This week we’re hearing from Patricia Ratcliff from Anchorage. Ratcliff moved up here 30 years ago from the Dakotas to get married.
RATCLIFF: Well the winters are longer. You only have three seasons. Well actually two: winter and spring. Where I grew up, it was all four seasons. It was winter it was cold, colder than it was here because we don’t have any trees. There’s a lot of wind back home. But you had really nice summers in the 90s. You know, you had fall. Right now I probably couldn’t handle the summer as hot as it is down there now. But, I’ve been in Alaska a long time so…
I would really like to move if that was a possibility. For me the reason I would like to go is, like I said, travel, see more things ‘cause in Alaska here, you’re kind of stuck. I have kids. Two of them live right outside Seattle.
We didn’t have a lot of different cultures or a lot of different races where I came from. So I came up here and it’s a big diversity and the people are nice and everything. And it’s the same in the lower 48. You can always see wildlife up here. Like yesterday I saw a moose and its baby, and I was walking. Of course, I turned around and walked the other way, you know.
Yeah… they think you live out in the wilderness. That there isn’t really anything, that’s the kind of perception they have: You’re really way out in the middle of nowhere and you’re stuck. If I would’ve stayed, I probably wouldn’t have gotten married and had my kids, so that’s one good thing.
Wesley Early covers Anchorage life and city politics for Alaska Public Media. Reach him at wearly@alaskapublic.org and follow him on X at @wesley_early. Read more about Wesley here.
