How can Alaska reclaim its legacy of freedom? How to respond to its high rates of violence and dysfunction? How can we encourage younger and older people to stay? What is freedom?

Isn't it awkward that a place once known as a sanctuary for freedom has become wholly subsumed as a province of the United States? You find the same technocracy, austere design and regulations and corporate chains, the same police officers and patterns of thought, as everywhere. The same juggernaught that attaches itself to your jugular.
True, there is still something different about Alaska. People all over the world dream of Alaska, its open spaces and wilderness, its immensity and grandeur. Its beauty and danger and mystery. But don’t be fooled by it’s pretty face. It is a cocktail of bliss and bitterness. There is a contradiction between immensity and frivolity.
Maybe there is a bit less peer pressure here, and fewer taxes. In most other places there is nothing beyond the horizon, other than more of the same. In Alaska, we have wilderness. That’s where we get a hardcore reality check. The wilderness is brutally honest. You won’t find the nanny state in the the frigid glaciers and rivers. It is immensity that is not on the human scale. One mistep and you will break through the ice, your clothes will freeze and you will die.
It is said that if you wait long enough at the wailing wall in Jerusulem any Jew will appear. We can say the same about Alaska: if you wait long enough any free-spirited person will arrive, maybe even at Qupqugiaq Inn. Alaskans call the rest of the world ‘Outside.’ We came here for freedom, exhausted by civilization. But we settled too easy, becoming drifters and deadbeats, or shopkeepers and professionals. Alaska is like an innocent child who it turns out has a dark past. There is a long history behind us and some of it is not so bright. We are completely unaware of what preceded us.
But we’re just getting started. “They break the hearts of kith and kin, theirs the curse of the gypsy blood. If they just went straight they might go far; they are strong and brave and true.” Let’s find out what it means to be strong and brave and true. That is, Alaskan.

Above all, don’t let yourself be domesticated, by the tourism industry, corporate chains, or popular culture. You will find rivers of beauty and opportunity in Alaska. We all want to enjoy ourselves, and we may well succeed if that’s our goal. But at what cost? At the cost of the soul. Soul means we have to throw our entire life into question.
Alaska is more than personal satisfaction. Alaska means possibility, still in the making. Let’s find out what wilderness is, beauty, freedom. Not as mere ideas, but in the actual life we lead. Alaska is a choice. The greatest danger is not to aim high enough. Instead of beauty and pleasure, set forth into the great unexplored lands – the wilderness of the soul.