The Term "Alaskan" (Palmer, Metlakatla: attorney, beach, pool)

[DreamChasers8]

Are you serious...people actually ask about passports and money in Alaska...jeez talk about stupid!!!

[Metlakatla]

Yes, I know Skagway's history. As far as it being a neat place to be, Moe's is a jewelry store this year. It was never my home, though. Geographically it's beautiful; the town itself is like a tacky movie set.

The people that work for the lines don't come from Alaska in most cases, can't answer questions that weren't on a card and in about half, don't speak English either.

They don't bother me. If they're students, more power to them. I also like the retirees who come up to work.

I've heard a few tourists spout something or other along the lines of how most people in the stores, restaurants, et al don't seem to be from Alaska, and some of them seem to take offense at that. I was in a little restaurant in Skagway awhile ago and some real piece of work was giving the little Eastern European server what amounted to actual abuse, practically yelling at the kid because she couldn't speak English. Well, she could, actually, maybe with a heavy accent, but she made herself understood well enough. When the old bitty asked the kid for change for a quarter so she could leave her a tip, this guy I was talking with at another table who was down from Fairbanks let the old sow know that she needed to be moving along. There was no management in the place and by this time the girl was really upset and kind of hiding in the little entryway to the kitchen that was next to our tables.

In my experience, it isn't as bad in the interior. Yeah, they've got their hotels etc., but they don't have the offshore jewelry store infestation yet. Maybe they've gotten to Glitter Gulch by now; I haven't been through there in a couple of years.

Thankfully, my part of SE doesn't get the ships. We just get a lot of old men in RVs who come up to fish all summer and have these fabulous cocktail parties on the beach.

If we ever do get the ships, Lord help some of the tourists who think they can walk in like they own the place (they aren't really the norm, just the ones you notice the most). I've literally seen people with a lousy attitude towards the "help" be sent right out the door of a certain SE business....

[Metlakatla]

What's with this obsession you have, thinking that Met is bitter?

Hell, he can think I'm bitter all he wants; it has little bearing on reality. After all, I've never really lived in any of the cruise ship ports for any real length of time, except for Ketchikan, and at that time it was just a couple of ships a week. And my family's business was never adversely or otherwise affected by the ships.

When these jewelry stores started moving in, my aunt was approached by one from the Caribbean who wanted to buy her downtown property. I guess she could have done like the former mayor of Skagway and sold it out; they offered quite a lot. But she sold it instead for a lower price to locals. Maybe she saw it coming.

Kari, I just got back from a church rummage sale and I've got a bunch of swedish ivy in the back of my truck that I have no clue where I'm going to put; my windowsills are already crammed with plants. I'll think about it later--I've got five days off work and need to get out and check my berry patches.

[HighlandLady]

I love swedish ivy...lovely leaves. They love southern light. I am trying to establish my plants now that I have windows to do so...if you feel the need

Enjoy the time off from work, Met.

[Metlakatla]

Are you serious...people actually ask about passports and money in Alaska...jeez talk about stupid!!!

Yes, that happens often. And it usually isn't the foreigner travelers who ask about that...

[karibear]

Originally Posted by Metlakatla

Hell, he can think I'm bitter all he wants; it has little bearing on reality. After all, I've never really lived in any of the cruise ship ports for any real length of time, except for Ketchikan, and at that time it was just a couple of ships a week. And my family's business was never adversely or otherwise affected by the ships.

When these jewelry stores started moving in, my aunt was approached by one from the Caribbean who wanted to buy her downtown property. I guess she could have done like the former mayor of Skagway and sold it out; they offered quite a lot. But she sold it instead for a lower price to locals. Maybe she saw it coming.

Kari, I just got back from a church rummage sale and I've got a bunch of swedish ivy in the back of my truck that I have no clue where I'm going to put; my windowsills are already crammed with plants. I'll think about it later--I've got five days off work and need to get out and check my berry patches.

If you can't think of anywhere else to put it, flip some of the swedish ivy my way. I used to have a lot of house plants, but nothing survived the move here except chives, and nothing kills them.

[karibear]

Originally Posted by DreamChasers8

Are you serious...people actually ask about passports and money in Alaska...jeez talk about stupid!!!

They sure do, and a lot of other equally unbelievable questions as well. Just to make the apssport thing worse, there was a time when one of the drug store/gift shops sold big funky-looking 'Alaaka passports.' People would ask if they really needed one, since they already had a US passport - like, where did they get their real one, another drug store?

[starlite9]

Originally Posted by karibear

What's with this obsession you have, thinking that Met is bitter?

Well if Met isn't bitter, the statement's appear to come across as such and I will read them twice before responding to see if I can get a second view of them from the positive viewpoint. I appoligize if I am reading them as "Sour", but they appear to be that way to me when people make positive statements and they get a sharp reply.

I haven't seen anything in any of her posts indicating that she's bitter, just saddened by recent changes. I am myself - when it comes to the point where my son tells me not to come back home even to visit because I wouldn't like it anymore, it's got to have changed a lot, and not for the better.

