The Alaska Problem
So a few days ago, I noted that Alaska was a part of the country that doesn’t evoke strong antipathy from other regions. Whereas urban northerners, and particularly urban northern liberals, have an instinctive unease about the Deep South, Alaska is an unknown quantity.
Well, that could change.
What I didn’t fully reckon with is how strange Wasilla, and Alaska, really is. Yes, Wasilla is a small town of strip malls that serves a valley of 70,000. Some residents commute to Anchorage. But, as a friend explained to me last night, it is also a haven of people who’ve deliberately chosen to reject mainstream American life. This is no surprise. If you want to shield your children from the evils of cable television and consumerism, taking them to the exurbs is a common but not terribly effective strategy — taking them to the edge of the Alaskan bush, on the other hand, demonstrates that you really, really mean business. Consider the urban Californians who left for Denver and Phoenix and Portland and maybe Bozeman. I mean, they prefer the lower cost of living and the higher quality of life. Maybe they like hiking. You get the picture. Then there are those who go to rural Idaho. Something different is going on, clearly. Cost of living is a big part of it, but so is what you might call a retreat to homogeneity. Okay. Then you go to Alaska — and say you go with a devoutly religious community that then forms a bush church, where you leave according to your strenuous creed.
Wikipedia tells me that only 39 percent of Alaska belong to religious congregations — the state is said to be, befitting part of the greater Pacific Northwest, pretty secular. But the evangelical tradition in the state is very robust, and it seems to be more diverse and experimental and unconventional than what you see in the lower 48. Secular and religious utopians alike flock to Alaska, and both define themselves against the mores of the American mainstream.
This is going to become a subject of great interest soon. Someone needs to write about it. I’d like to, but I obviously have a lot to learn. If you know anything — or if I’m getting this all wrong — let me know.
religious profile alaska
http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=343r
27% are “unaffiliated” and 26% are evangelical protestants. both of these numbers are far higher than in much of the northeast.
— razib · Sep 3, 07:37 PM · #
here’s an important snip from the report:
“GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin is a self-described “Bible-believing Christian,” but statistics from the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey show that her home state of Alaska is not particularly religious: 31% of Alaskans say that religion is not important in their lives (15 percentage points higher than the national average), while 47% seldom or never attend religious services (20 percentage points higher than the national average).”
— razib · Sep 3, 07:38 PM · #
I spent two years in the Canadian “brush” (as opposed to “bush,” accessible only by air).
The delineation and humility of the individual become unavoidable in more isolated conditions of “the great white north.” So do the immensity, grandeur, beauty, and harshness of the natural world. I’m not sure how helpful polls and statistics are with this type of question, in that situation. One almost needs more vocabulary.
— Julana · Sep 3, 08:19 PM · #
Recent religious affiliation info for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough: http://www.thearda.com/mapsReports/reports/counties/02170_2000.asp (Association of Religion Data Archives)
Re Idaho: I have lived in Idaho the past 20 years (I could go on ad infinitum about the negatives) and my impression is that people move to Idaho for two main reasons: job relocation (primarily in the Boise area) or a desire to have a nice retirement home in an area with both a lower cost of living and beautiful surroundings (Salmon, the area just west of Jackson (WY), Idaho Falls, etc.) Also, I’ve long had the impression that a considerable number of LDS move to Idaho so they can bring their families up in more comfortable surroundings (an impression which does not apply to northern Idaho). By the way, I would describe the reason people don’t move Bozeman not as a desire for “higher quality of life,” but simply for the beauty, outdoors (skiing in winter; fishing, hiking, etc. in summer) and small town environment. Bozeman is a ridiculously expensive place to live, nearly the same as Jackson, WY, but without as much big money… so far. I think it’s like Vail or Jackson 30-40 years ago, not much there.
— CHART · Sep 3, 08:28 PM · #
Because sitting in a church for 20 years that ****‘s Amerikkka is not weird or unusual at all…
At least it’s certainly not interesting to the media.
— David · Sep 3, 08:36 PM · #
I should add that I’d looked for census information about declared religious affiliations in the Mat-Su Valley, because I encountered references to the Mat-Su Valley as an region known for its growing evangelical movement. I was curious because I live in an area where nearly everyone feels compelled to identify their religious affiliation.
— CHART · Sep 3, 08:37 PM · #
“census information “
census doesn’t collect religious information.
— razib · Sep 3, 08:55 PM · #
Razib, you’re right, and to clarify, I looked for “census” information— information about a population, not “Census” information.
