Things Alaskans like: Hunting Moose

Things Alaskans Like is my serial  attempt to itemize all the things Alaskans like. This will serve as a guide for non Alaskans to pretend to be an Alaskan, or make Alaskan friends. All Alaskans like things that Alaskans like.


One thing people tend to underestimate is how much Alaskans like hunting moose. Alaskans really, really like to hunt moose. If you meet an Alaskan, try talking about hunting moose. Even people who don't have moose want to hunt moose. Many people on the north slope look forward to having many moose, thanks to global warming, so they can hunt them too.

If you are new to Alaska, you cannot hunt moose for a year. Instead, try talking about having hunted moose in the states. Alaskans do not recognize how hunting works in the states, and will believe just about anything you say about it.

Hunting moose is generally recognized as a good excuse for missing work, school, jury duty, weddings, funerals, and birthdays. Some clever Alaskans combine hunting moose with weddings, or in some rare cases, funerals. Therefore, no one has to miss hunting moose.

Causing an Alaskan to miss hunting moose is considered cause for starting a fight. Causing an Alaskan to miss hunting moose also a reasonable excuse for quitting one's job, remaining unemployed, or getting a divorce. In general, Alaska judges award all assets to the party who was forced to miss hunting moose, in a divorce. This may not be enshrined in Alaskan law, however. But it is generally recognized as fair.

Do not dress up as a moose when other Alaskans are hunting moose.

Things Alaskans like: Lipton Tea

Alaskans really, really like lipton tea. Alaskans drink the stuff by the case load. As discerning connoisseurs of hot beverages, Alaskans expect nothing short of the very best. Coffee shops? Perhaps. Tea houses? No. Over steeped Lipton Tea in your livingroom? Now there's fine dining!

Most lower 48ers have Alaska pegged for a coffee place, and Alaskans certainly do drink the fair share of coffee. Many people can't drink it until the coffee has been through the grounds at least twice, to squeeze out every last morsel of coffee goodness. I'm told this is called "Camp-coffee" by people outside, but Alaskans know better: this is coffee as god intended. If it doesn't slowly erode stainless steel, then it's not done yet.

But what really surprises people outside is how much Alaskans love tea. Not any tea, mind, but Lipton Tea. Apparently, the unwashed heathens south of the border can't buy tea by the crate. How they survive without this most basic item, an Alaskan can't help but guess at.

If you go into someone's house, you will be offered tea. If you don't accept, Alaskan's will know one of two things: a) You're from the lower 48, or b) You're a giant jerk. If you do accept, the tea will be added to boiling water, and then forgotten for a minimum of 10 to 15 minutes. When it's remembered, more water will be added to bring the temperature back to scalding, and it will be offered to you. At this point, your objective is to drink the scalding tea as fast as you can.

If you want to blend in with Alaskans, learn to drink your tea in one gulp, and make sure to only offer your guests very hot tea. If you want to talk to the person for longer, offer them pilot bread too.

Things Alaskans like: Trucks

It is a little known fact that every vehicle in Alaska is a truck. There are no non-trucks owned by Alaskans, even in Anchorage. Trucks are nice because they allow Alaskans to haul large amounts of stuff, and have a bulit-in limit to the number of people they will seat. This way, if people ask for a ride to Manly Hot Springs, you can go `oh, gee, I'd love to, but I can only fit this number of people in my truck.` This works especially well with hitchhikers, if you keep a bag of salt with you that you can set on the passenger seat. Oops! No room!

Aside from denying people rides, trucks are also good at being one of two vehicle types that can drive like an angry mob is after it in the dead of winter (the other being SUVs). It's a scientific fact that anything with four wheel drive can be driven at speeds up to 90 miles an hour on snow and ice without any consequences. Most Alaskans choose not to use this feature except for when they have very far to drive on a highway such as the Haul Road. There is a rule that says the further you are from repair, the faster you're allowed to drive; they test you on this rule before they let you drive in Alaska.

If you want to make conversation with an Alaskan, try discussing trucks. It doesn't matter if you don't know anything about trucks. Say you don't like a new model of a truck, because it looks sissified. This is subjective enough that anyone could argue for or against it. You don't actually have to know what the truck looks like.

