Why Live in Alaska?

Mosquitos, cold and long winters, high costs, great distances from family and old friends, less cultural advantages--all reasons for not living in Alaska. So why does one?

The best reason of all was told to me some years ago by Joan Koponen. She and her family had just returned from spending several years in a heavily populated part of the lesser states. "There," she said, "you do not even have to think to exist. No matter what mistakes you make, someone will take care of you. But here, if I take my children out in a car in winter without a sleeping bag along, and if I run in a ditch, they may die. I need to live in a place where it matters what I do--Alaska is such a place."