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On the Kenai Peninsula there are firewood cutting area's controled by the state.
You can pretty much fish anywhere there is water, and there is water everywhere!
There are many hunting area's as well. Much of the state is broke up into units. There can be different openings and closings of seasons depending on which unit you want to hunt in.
Some area's have large tree's, some have small. But really getting firewood is no problem.
Sitka is a very beautiful community. People are friendly. I still have family there..The catch is the highschool has a few problems according to my mother and the crime is rising. Much of it is teenagers who say they don't have anything to do. On the contrary..there is fishing,the arts,exploring different islands..boating,camping,photography,culture...eve rywhere. They do have some excellent programs for younger children. My neices and nephews went through them and it did them good. They are good respectable young adults now. The college is very nice with good curriculum choices. The scenery is what we called picture perfect. But each person has to make their own choices as to what they want. There are a couple islands for sale but they are pricey. Where ever you can't go wrong in Alaska
I work for the Alaska Marine Highway system ( www.ferryalaska.com ) so I have seen pretty much every small corner of Southeast Alaska, and some of the Gulf. If you are really serious about coming up to check out a few communities, the ferry system is your best bet to see all the most beautiful areas. I live in Haines so I obviously love it. But there are just as many beautiful small towns all over Southeast. Sitka is a very nice place to live, if you like the rain. I remember one winter I was there It snowed about 10 inches all winter and rained the rest of the time. But it is a very great community and just large enough to give you plenty to do even in the dead of winter. Wrangel, Haines and Petersburg are all great! Small close net communities. Great people, beautiful views, waterfront land and plenty of personal space. Juneau is your basic big city. Plan on heading out at least 45 minutes early if you have anywhere you have to be at a certain time. The crime rate is a lot higher than I can be comfortable with, but that is just one opinion. But I could say the same for Ketchikan and Anchorage the crime capitals of Alaska. Personally if I could choose any one of the places in Alaska I have visited to live in; it would be hard to choose between Haines and Kodiak. But I am pretty sure Haines would win out in the end. Not only is it knock down drag out beautiful any time of the year, it is a wonderful place to raise kids. I grew up here, and I am raising my children here. If you are looking for a small town atmosphere and plenty of local character, Haines is a wonderful choice. You can find all the best info about Haines at the community website ( www.hainesak.com )
If you would like more specific info, or have a specific question about haines or one of the other places I mentioned just post me a message. But deffinately stop by the ferry system web site. You can also find some info about the places the ferries stop there.
Is there a boat dock in Seward? Cost for dockage?
I am looking for a retirement place and would like to find a place where I could keep my 45 foot boat.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BudinAk
I live in Seward and can tell you the views here are knock-down dead gorgeous, mountains right up to your back door, and ocean on the front door. Seward is also the home of Kenai Fjords National Park...a system of marine life you won't believe...very popular tourist destination. Tour boats run all summer and into the fall. The Seward Highway all the way from Anchorage is a National Scenic Highway....beautiful. Fishing is good to great. On the negative side, it rains a lot here in the fall: Sept and Oct., and winters are long (but they are long EVERYWHERE in Ak) The whole Kenai Peninsula area is a photographers dream...
Anyway, bottem line: put Seward on your list of places to visit...check it out...you won't regret it!
Alaska is so big and beautiful you will have to find what you are really looking for. There is land lots of places to buy, if you want to live near cities where there are stores for shopping, etc. then you want to stay down by Anchorage. There are lots of stores in Fairbanks- Walmart, Home Depot, Fred Meyers but I have to say that I think the crime is bad. Lots of problems from the lower 48 making there way up here. Manley is a great place on the road system and a wonderful school and they love the kids there but there arent "stores" like you are used to. Fairbanks is cold, everything breaks, your car, your furnace, and lots of houses burn down every year. You only need to get an easy permit to cut firewood and as for hunting and fishing you have to be a resident or else it is spendy. You can look up Alaska Fish and Game on the state website to find out all of the regulations. Everywhere here has some great people and some bad, some beautiful scenery, some good weather and some bad. You just have to figure out what you want. The schools in Fairbanks are not that good unless you put your kids in private school. There is lots of overcrowding especially in the elementary and funding is always an issue. And if you like fresh fruits and vegetables you wont find them in fairbanks.