— CHART · Sep 3, 09:00 PM · #
I have been to Alaska a few times for work and play and my take on the place is it is very unique place in the country. First of all almost everyone I met was very outdoorsy as well as very entrepenurial. The other thing is that there is a surprising number of liberal environmentalists in Alaska which provides quite a bit of lively debate with the substantial energy sector (80% of revenues)
Sarah Palin seems to me an Alaskan product. That is a self reliant outdoorsy person. She is a local environmentalist but a large scale resource producer. She is very religious but also a realist when it comes to the rights of gays and others. Sounds like Alaska to me.
— Craig · Sep 3, 09:15 PM · #
I worked a summer in Alaska (salmon season) and my impression was that in AK you find more people who are best placed on the extreme ends of the political/cultural spectrum than you typically find elsewhere. It preserves a frontier sort of eccentricity largely lost in the “lower 48.” Think of the mix of people you often find in old western movies: laborers following work, hands-off conservatives with a libertarian bent, insular religious groups, industry barons and developers, and the occasional utopianist radical to throw around big ideas and mix things up. Across the board, all are united in a love for wildness, self-sufficiency, and the desire to be in large measure free of the bonds of a history and society they typically look upon as at least deeply troubled, if not outright insane.
— Ian Woolcott · Sep 3, 10:15 PM · #
I live in Alaska and have traveled to every state in the U.S. at least three times. Wasilla is not any differant then any small town, the people may be more into the ‘outdoors’ but they are not differant or strange.
I am glad to point out that we don’t have any churches here that are ‘STRANGE’ enough to call for the destruction of America, that was Obama’s church in the ‘LARGE CITY’.
— David · Sep 3, 10:24 PM · #
Wasilla is primarily a place for people who want affordable housing and yards for their families. In other words, it’s a fairly conventional suburb. Wasilla may have been a mecca for the weird sometime ago, but it has grown substantially over the years to the point where it’s almost indistinguishable from other suburbs in the lower 48. Palin was mayor during those years of explosive growth.
I live in Anchorage.
— Cody · Sep 3, 10:27 PM · #
I am glad to point out that we don’t have any churches here that are ‘STRANGE’ enough to call for the destruction of America, that was Obama’s church in the ‘LARGE CITY’.
No, you just have churches strange enough to support an organization that calls for all the Jews of the world to accept Jesus, and tries to fool them into doing so. Far classier.
— Freddie · Sep 4, 12:11 AM · #
No, you just have churches strange enough to support an organization that calls for all the Jews of the world to accept Jesus, and tries to fool them into doing so. Far classier.
Any religion that doesn’t think it’s the best one available is a piss-poor excuse of a religion. I mean, what’s the point of settling for 2nd best?
— The Reticulator · Sep 4, 01:56 AM · #
Hi there — my cred: I’m not Alaskan, but have family ties and have visited Anchorage and the SE panhandle, sometimes for several weeks. Worked, hiked, fished, got shipwrecked, stayed in a Native village or two; so, I’ve seen a bunch of it. My take is that Alaska has one of the strongest senses of place I’ve encountered. You constantly hear how it is “the Great Land,” and every other place (if it ever comes up) is both far away and much less interesting. There is a wide, deep libertarian streak to the people — BUT then, remember that their libertarian self-reliance is heavily subsidized. 40 percent of them live in Anchorage. And all of them receive annual checks from oil money; and collectively, the oil money supports their state government. Finally, there’s a surfeit of land. So, the sort of issues of sprawl, public debt and state budget difficulties facing most of us in the Lower 48 aren’t major concerns there. An interesting place, though, with interesting people — America could do worse than a dose of Alaskan attitude in government.
— dan · Sep 4, 04:14 AM · #
This article about an Alaskan megachurch — featuring the largest dome in North America, at four acres — is instructive.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/23/business/23megachurch.html?_r=1&sq=alaska%20dome%20religious&st=cse&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&scp=7&adxnnlx=1220533896-UXwct5WoWuEwG1dGqcG7EA
And it’s partially tax exempt.
On a different note of interest perhaps to fiction readers, the Pulitzer-prize winning novelist Michael Chabon recently wrote a fanciful account of Alaska as a zionist haven. http://www.amazon.com/Yiddish-Policemens-Union-Novel/dp/0007149824
No one’s asked Chabon yet what he thinks of the Palin/Jews for Jesus controversy.
— 606 Reader · Sep 4, 01:27 PM · #
Reihan,
Urban, northeastern liberals are generally profoundly disliked and distrusted in not only the South, but also in the area west of the Mississippi River. Especially by people who were born and raised in the area. New England (particularly the Boston-New York City-Washington D.C. corridor) are especially despised for their self-righteous arrogance and conceit. This makes it very difficult to sell Democratic leftwing urban programs and candidates to residents of the West. The West has always had a history of resistance to Federal (East Coast) control (The West was mostly populated after the Southern Rebellion by Southerners). As the West has become more urbanized recently (last 50 to 70 years, mostly by east coast immigration) it has become more “east coast like” (urban, leftwing, liberal) and thus stimulated a migration to more rural, libertarian, small government/no government communities by a lot of the original people of the area.
