markpierce wrote:
Gee, southeast Alaska being over-run by immigrants!?* You're kidding. *The population has been in general decline, paralleling the fortunes of the mining, fishing, and lumbering industries.
While this discussion has been, at least on my part, somewhat in jest, I think your belief that because the local population in SE Alaska has been declining means the area will never attract people is misplaced.* A great example in my area is the Okanagan region, which is the region immediately east of the Cascade range up near the Canadian border.* This area used to be primarily cattle and orchards and still is to some degree.* For decades it has been stagnant if not in decline in terms of population and growth.
Then it was "discovered" by retirees and people with enough money to comute between the area and cities like Seattle and Portland.* A good friend who used to be a pilot for Kenmore Air and who is from the Okanagan area is a builder.* The last decade or so has seen a massive increase in his and other contractors' and builders' business as the demand for homes had gone through the roof, so to speak.* Had you predicted this sort of thing back in the 1980s to the peolpe of Okanagan, Tonasket, etc. you 'd have been laughed out of town.* Now there are more and more people regretting that their area has been discovered.
A similar story, albeit not as dramatic, has occurred out on the Olympic Pennisula in the Sequim-Port Angeles area.* This area, too, has been discovered by retirees and business people who can comute to Seattle or whose work can be done remotely.* Interestingly one of the groups of retirees that got the migration to the area started is airline pilots.* The Sequim region sits at the base of, and thus in the rain shadow of, the Olympic Mountains.* Pilots beginning approaches to Seatac began to notice on days when the Puget Sound area was socked in solid, there was often a clear, sunny hole over Sequim.* So attracted by the PNW in general, they began to build homes in Sequim and the surrounding region.
All it takes is for a location to suddenly have appeal to people, and the migration and development begins.* And this growth is amost always independent of what developed the town or region in the first place--- the mining, logging, ranching, fishing, farming, etc.* So the fact that the traditional businesses in SE Alaska are in decline and have been for a long time is irrelevant to the potential for development.* The people who decide to move there will be like yourself--- the place has appeal as a place to live, but you will not be dependent upon the local fishing or logging industry to survive.* You just want to live in what to you is a neat place.* And more and more peolpe don't have to "go to work" to go to work.* All they need is a fast internet and network connection.
If I did not have to work for a living right now, and if we had the money to be able to travel anywhere we wanted whenever we wanted, we would move to SE Alaska in a heartbeat.* I wouldn't want to have to make a living there (unless it was by writing or something that was not location-dependent) and I'd want to be able to get out whenever we felt like doing something different.* But as a home base, there's noplace better to our way of thinking.
And every boater I've met who has traveled to SE Alaska has expressed the same sentiment so you can bet there are many thousands of people who feel the same way.* The desire to live in SE Alaska is there.* All it will take is for something or someone to give the snowball a push.
