions of people and not all of them work mines or panning for gold or doing and living how the Gold Rush or Bering Sea Gold shows tell us. There are beautiful metropolitan cities such as Fairbanks and Anchorage. Not all Alaskans live in mobile homes or river shacks or log cabins. It might not be what I or you might like but for millions it is their cuppa tea. Now they have to decide how they are going to do this.
Alaska is home to millions of people and not all of them work mines or panning for gold or doing and living how the Gold Rush or Bering Sea Gold shows tell us. There are beautiful metropolitan cities such as Fairbanks and Anchorage. Not all Alaskans live in mobile homes or river shacks or log cabins. It might not be what I or you might like but for millions it is their cuppa tea. Now they have to decide how they are going to do this.
#23
#24
Re: Immigration to Alaska: complete noob
Really? I and many others I know emigrated without visiting first. Take my grandparents (both sets) for example. When my dad's family came from Ireland to Canada they didn't visit first. It seems with 4 generations of their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and now great-great-grandchildren maybe they were crazy. Same with my mother's parents when they emigrated from England. My grandfather had been in the Royal Navy and had sailed many places, but Canada wasn't one of them. They seemed to make a go of it, living there quite happily from the late 1910/early 1920s until their deaths in the 1970s. Absolute insanity I tell ya!
#25
Re: Immigration to Alaska: complete noob
In your words, really?
You're going to compare fleeing the Irish potato famine with someone deciding to live in Alaska without visiting first?
Give me a break!
There are many places to where one could emigrate without visiting, but Alaska isn't one of them. I've actually visited the state and it's beautiful, but I wouldn't want to contemplate coping with a winter up there.
You're going to compare fleeing the Irish potato famine with someone deciding to live in Alaska without visiting first?
Give me a break!
There are many places to where one could emigrate without visiting, but Alaska isn't one of them. I've actually visited the state and it's beautiful, but I wouldn't want to contemplate coping with a winter up there.
#26
Re: Immigration to Alaska: complete noob
IMHO, and yes, this is just a friendly discussion, why does it matter the reason for the migration. People have been leaving their places of birth for centuries to take up residency elsewhere, sight unseen. My mother never came to America before she emigrated. Although she had a USC husband, coming to America was a foreign, strange and not exactly a welcoming place for her to take up residency, particularly without knowing the language. Both my paternal grandparents came from Poland in the 1880's to start life away from war and persecution. My husband's grandparents were the same as Dorothy's and left the shores of England and Ireland to seek new and better homes in Canada. His English grandfather was a barrister so it wasn't a matter of leaving a country where he was starving or didn't already have a good life. His Irish mother went to Newfoundland and then to Montreal. For her, it was a matter of escaping poverty. For the generation of those grandparents and even my mother, travel for pleasure to distant shores were unrealistic. No planes for a quick vacation but rather a long and expensive boat trip to explore countries one might want to live in.
Thankfully, the world is made up of adventurers as well as those of us who are more shall we say grounded people. My hats off to anyone who does something like this. If it fails, they can always move on. It is unkind to paint everyone with the same brush that we used to paint ourselves.
Thankfully, the world is made up of adventurers as well as those of us who are more shall we say grounded people. My hats off to anyone who does something like this. If it fails, they can always move on. It is unkind to paint everyone with the same brush that we used to paint ourselves.
Last edited by Rete; Sep 30th 2018 at 2:15 pm.
#27
Re: Immigration to Alaska: complete noob
In your words, really?
You're going to compare fleeing the Irish potato famine with someone deciding to live in Alaska without visiting first?
Give me a break!
There are many places to where one could emigrate without visiting, but Alaska isn't one of them. I've actually visited the state and it's beautiful, but I wouldn't want to contemplate coping with a winter up there.
You're going to compare fleeing the Irish potato famine with someone deciding to live in Alaska without visiting first?
Give me a break!
There are many places to where one could emigrate without visiting, but Alaska isn't one of them. I've actually visited the state and it's beautiful, but I wouldn't want to contemplate coping with a winter up there.
#29
Re: Immigration to Alaska: complete noob
Yes, it does. It is to designate those who are in a position financially from Canada and the US who live in areas where winter is hard for the elderly. My in-laws were snowbirds for over a decade when they would leave Montreal for Florida in November and not return to Canada until late April. The prerequisite is to wear white socks with sandals to separate you from the natives.
#30
Re: Immigration to Alaska: complete noob
Yes, it does. It is to designate those who are in a position financially from Canada and the US who live in areas where winter is hard for the elderly. My in-laws were snowbirds for over a decade when they would leave Montreal for Florida in November and not return to Canada until late April. The prerequisite is to wear white socks with sandals to separate you from the natives.