I acknowledge my obvious bias for Alaska. However, AK has become a good place to retire, and this is where my wife and I will retire. The PFD sent to every resident this year was $1,640. As I said before, no state sales or income tax (although some towns have a sales tax). Salmon can be yanked out of the streams in such quantity that it amounts to great free food. I have seen some Asian minority people here taking a wheelbarrow to the stream. For big game we have deer, moose, elk, caribou, goat sheep, musk ox and bear. Licenses are free for 60-year olds (I think, not there yet myself). Some people don't like the winter darkness but my belief is that if a person gets outdoors for at least an hour or two each day the darkness isn't a problem. No one complains about the daylight in summer of course. Some prices are high but anyone has to analyze their lifestyle, for instance, gasoline is $3.31 here today but I don't use as much gas as Lower 48 people might. Some years I put more gas through my 40 HP outboard than I do through my truck.
We don't have turkeys, pheasants or quail. The coastal city where I live can only be reached by plane or boat, and that is not uncommon. That suits me fine but might bother some people. Since government owns all the land, there's lots and lots of bureaucrats. However, most of them came here for the hunting and fishing so they may be a different sort of bureaucrat than you find elsewhere. The great majority of our politicians hunt, shoot and fish by the way. Our governor's license plate says, "HUNT," and her husband has won the Iron Dog snowmobile race 7 times. So if 85% of our land wasn't managed by Washington, DC (not entirely unlike King George managing the Colonies in 1776), Alaskans would probably be able to work things out pretty well for ourselves. Anyone could do worse than move to Alaska. Good evening.
