Comments on: Iditarod 2019 – Day 5

By: Bryan

Bryan — Fri, 08 Mar 2019 17:48:16 +0000

The government listing probably relates to hunting and fishing rules. Native Alaskans and homesteaders had different rules than we had living on base when I was in Alaska. I don’t think they paid a lot if anything for the licenses.

By: JuanitaM

JuanitaM — Fri, 08 Mar 2019 14:51:56 +0000

I figured that it probably meant something like that, but I got confused by the governmental designation of “subsistence zones”. Around here if you want to live off the grid, you just live off the grid. There are no federal regulatory considerations. Maybe the “zones” are in the national forest and park areas.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 06 Mar 2019 19:45:12 +0000

Jessie lives off the grid and grows, gathers, or hunts for what he needs. Think pioneer or the small farms in the Appalachians. The village of Nenana has a train station and was the terminus of the Alaskan Railroad at the time of the Nome diphtheria epidemic. It was the starting point for the dogsled relay that took the serum to Nome. It’s 40 or 50 miles west of Fairbanks at the junction of the Nenana and Tanana Rivers .

Most of his cash would probably come from trapping and the Alaska oil tax checks that every citizen of Alaska gets.

By: JuanitaM

JuanitaM — Wed, 06 Mar 2019 16:12:46 +0000

Noticed that Jessie Holmes was in the top group, but I didn’t know much about him. I looked him up on the Iditarod site and read his blurb underneath. It describes him as a “subsistence resident” of Nenana. No idea what that meant. Are you familiar with that term? I tried to look it up, but mostly what I got was .pdf’s from the government on locations that are designated as subsistence zones, but not a definition as to what that meant.

Seems like an interesting guy. Apparently he is in a series documentary about Alaskans living in the remote areas and how they survive. It’s a National Geographic series called Life Below Zero. I may try to see if Roku or Amazon Prime has a National Geographic app that will include the series. I haven’t paid for cable/satellite in several years, so if I don’t get it for free, I’ll have to pass. I have more programming on Netflix, YouTube and Amazon Prime than I could watch in my lifetime anyway.