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It seems to me that in the event of TEOTWAWKI on a national or international scale, one of the first things to fail will be government. And it will fail the most in places that are remote or where the population base is not too supportive of its existence in the first place. From what I understand of Alaska, that describes the state quite well.
So if the federal government failed in Alaska, then Alaska would essentially become independent (at least de facto) pretty much overnight. No more federal regulations of any kind to keep the economy down. Free markets would reign almighty. Including shipping from the lower 48 (even if it might come at increased prices). And including free hunting and fishing. In a land as full of wildlife as Alaska is, that opens up a lot more possibilities than are available to those of us in the lower 48 — even those of us in the West.
I think you're right, Manmountain, in saying that lot of the folks there now wouldn't be able to hack it. And they'd probably leave as quickly as they could. But the people who are really up to the challenge of living free could revert to a more frontier lifestyle almost immediately. Since the best way to prepare for TEOTWAWKI is to turn yourself into the ultimate tool for survival, the best venue in the event of TEOTWAWKI is a place where the ultimate tool can be used of the best of its ability. Alaska (or Canada) seems like an ideal place for that. It's the really comfortable places like New Orleans that spawn post-Katrina reactions as hordes of softer city-dwellers fight over reduced resources. In Alaska, national TEOTWAWKI would actually open up resources rather than reduce them.
However, I think the real hazard for TEOTWAWKI in Alaska is for localized meteorolgical/geological disturbance. Like Katrina in New Orleans. An event like that would probably be worse for the locals than something like total economic collapse of the United States over loose fiscal and monetary policy. But I don't think rioting would be as common in Alaska as in Louisiana. People who live in tougher physical environments are almost always more likely to work together when times get hard. It's the people who live where the natural habitat is almost edenic who haven't cultivated the sense of mutual responsibility among neighbors that leads to cooperation during times of crisis. People in harsher environments almost inherently know that sometimes you have to work together. Sure, the frontier mindset might cause higher crime when things are pretty peaceful and boring (and not just in Alaska), but when the chips are down, it's the folks on the frontier who you want to have at your back.
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