Almost every truck has a tow package, but very few trucks tow things. It is important to be able to tow something, even if you never do. What would happen if someone said, "Quick, tow this boat to the river!"? They would know you're not an Alaskan if you didn't have that tow package, wouldn't they! Most people buy trucks so they can haul things in the truck bed. I think everyone in the cities must haul things at night, because they don't haul things in the day, and I tend to sleep at night.

Alaskan trucks do not need oil changes.

In order to be street legal, trucks must have at least one crack in the windshield. Otherwise, you must drive your truck on back roads (What Alaskans call `highways`) until another truck throws a rock at you, and then you can drive in towns. In the winter, your license plate must be caked in snow by law. In the summer, your front license plate must be covered bug guts. You're allowed to own any make of truck (Tundras and F150s are popular), but if it's over 10 years old, you must have one part of your truck that doesn't match the rest of your truck. This is Alaskan law, too.

You're not allowed to trade in your truck. No Alaskan would, even if it was legal. Alaskans hold on to their trucks forever, keeping them in a special place near their homes with various other metal things that are important to them. Like old stoves, and fridges.

Trucks are so popular that people off the road system get them too. Someone in Emo got a truck barged in, and one day drove it down the river. Yes, it would have been cheaper to ride a snowmachine pulling a sled, and faster, and more reliable, and easier to fix, and more useful. And, technically, there are no roads. But the villages like to feel Alaskan too, and that means buying a truck to let it sit around, slowly rust out, and sink into the mud.

You're only allowed a Volvo stationwagon if you claim you once fit a snowmachine in there.

Things Alaskans like: Dogs

I was going to write a post about predator control, but I'm spending way too much time writing it when I haven't even finished breakfast yet. You'll all get an earfull (eyefull?) of things like `predator pits` and `Stable limited cycles` some other day.

Instead, I want to help you all make friends with some Alaskans, especially if you're not an Alaskan yourself. There's no better way to make friends than to have mutual interests, so I've made a handy list of things that Alaskans like. Studying these things will help you start conversations with Alaskans, and eventually win their affection. For my inaugural post in this series, I've chosen DOGS.

Alaskans love their dogs. Frequently, they love their dogs more than they love their children. This is not hard to understand, because it's illegal to leave kids in a box in a fenced in kennel outside, but dogs seem to like it. Dogs also don't have an long shelf-life. If you have a bad dog, after 8 or so years, you can get a new, better dog. If your children are brats, you can't trade them up for nearly 20 years! You can have nearly three different, non-overlapping dogs in that time!

Dogs eat dog food, but only if the Alaskan is really rich. Otherwise, dogs eat a mixture of fish, left over meat, small rodents in the yard, cats, and scraps from the table. Sometimes, really rich Alaskans feed dogs both dog food and poor Alaskan food. A great place to get rich Alaskan dog food is from Cold Spot Feeds. Places like Cold Spot Feeds are good places for Alaskans with dogs, since it allows them to go to a place to talk to other Alaskans about their dogs. This may seem unusual, because they also talk about their dogs when they aren't at designated dog-discussing places, but I assure you this is part of Alaskan dog ownership.

Alaskans like to feel their dogs are working animals, but they don't like doing work themselves. Many people have dogs that skijore, mush, hunt or pull sleds, and they will talk about how good their dogs are at theses activities, even if their owners do not engage in this activity themselves. This is because Alaskans know the dogs do the activities on their own, while the owner is sitting inside watching TV. Dogs are very pro-active like this, which is another reason Alaskans like dogs more than children.

Alaskans are better at making dogs than they are at making new Alaskans. They just leave their unspayed female dogs (often referred to as `their bitch` because they like using an otherwise dirty word in an acceptable way) outside overnight. About 1 in 10 times, when Alaskans bring their `bitch` back inside, or put them back in the kennel area, the dog will later make more dogs. Pregnant dogs are easier to deal with than pregnant humans, because you can leave them in a dog house too. If you try to leave a pregnant human in a dog house, you will get shot in the face. This is another reason dogs are better than humans.

Alaskans are so much better at making dogs than humans that there are more dogs than humans. There are about 680,000 humans in Alaska, but since every Alaskan owns at least one dog, there are probably 1,000,000 dogs in Alaska. It is very important that Alaskans keep their dogs from voting, because there are so many more dogs than people. If dogs voted, the PFD would be paid out in the form of dog treats, which only a few Alaskans eat.