This is one of the great divides in American politics and always has been: The Urban/Rural conflict and distrust.
This is the conflict the Palin choice exploits. “East Coast People” are contemptious and dismissive of her and the Westerners are strongly attracted to her because “she is one of them” and not some arrogant, self-righteous, conceited East Coast liberal politician lecturing the rubes and hicks in “fly-over country” about how stupid and worthless they and their families are. This is why the selection of Palin will make the task of the Obama/Biden ticket more difficult. Obama/Biden are classic “east coast liberals” and they must compete in the West against two of the West’s own, McCain/Palin.
Despite all the talk of “one country” we are still very much a country of “regions” filled with “sectional factionalists”.
You see it as “the Alaska Problem”. People in the West see it as “The Alaska Solution”.
— Northwoods · Sep 4, 01:43 PM · #
Read John McPhee’s Coming into the Country. It’s old, but it is the best starting place I can think of for starting to understand the people of Alaska.
— Paul Turner · Sep 4, 01:55 PM · #
As part of the myth of America all country people are friendly, “come om up on the porch and set a spell” types. Not true at all — many of those who have chosen to move into the woods/off the grid do so because they don’t like people. I lived in Colorado for many years — on the backroads, deep in the mountains, you try walking up to the front porch to set a spell and you’ll be bleeding.
— Mike · Sep 4, 02:01 PM · #
The popularity of the Sarah Palins in American politics explains a lot about America.
I have never been to Alaska but Palin reminds me of my friends and neighbors in rural Nevada. Her attitudes about sex education, evolution, and library books are fairly typical in broad swaths of the American population.
Palin conducts politics like a high school home coming queen. That’s why many people can identify with her. Experts on global politics, on the other hand, have little in common with the average voter.
Unfortunately, we will neither be able to sustain ourselves as a world power nor be able to provide for our families with a political leadership that wages a war on science.
There is a reason why we have the lowest life expectation, the highest child mortality, and the most derelict infrastructure in the western world. Anti-science and anti-rational attitudes among the electorate explain a lot in that regard.
According to the Gates Foundation, one third of our children do not graduate from high school. Another third is not prepared for college or a twenty-first century job. That state of the electorate will, of course, have political consequences.
— Hellmut · Sep 4, 02:08 PM · #
More on Wasilla: Meth capital of AK
http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/030805/sta_20050308002.shtml
— Hookers and Blow · Sep 4, 02:26 PM · #
Northwoods,
Who are these sneering, arrogant, disdainful Northeastern liberals you speak of? I’ve lived in NY and NJ my whole life and most people I’ve known (not many) who fit that bill grow out of it after age 20 or so. (also btw we take offense at being included in “New England”.) I guess it is Democratic career politicians who give off that veneer of ‘we know best’ combined with the entertainment industry’s mockery of southern and western “hicks” that gives that impression. I’m 28 and consider myself mostly libertarian, but the dishonesty and blatant hypocritical statism of the Republican party during my adult lifetime has usually pushed me to hold my nose and vote Dem. In my time I’ve not seen any true political (or otherwise) conservatism in the GOP. But don’t worry, I know you Republicans all aren’t oil company owners or truck-driving inbred illiterate bigots.
— sv · Sep 4, 02:32 PM · #
Just like any other suburb? To my knowledge, your average suburb isn’t battling a meth problem. On the other hand, your average exurb, or beyond, in, say, New Mexico or Indiana, is… An average suburb Wasilla is not, if one measures such things according to vices (which, I’d argue, is probably not such a bad way to go about it). Your average suburb surely has it’s share of potheads, drunks, churchgoers, picket fences and single parents. Wasilla has meth heads. I think there’s a difference, though I could be wrong. Then again, it might simply be the case that the average suburb in fly over country (of which I’m arguably a part) differs from the average suburb on the coasts, and Wasilla is therefore pretty average.
I thought your readers were less ignorant. Obama is an “east coast liberal”? Support in Iowa and Minnesota, and, indeed, Alaska and North and South Dakota, and New Mexico and Colorado, to say nothing of MT, CA, OR, and WA, counts as east coast elitism? Chicago is hardly a town full of elitists. It’s the hub of middle America. People from western Ohio to eastern Nebraska consider it their “big city.”
— Peter Ternes · Sep 4, 02:45 PM · #
New England (particularly the Boston-New York City-Washington D.C. corridor) are especially despised for their self-righteous arrogance and conceit.
Ah, irony, where would I be without you?