Yeah, that is one very cool thing about Alaska; it's amost all public land, aside from some chunks of Native-owned or state land. You can hunt/fish anywhere and everywhere; where I live you just drive the logging roads till you find a muskeg/alpine you want to hike to, and provided it's not already staked out by another hunter, you are free to roam. You would probably have a hard time finding as much land as you mentioned; but for wood/etc, you can get a permit from the Forest Service and cut wood almost anywhere. You can get another type of permit and collect valuable "music-wood" or cut firewood for sale to others. Some people here are lucky enough to have built in a "subdivision" and so they have a salmon stream right in their backyard, but you're not far from that a lot of places in SE AK, anyway. Good luck!
If you live anywhere on the Kenai peninsula, firewood is the least of your concerns. There is so much dead and dying spruce from the beetle kill that some areas look like theres been a forest fire. I'd bet you could probably get people to pay YOU to cut and haul away dead trees without hardly trying. Anywhere up and down the coast from Soldotna through Anchor Point (and probably lots of other places as well) there are still large tracts available for a very low cost compared to the lower 48, but you'll find that price depends on how easy road access is. Unless you have absolutely zero tolerance for neighbors, you really only need enough space to put your house and park your toys (ATVs, boats, snowmachines etc.). Keep in mind that if you find a real good deal, theres probably a reason. I bought a lot near Soldotna two years ago; pored over all the internet listings and then I drove all over the place trying to find stuff (lived in ANC at the time).
Two things really stood out, the first was: Real estate agents are MASTERS at framing photos to crop out the ugly stuff, especially on their websites. I saw some lots that were surrounded on all sides by the ugliest, crappiest, trashiest stuff you could imagine. Abandoned cars by the dozen rusting amongst the trash, people living in a woodstove heated school bus up on blocks, virtual refugee camps of blue tarps and garbage and dozens of barking dogs. NONE of that stuff showed up in the photos online, funny how that happens. In the unincorporated areas there is usually NO zoning, so you could get a hundred dog kennel or a sawmill or a fish processing plant right next door as likely as another house. Sure its the "genuine Alaska experience" all right, but it might not be what you expected as your next door neighbors....forever..... Most places that I looked the woods are still quite thick enough to hide the adjoining properties even if they're just half acre lots. Run a google search for the Alaska MLS and go to town, but also keep in mind that a lot of properties never reach the MLS so if you find an area that you're interested in try just traveling around looking for signs and asking people.
The second thing that really made an impression while real estate shopping was: Listings that you see on the internet or in a pamphlet can be really, really hard to even find in real life, let alone reach by car. What looks like a perfectly normal road on a map or satellite view can be a nearly impassible mud track in real life, or worse. Things grow fast up there, and what WAS a dirt road back ten years ago when the area was initially subdivided may be just an area of slightly thinner trees today. Some "roads" are so skinny that you'd be lucky to make it there in an ATV. I was driving a 4wd truck with studded snow tires and frankly it was a miracle that I didn't need to be towed out of some of the spots I ended up in. A few spots I actually snow-shoed to on foot since there was no actual road (and this was in May). In the course of my job I had flown over many of the areas I was searching many times, and even though I had every map available for the area I never did find some. You mostly just get a general direction and mileage from where the paved road ends when you're looking for vacant land. Street signs are a joke, some actually exist (hey, the locals have to shoot at something) but almost all of the dirt roads are unmarked.
Keep in mind that I had already narrowed down the area I was searching for by quite a bit, and access in the Kenai is considered GOOD by Alaska standards. There are lots of listing where you have to get there by bush plane, by boat, by snowmachine, by ATV, etc. Alaska may be over twice as big as TX, but the road system up there has about the same mileage as Rhode Island.
If you are really, really interested in a specific property or area you might want to get youself a buyers agent who is familiar with the area, but its a cost that many land brokers are going to actively dislike at best and some sellers will have a problem with (typical commission on vacant land is ten percent, not the usual six or seven). A busy agent is not going to be all that thrilled about toting you all over hell and gone for days at a time either, unless you make it worthwhile. They get lots of "tire kickers" that suck up valuable time without actually buying anything, so you'd better make it clear that you are a real, live buyer and not just a "looky-lou" if you want to be taken seriously.
Have you considered renting a place and actually living there for six months or a year first, to see if the community is a good fit before you invest that kind of cash? Sure would be a bummer to build your dream house and then find out you can't stand to live there after a winter or two.
Just a thought.
