Alaska is almost only place on planet where you still can take a kayak and be that adventurer or pioneer from old days, where human presence has not changed the world. I can see value of protecting that, there are plenty of backroads to have fun in a world, but places where there are no human development are quite rare, most of the places there is at least mobile phone totems.
I can see why people like turbocharged I4s now. I recently got a 1988 Turbo Coupe and let me tell you, that thing is a whole lot of fun in a little package. Compared to a big old gas guzzling V8, the 2.3L I4 makes pretty good gas millage. 3.73 posi and a 5-speed manual that coupe gets up and goes. Clean and all original it is a nice car.
What do you guys think? Not a lot can go long for $800... 302, 79k miles. https://worcester.craigslist.org/cto/6040059899.html
Those prices of cars in US are something I would say almost free Do all tow trucks sound this good in US? I think that is how H-series should sound.
Where do you actually live (if you don't mind)? I swear I get a different impression every time you post.
Unfortunately, yes. Until the early 1980s, there was very little federal presence in Alaska as far as fish & game was concerned. The state ran pretty much everything, with a very hands-off approach, and it seemed to be working fine. Then, all of a sudden, the feddies jumped in and started making ham-handed regulations to ruin everyone's fun. Blocking off the wilderness roads was one of the first things they did. Allegedly, a lot of that was the work of one Forest Service guy, who may or may not have even been acting on valid orders. Of course, people were atomically mad, but as usual the government just kept pushing and eventually everyone got tired of yelling about it and gave up. Then they went after the small miners, closed off the backroads into Denali that miners would use to get in there, etc. etc. Now the feddies run, and ruin, everything.
It's not exactly clean. Rear fenders are pretty crusty. It's clean by New England standards. Rust Belt Clean.
There are few parts of remote British Columbia that cannot be reached by service/logging road. Just drive out of the city and they're everywhere. Lots of them are gated, but stay open most of/all the time, and the ones that stay closed are short and insignificant, or lead to private property, etc (from what I've seen at least). These roads are just about everywhere, it's great.
The Sunshine Coast is awesome for that, though I don't have a suitable vehicle to risk doing much exploring. Looking on Google, there are loads of little dirt trails snaking through the mountains, and the few I've been on were fun. They go well up into the forest, though the longest ones, going almost all the way to Squamish, are owned by Howe Sound Pulp and Paper and are closed for their logging operations. I've been thinking my next vehicle will be a little right-hand drive 4x4, which would be perfect for off-roading around here.
It's a bit nasty on the inside, but that kind of money would fetch a busted up early 90's economy car with no engine in my country so to me it looks like a hell of a bargain.
So let me get this straight... Alaska used have huge areas of rural roads and wilderness An increase in demand for oil based jobs led to a population boom (and something something hysterical liberals...?) So suddenly there are lots of people trying to get rich from the oil industry Which led to high housing demand Some people wanted to keep Alaska more rural by trying to prevent said extra homes and roads from being built (and something something liberals) Some people decided to give the go ahead to build those houses but putting them on pre existing roads The end result being that more people are using the roads, which you are unhappy about? And yet in your mind the blame doesn't have anything to do with... The people who are acquiring the oil leading to the increase in demand The people aiming to earn money from the oil industry The people who built the houses despite the resistance And the blame is with the people who... Didn't want the oil to be extracted Tried to protect the wilderness by preventing houses from being built Cause to me it sounds like the people you are trying to villainies had very similar aims and goals to yourself and that maybe it was different people who were causing the issues?
To some degree, you're right; Alaska has a lot of mountains and a lot of marshes and building on either is very difficult. A lot of these roads probably would have ended up somewhat residential anyway. Where the hysterical liberals came in was midway through the population boom. Until the early 1980s, people pretty much did what they wanted; if someone needed a road somewhere, they took a bulldozer and plowed it, and if it was a quagmire during spring thaw, well, that's Alaska for you. Then, in the early 1980s, environmentalists came in and started screaming about pristine wilderness, and suddenly the existing dirt roads get blocked off, and you can't build any more, and you have to file environmental impact statements for everything, and suddenly building more roads goes from difficult and expensive to borderline impossible. One road in particular, in the Eagle River area, comes to mind; previously, there were a few houses on it, but it wasn't a freakin' dense neighborhood like it is now. The land there is hugely unsuitable for living on; that road runs along a narrow ridge with a steep drop on the north side and a steep climb on the south side. But when you've got nowhere else to go, and things are getting crowded and expensive in nearby Anchorage, you build there anyway and play up the view to get more money for the houses. Driver sees an empty mountain road, they see high-speed battles. Developer sees and empty mountain road, they see view lots that command a massive premium over ordinary not-view lots. When the leftists and the regulators sympathetic to them won't let you build roads or do anything that would require a road to get to, you're eventually going to lose all your fun roads to suburban/residential poisoning. Also, apparently, the whole reason there is no highway to Nome yet is because the construction of such might annoy a duck or something. Just to show what I'm talking about, here's a map of the roads in my area that could be fun if only. Details on some/all of them to follow.