— Freddie · Sep 4, 02:58 PM · #
Alaska has a strong libertarian bent, and is surprisingly ethnically diverse. It has some unique issues but is also a paradise for many people.
Anchorage is a big enough city that you can have a city/suburban lifestyle without being an outdoor type.
Many professionals, physicians and such, who relocate to Alaska come from the northeast and California. They move there to enjoy the outdoors and find the libertarian culture liberating.
I have worked in Wasilla, Anchorage, and Fairbanks, they are all great communities with exceptional political and intellectual diversity.
My opinion of the Northeast is most of the people there are great, very down to earth and friendly. This distrust of the Northeast has more to do with the political, entertainment, and news establishment than the average person. The average working stiff from the northeast would probably be very comfortable sharing a beer with the average working stiff from Alaska.
— okolepuka · Sep 4, 03:02 PM · #
I will quote from a movie – “There are only two types of people in alaska, those that where born there and those that are running from something.”
— sopchoppy · Sep 4, 03:04 PM · #
Hellmut, previous poster, those are very good comments. An increasingly illiterate and ignorant populace means big trouble ahead.
— hb · Sep 4, 03:17 PM · #
This blog is a must-read if you want to learn more about the Alaskan political mindset, and how it informs about Palin in particular:
http://mudflats.wordpress.com
The posts about the Alaskan Independence Party and Palin’s church are particularly eye-opening.
— Corie · Sep 4, 03:28 PM · #
I think you’ll find most “meth capitals” in areas also prone to political extremism, religious fundamentalism and sharp class divisions. Meth is the crack-cocaine of the white underclass. That underclass status may not be as visible in Alaska as it is in Appalachia, because Alaskans’ incomes are subsidized by oil-royalty checks. (Or is that extra income offset by higher prices for consumer goods?)
— allbetsareoff · Sep 4, 03:54 PM · #
there’s clearly a difference between finding in alaska a comfortable refuge from modern society (viz. ‘into the wild’), and fully ensconsing oneself in frontier society and its comparatively alien mores. palin’s penchant for — not mere understanding of, but penchant for — the latter should give people pause.
— michael · Sep 4, 04:06 PM · #
Read “The None Zone,” a socio-cultural study of religion in the United States’ Pacific Northwest. It goes into a pretty interesting scholarly analysis of Alaska and its religious identity.
http://www.amazon.com/Religion-Public-Life-Pacific-Northwest/dp/0759106258
— Ronan · Sep 4, 04:34 PM · #
Read reporter Joe McGinniss’ wonderful “Going to Extremes” from 1980 for a look at some of the people who populate The Great Land. In and among the normal folk you’ve got a disproportionate number of people fleeing dying businesses, failed relationships, and parole officers in the Lower 48, lovable(and sometimes not) misfits self-segregating to a non-populated region, and Last Frontier dreamers. (It’s also no surprise that the Mat-Su borough, of which Wasilla is a part, is Alaska’s meth capital.)
— Thelma Ritter · Sep 4, 06:28 PM · #
Wasilla (or “Wa-Syphilis” as it is derisively known by other communities in Alaska) is the meth capital as well as the white trash capital of Alaska. Yes, Alaska is full of weirdos. Yes, our politics are a complete shitshow. It’s both exciting and embarrassing to be getting all this attention. Coming into the Country is a good, albeit 30-year-old, introduction to the state. I agree that Palin conducts herself as though she is running for homecoming queen. She may be quirky and feisty, but she’s not very smart and has shown zero interest in national politics or foreign policy. The Mudflats blog is interesting, but very Anchorage-centric.
— Sheila · Sep 4, 06:48 PM · #
How is Obama an “east coast liberal?” He mainly grew up in Hawaii and made his adult home in Chicago, where his family still lives. As a senator he flew home on weekends to be with them. Unless my “liberal” geography is incorrect, neither of those places is on the east coast.
Either way, I’m sick of people throwing out labels like swear words. Haven’t we had enough of the politics of division? Haven’t we learned anything from the nightmare of the past 8 years?
— katsat · Sep 4, 08:55 PM · #
A lot of interesting comments and book suggestions about Alaska. There aren’t many books of fiction that focus on my state but one that comes to mind is “To The White Sea” by James Dickey. The plot revolves around this tail-gunner whose bomber is shot down while on a raid over Tokyo. He is the only survivor and while hiding from the Japanese decides to head north to the island of Hokkaido. It is told in first person and is very internal; your initial opinion of protagonist changes as you read it. The book deals with very American themes and is (to my mind) a sort of metaphor for the dropping of the atom bomb. It is also a juxtapostion of the far East and far West. It’s great movie material (the Coen brothers almost filmed it) and one of the best treatments literature has given the state.
— Dave from Spenard · Sep 4, 09:20 PM · #