What If??? --- Stocking Our Emergency "To Go" Bags

The FAA requires each private pilot to carry emergency supplies, not only for him/herself, but also for the number of passengers on board who could also be stranded in a remote location and have to fend for themselves either until help arrives or until they hike out to find some.

Aviation and personal gear, winter

My husband and I think that this is such a prudent idea that we also apply it  to our car and snowmachines.  Each one has an emergency bag, too.  Even our home, in a way.  Because it is small, we store clothes, food, matches, and supplies in various outbuildings. Perhaps some of those structures will be unimpaired even if our cabin is damaged by fire or earthquake.  Each year, we re-evaluate our “to-go bags” with the goal of reducing weight/bulk while improving efficiency and effectiveness. Currently, the largest (blue) one (for the plane and snowmachine) weighs about 25 pounds.  The small (black) backpacks weigh about 10 pounds.    

Reality Check of Alaska Reality Shows – My Experience

I read recently that there are 36 Alaska Reality Shows at one time! What? Doesn't anyone want to see characters in Wisconsin or Maine? How about Puerto Rico?

My experience with these shows is limited to conversations with seven – count 'em: seven - producers who have contacted us over the past three years.

We have (politely, I hope) declined them all. Often we suggested other people we thought might be more interested in them or more interesting to viewers. Below, I'll share my observations from those discussions.

Since we don't own a TV, I have seen only a smattering of random episodes when I have visited relatives and friends in the Lower 48 who invariably ask, “So, do you know the guy/gal on this show?” However, I am as entertained as any Alaskan in local feedback on programs by people who are more “in the know.” Occasionally, writers for Alaska Dispatch News review a show, usually by humorously panning the obvious fakery of the situation.  Then, locals chime in at the bottom of the on-line article to add more details. For example, one show looks like it is remote but apparently the camera is planted in the parking lot of a pizza joint! It points across the road to an empty stretch of woods where that show's “hero” does whatever he does to look like a mountain man. In general, Alaskans accord a loss of credibility to participants. On the other hand, I viewed one episode of an ongoing series (Building Alaska) that depicted realistic experiences directly analogous to our real-life endeavors, and in our neck of the woods, too, so maybe there are some other realistic ones out there.

In our case, we have been contacted by two producers each in LA, NY, and Europe (UK and Netherlands) as well as the National Geographic (two producers, one in Singapore and one in Hong Kong). Four of the seven were independent producers rather than name brand shows. Each small firm seemed to toss out story ideas, film an episode or two and then endeavor to sell the idea of a series to a distributor. 

The topics broached by these producers with us included the following:

*Mistakes we made, as city slickers who moved out to a remote home in the Alaska woods.

* An “average week” with us in the winter/ in summer
* Life skills we could teach their host to demonstrate
* Life skills a rural child could teach a child host

* “Alaskan-type jobs” of people living remotely

* Pretend we were shopping for a remote property and then choose ours
* Compare/contrast our life in Alaska with a family living in someplace tropical, I think it was Costa Rica