Alaskan Immigrants (Fairbanks, Kenai, Petersburg: home, camps, agriculture)

[Sunset_Va]

Just curious about this.

Which state in the "Lesser 48" have the most people moved to Alaska from?

[warptman]

My guess would be Montana or Minnesota.

[DannyL]

you guys crack me up. honestly.
First off, I'm not an "immigrant". I'm an born american citizen who moved to another state because he wanted too.
Alaska is a state you know.....the 49th. Just a little different kind of state......

[Rance]

Most I have met over the years were from Minnesota (my family included), but there are many from Oklahoma also. I've never done a survey...doubt anyone has. I hanve no way of answering that question.

[aquariusmom]

lol, also not an immigrant...

We are Alaska bound, most recently care of South Carolina, by-way of numerous other states beforehand.

[Sunset_Va]

I really meant no malice in using the word "immigrant" to find out the information. I always thought the word meant some one who had moved from their native birth location.

All I was after was the largest amount of people from where , that have moved to Alaska from the lower 48 states.

I am glad you found humor in it. I know when I visited Alaska, and talked with many Alaskans, they always told me "Well, I'm originally from XXXXXX".

Perhaps some one can conjure up another word best fitting my subject.. My apologies until then.

[DannyL]

I'm glad you found no "malice" in my statement because I meant none. It just made me laugh.

[Metlakatla]

I think it depends on what part of the state as to where the most immigrants are from.

SE Alaska---would definitely be Washington State. Farther north--a lot of people from the southern states were attracted to that area because of oil field jobs. Lots of Midwesterners too.

Probably the ones least likely to move here are people from the East Coast. I haven't really seen many of them.

[rotorhead]

I think the word you're looking for is "transplant", as in a resident that's moved in from somewhere else. The perennial question is how many are gonna put down roots, and how many are going to wither and disappear.

The makeup of Alaskas population is highly variable depending on the region you're talking about. In the MatSu, the long-time residents are often decended from the Minnesota farmers who were moved there en-masse in the 30's as part of the "New Deal" attempt to jump-start agriculture in Alaska. In places like Petersburg there are a LOT of Norwegians, in fact the "Sons of Norway" hall can be a pretty busy place there. Some more remote parts of the Kenai are still mostly populated by Russian Old Believer church members. Fairbanks has more than its share of Texans and Okies, a remnant of the Pipeline days.

Above all, remember that Alaska has been home to its own indigenous native peoples for thousands of years, and they're still there. The interior has a half-dozen or more different ethnic/language groups represented, up along the far north coastline there are the Inupiat and Yupik, along the Aleutian chain the smaller cities and villiages are still predominantly Aleut, and in SE Alaska the Tlingit. There are actually over two dozen different native cultures, and hundreds of different tribes within those. There's a good introduction on Wikipedia, search under the term 'Alaska Natives'

As far as where people move after they leave Alaska, that seems to fall into one of about three camps.

One: Where they came from
Two: Seattle
Three: Anyplace warm where you don't have to shovel any more snow

[Sunset_Va]

Thank you for taking the time answer my enquiry. And supplying a word better than immigrant.

What you explained in your reply was very informative. I have noticed that some states have more transient people than other states.