I have lived in Alaska for 4 years now coming from Kingman, Arizona. 3 of the 4 years I have lived in Sitka. I couldn't wait to get the hell out of Sitka. I was sick of the gloomy overcast rainy days and nights. It rains 6.5 days a week. I like to get out and walk and enjoy the outdoors fishing and hunting without the rain. It is very isolated in terms of shopping, dining and travel. Most Sitka residents spend big bucks to get away EVERY CHANCE THEY POSSIBLY CAN! Las Vegas, Tucson , Phoenix, any place where the sun shines. Alaskan Airlines is living well. Most local retailers know you don’t have choices shopping. They stick it to ya real good $$$. The cost of land is way out of this world. A tiny lot about 100 x 80 is easily $80,000 or more. You will become sick of hearing the older Native people complaining about how the whites are destroying there lives. Depending on the places and people you are around these complaints will vary. My wife and I were closely tied to Sheldon Jackson College. There is a strong separation and animosity from the Natives against any ethnic groups because they see all as white. There are very few jobs available. A large percentage of jobs are loaded with the preemptive term “Native Preference”, this means they will hold out as long as possible for one of their kind to fill the position regardless of your qualifications. Oh, did I mention the largest employer in Sitka is Native owned. The schools are weak in funding, structure and discipline. The city road maintenance is ridiculously lazy and slow in clearing snow from the roads. Most social and school activities are held indoors because of the consistent rain. Grocery prices and choices are very high and limited. Mt. Edgecumbe High School has about 140 teens attending from other Alaskan bush communities that don’t have proper High Schools. These teens are unsupervised and many hangout around town smoking cigarettes, throwing there cigarette butts, trash and gum on the sidewalks and who knows why they spit profusely on the side walks too! My wife and I observe this frequently as we try to walk daily. It’s not just the boys, it’s the girls too! Many of these teens are very ill mannered with nasty attitudes. Maybe because they know there parents are a few hundred miles away. If you think you will have a peaceful walk around beautiful Sitka, your wrong. Foul language Rap music beats out of open car windows at a frequency about every five to ten minutes as they blow by you with their little wana-be hot rod exhaust pipes. There is Punk Rock colored hair, tattoos and thousands of body piercing. I saw a Mohawk haircut yesterday at Radio Shack. Sitka has a terrible problem with teen sex and pregnancy. Bicycle theft is extremely high. I can go on and on. It was an easy decision. I would not live in Sitka. I took a two week trip around Alaska. I will skip the long details about other location and get to my point. The Kenai and Soldotna area is a rural, small family paradise. This area is in the early stages of modern development. There is easy access to wildlife and a much wider variety of fishing. There is much land available for very reasonable prices. I found a very nice 2.3 acre parcel with White Birch and small Pines only a few blocks away from the Kenai River and less than a mile from Browns Lake. There are many, many other streams, rivers, lakes and the Ocean is near by. We paid only $8000 for this fantastic piece of the Kenai Peninsula. The Kenai and Soldotna areas have great schools. I believe the most recent census show this areas population to be 95% Caucasian. I know this also because I worked with the local photography studio that contracts school pictures for most of the Kenai Peninsula and even some of the Anchorage area schools. The frequency of rain is about 2 times a week. The summers are beautiful. Summer temps about 65 to 75 give or take a few. There are mosquitoes! The concentration of mosquitoes depends where you are. If you are in the woods they are many. If you are on the coast they are few. What ever the scenario good bug repellent does work. If you are wimpy when it comes to cold (-20) and snow (2’-3’), don’t live anywhere in Alaska, especially above the panhandle. Living in the Kenai and Soldotna area has a laid back feeling that reminds me of the 80’s in a small country town. Rodeo and Livestock events are popular in Soldotna. When you get a chance to go “Dip Netting” you will become addicted and will never leave. This area is just blooming. Most people living in these areas came here from down south looking for a better environment to live in. With this in mind all of the lessons learned from other places are at work making the Kenai Peninsula area a fantastic place to plant your roots.
In my previous career I traveled the United States continuously for about 15 years. I have been in all of the states repeatedly many times. I have experienced many of the local cultures in most of those towns and cities of all the 48 states. I haven’t any second thoughts of living anywhere else except maybe Kingman, Arizona for a short break from the Alaskan winters. If you would like to check out some pictures from Sitka and Kenai - Soldotna area you can visit my website www.urth1999.com (broken link) . I have many other pictures I am slowly working into the website. Check back later and see what’s new.
Last edited by Urth; 04-02-2007 at 05:21 AM..
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Seward - House with dock or Marina
