the animal's journal

[C40]

Thanks for the updates! I'm so jealous of all your salmon and bison meat. I imagine it's pretty tough finding a girlfriend up there(?)

[theanimal]

Hunting and fishing is the way to eat like a king while still following ERE principles.

Yeah, the market is limited and very tight. There are more males than females and very few of those females are single. Anyone who is single and at least reasonably attractive gets snatched up quickly. A couple of my friends and I joke that the only way to have success is wait at the airport and find a woman after she gets off the plane... I haven't made as much effort as I should have over the past few months but nonetheless the number of women I've met over the past 8 months or so who I find attractive and are single could likely be counted on one hand... It doesn't help that the area is pretty transitory for many in their 20s and 30s.

[Viktor K]

Sounds like an awesome summer! I'll have to do something like this in the next few years

[Seppia]

Still the #1 most kickass journal on the internet.
Thanks for the update

[Mister Imperceptible]

Your journal is like Jack London updated for the 21st century.

Someone told that you’ve got to import a woman from the Lower 48 if you’re up there.

[Colibri]

@the animal
I am in your geographic region, more precisely in the Yukon Territory. If you want to write, there is an arts and entertainment newspaper here that is constantly looking for new writers, they only have freelancers. I wrote a few articles for them, they are easy to deal with and very open minded on subject. We get articles about Alaska pretty often, mainly about Skagway and Haines or Fairbanks. Anyway, check this out if it sounds interesting to you

https://whatsupyukon.com

[Jason]

With that pic of you standing on top of the world looking all Jeremiah Johnson and shit, I would think you would have a march of the penguins line of indigenous girls following you back to camp.

In any event, I can only suggest the typical outlets: mail order brides and penitentiary girls.

[7Wannabe5]

I can check and see if my sister would be willing to pay to ship my beautiful-but-living-in-the-basement niece up to you. She's definitely a city girl, but very fit due to years of dance training, so could make for an interesting youtube series.

[RealPerson]

Those are really badass pictures, especially the buffalo. I spent 10 days backpacking in the Montana wilderness this summer. Beautiful country. I always thought of hunting as a hobby more than part of FIRE, but I know Alaska is very different. Is it cost effective between equipment and licenses to hunt in the lower 48?

[prognastat]

@RealPerson

Definitely a topic I'd be interested to hear about too. From what little I've heard it can get very expensive very quickly if you need to go on private land to do so.

[theanimal]

I can't say I've looked into it that heavily. It'll be much easier west of the Mississippi due to the prevalence of public land. I think that the determining factor in terms of the cost effectiveness of hunting in the L48 is transportation costs. However, I think you can still travel reasonably far and still beat the store by a healthy margin. Licenses and tags vary by state but a quick perusal shows low prices almost everywhere. California is $48 for a license and big game tag. Montana is $70 (including bird and elk in addition to deer). New York is $22. Wisconsin is $60 . Those are just a few examples. In most of these cases, outside of the highly desired animals like elk, sheep or bison, you can still get a nonresident license for relatively cheap. For example, New York offers a non-resident license for $100 which appears to cover deer hunting. It makes most sense economically to kill the biggest animal you can find. A whitetail deer yields maybe 50-60 lbs(?) of meat whereas an elk yields 100-120 and a bison 600+. The closer the hunt and the bigger the animal the better.

Rifle is BIFL and amortizes just to a few dollars per hunt if used long term. You can get a rifle that'll kill everything up to a moose for a few hundred dollars. Bullets only end up as a ridiculous expense if you want to shoot a ton with high caliber rounds. You can buy a .22 LR for $200 new and 1000+ bullets for something like $40. There's your target practice.

I think you may have to be creative depending on where you live but it's certainly something worth looking into. I think former forum member @zev was looking into it in NY biking or using some means of public transportation. Impressive, but I think an easier solution would be to go with friends and reduce transportation costs.

Related is this thread:viewtopic.php?t=9531#p157787

[theanimal]

Thanks all for reading and the kind comments.

@colibri- Thanks! I'll look into that.

@Jason- I don't know. Things didn't work out to well for Jeremiah Johnson in the women department. Mail order brides might be the best bet. I can almost see Russia from my house as it is.

@7- Haha, I imagine that would be a fun dynamic. You have me thinking up potential episode ideas.

[Kriegsspiel]

IIRC, an ERE forumer is a call-girl up in Alaska. Anyone remember her?

[theanimal]

@Kspiel- That was @riparian


I accepted a job as a geology technician at a large mine. I had a friend who's done the same job and liked it. I don't have to go underground or do any heavy machinery but it still pays well. 2 weeks on 1 off, likely thru mid December. Housing and meals provided. I should make out with a little over $11k over the duration with potential for more work later on. Not bad.

[arebelspy]

I haven't visited the ERE forums in a few years, so I just got to catch up from fall 2016 to today.

Really enjoyed it.

Sounds like you decided against pursuing grad school. What about the pilot thing?