The cruise ships came to Kodiak for awhile too, but fortunately it's far enough off the beaten path - or should I say waterway - that we weren't nearly so inundated. But the ones who came were mostly clueless and rude. Do we take US money? Do I need a p;ssport to go away from the docks? Are you an Alaska Native [to a Filipino girl]? And on and on ad nauseum.

Yes some of the "Ugly American" stories can be told in Alaska as well in other countries too.

But the best I liked was when a friend used to have the 1260 lodge as you entered Alaska on the AlCan, the "Stupid American" Tourist would ask what the "rate of exchange" was on American Money to Alaskan's money...

Jim would say two to one, they gave him a twenty "American" bill and he gave them back an American ten dollar bill. They would have a really stupid look on their face when they didn't know that Alaska was "American" and the 49th State, he did give them the other ten bucks after they stared at the ten for a bit, but I think he should have kept it on some of them.

I have been going in and out of Kodiak since the early 70's when it was still a Navy Base there, and yes it has changed a lot, friends have left, others have moved there. Do I like all the changes, no, but I still love to go there regardless. No place stays the same, in Alaska at least.

I don't care for Anchorage even though I grew up there and in Eagle River, it has changed and many of the folks are there for the money, not for the "Alaska" lifestyle. Crime is getting up to the Gang level, drugs, and random shootings are getting to be like all major cities and you can have that!

"Real Alaska" itself use to be only about fifteen min's by air, now it is about forty five minutes.

[Metlakatla]

Well if Met isn't bitter, the statement's appear to come across as such and I will read them twice before responding to see if I can get a second view of them from the positive viewpoint. I appoligize if I am reading them as "Sour", but they appear to be that way to me when people make positive statements and they get a sharp reply.

Not really; I just don't think people need to be telling others who they are and it was a little offensive that you went on so much about me not being a "real Alaskan".. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to spend so much of my time in any place that made me miserable. Hell, last spring I was feeling adventurous and went to Montana to be a chef and the place literally made me sick. I got the hell out of there after three weeks and I ain't ever going east of the Rockies again.

And I've just seen too many people in recent years with what Kari calls the Jack London syndrome. Maybe it's more prevalent in SE. I know a guy in Skagway who fakes Alaska residency so that he can have one of those "Locally owned" or whatever signs on the front of his store. That sort of thing, yes, is disheartening.

I'll give you an example of what I believe a real Alaskan to be. Maybe eight or so years ago, some self impressed lower 48 fisherman took his catch to a local processing plant to be processed. When he returned to pick it up, he handed the teenage fish cutter two bucks and told the young man to buy himself a Cadillac--in quite a snide tone of voice.

Too bad the owner of the business overheard that, because the guy will never be allowed on her property again, and he became quite aware of that. And I believe that even if the fish cutter had not been the owner's grandson, the response would have been the same. That's what a "real Alaskan" is.

It was kind of funny when the next season---a very nice, very obviously wealthy older gentleman from Virginia came up to the office and extended his hand to the woman, and told her that he'd come all the way from the southern United States just to have his picture taken with who he'd heard was the meanest woman in Alaska. The two of them have been great friends ever since. It seems the man that she threw off the property lived in his community and mentioned his experience; the guy was well known there for being full of himself.

That's what Alaska does, if you allow the best of it to get inside of you; it makes you aware that you are really nothing but a simple human being and that all your pretensions and delusions are really less than meaningless. My favorite time of year in the interior is several hours before the first major snow flies, when you see it coming at you from the mountains and you know the electricity is going to go out and your truck is probably going to be in the ditch the next day at some point, and that one of your neighbors will come along and pull you out.

As far as the young fish cutter, I'm glad that he never had to work in a business that pandered absolutely to the lower 48 like so many of our children have to do these days if they want to stay in the state. The night I went into labor with him, I walked through the woods at five below to use the neighbor's telephone to tell the hospital in Palmer that I was on my way. I stood there for just a few minutes out in the woods; I could hear wolves a long ways away, the aurora was out and glinting off the ice on the trees.

And then, all of a sudden, just like that it's nineteen years later and he's getting off a plane in Napoli at eleven PM.

So try to forgive me, Starlite, for the long post...I felt that you were making erroneous assumptions but by the same token, I've been rather reticent about putting personally identifying information on a public board. But I'd rather do that than continue to try to deal with your misconceptions, and I'm aware that my real identity has been pretty clear to anyone familiar with southern SE for quite a long time now.

So yes, I consider myself an Alaskan. And I also consider myself an Oregonian. I have long roots in both places, and for me it's not an either/or thing.

[Barkingowl]

Originally Posted by karibear

They sure do, and a lot of other equally unbelievable questions as well. Just to make the apssport thing worse, there was a time when one of the drug store/gift shops sold big funky-looking 'Alaaka passports.' People would ask if they really needed one, since they already had a US passport - like, where did they get their real one, another drug store?

Kari some of the tourist shops in Anchorage still sell those passports.