My favorite part of all your posts was the introspection ones, where you talk about what you've learned about yourself, and try to move yourself forward to a better place, for you.

Looking forward to your next update.

[theanimal]

@arebelspy- Thank you. More details below.

-----------------------

November through January in the Arctic and across the north is a time of cold and deep darkness. At solstice, the sun is only inching above the horizon at my latitude and up for 3.5 hours a day. The past 2 winters, it was a time where I really struggled. I was flailing around unsure if what I was doing was what I should be doing and not having a community around me that I desired or could use for support. It was a time full of dread and depressive moods. This year has served as a radical antithesis to the winters of old. Some of the change is external in that I have made more friends and have somewhat of an outside structure, but there is likely some internal growth that has occurred as well. There has been no substantial depressive moods the past few months and a friend recently described my mood as very giddy. For so long I was pursuing a vision of life that I thought was in the future, but now I think I've realized that I'm living the life I want. There's a question someone mentioned here once that I like to ask others. "If money wasn't an object, what would you do with your life?" I struggle to answer this question because the reality is that I wouldn't change much from what I'm doing now. I feel great and am going to ride this wave as long as I can.

I took a job working at one of the large gold mines in the state a few hours outside of town starting at the beginning of October. I worked in the core processing facility as a geology technician. It's a work away deal meaning when I was working I was living out there for 2 weeks straight (1 week off), working 12 hours every day. The work was manual labor without much thought. Measuring core, photographing core, sampling core, moving core..and so on, but we were allowed to listen to whatever so I was able to make the most of it plowing through a hefty dose of audiobooks and podcasts. The job was well paying but was ultimately a means to an end for me and not ideal for many reasons. My last day was a week ago.

One of the reasons I took the job is to pursue the pilot license. I started lessons this past week and barring environmental factors, I will likely have my private license by mid March at the latest. There is tons of opportunity in the aviation industry, especially in Alaska going forward so if I progress through my hours and other certifications, it is not out of the question to obtain a job for some air taxi or regional airline up here by the end of the year.

I turned 26 a couple weeks ago and I wanted to do something hard. So I decided to run 26 miles on the morning of my birthday on some local trails. Mission Success. My first marathon in the books and without all the commercial bullshit and vanity associated with many of the organized races. I am doing an organized one with a friend in March, but plan to do another one on my own sometime over the next month. I like the fitness aspect of it but it is more about making my mind harder. There is too much encouragement of fluff and ease in our current culture IMO, when things like tolerance for adversity can deliver incredible returns. It takes a lot too faze me right now. For example, it's been -40 F for the past two days. Two days ago, my heat went out at home, my windshield cracked and I had a flat tire. Both days were really good. I'm going to continue to pursue stress and create friction in my life. It seems stupid not to.

In miscellaneous news, there is a girl I am seeking to court. Its kind of pathetic that it's news that there is one single female that I am attracted to and am interested in pursuing but such is the state of affairs up here. It seems promising but its extremely early. We'll see. I'm looking forward to an EMT class that I'm starting in a couple weeks. And I'm planning on starting BJJ. I started last winter but stopped due to poor transportation situation. The schedule conflicts with the EMT class but I think I've found a way to work it out. I'm currently doing remote work as an insurance underwriter. The pay isn't lucrative but I can work as little or as much as I want from my couch. It combines well with the rest of my schedule.

Finally, here's an analysis of 2018 income vs expenses via the ratio created by Fish (I think he's the one who did it..)

Writing- .125
Tour Guide- .25
PFD - .1
Forestry- 1.0
Mining 1.0

Total- 2.475

I'm OK with that. 2019 should be similar but I think I'll be able to get it over 3.0 which is much more ideal.


Not many good pictures from the last few months but here's one from the mine and one from a recent trip to the AK Range with some friends.



20190105_095852

[Seppia]

Sorry if my replies to your journal all sound the same, but your journal is the awesomest of all the (very awesome) journals on this board.

[Kriegsspiel]

Can you elaborate on the remote insurance underwriting work?

[theanimal]

Thanks, Seppia. Always appreciate the compliments.


Re the insurance work: The company I work for contracts agencies to source customers (all auto). The agents sign customers up for policies and enter all the information in an online database. My job is to review the policy to ensure that any additional documents required are uploaded and to verify policy holder information to make sure it falls within the company's parameters. The work is extremely simple and I'm on the lowest rung. But it pays $15/hr, there is tons of flexibility, no stress/pressure and I have a great relationship with the boss.

[arebelspy]

Finally, here's an analysis of 2018 income vs expenses via the ratio created by Fish (I think he's the one who did it..)

Writing- .125
Tour Guide- .25
PFD - .1
Forestry- 1.0
Mining 1.0

Total- 2.475

I'm OK with that. 2019 should be similar but I think I'll be able to get it over 3.0 which is much more ideal.

Interesting way to break things down. Anyone have a source thread?