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Web site is a journalism Master's thesis project about squatters living
near Fairbanks, Alaska. The purpose of the site is to explore the lives
of those interviewed and reveal this experience to viewers through multimedia.
This project is considered multimedia because it is a communications process,
which uses computers to present text, graphics, video, animation, and sound
in an integrated way. I hope this method is illuminating and that you enjoy
what I found.
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met my first squatter in the spring of 2000 while walking in my neighborhood,
a quiet area just three miles from the University of Alaska in Fairbanks.
He was pulling a full sled of goods, attached by ropes to his waist, down
the marshy trails behind my home. While we swatted spring's first hatch
of mosquitoes from our bodies, we struck up a conversation as our dogs
played with one another. Wearing green rubber boots that rose to his kneecaps,
this young bearded man told me, with no reservations, he was moving into
a squatter's cabin located on land apparently owned by Alaska Senator
Frank Murkowski. When I asked whether he was worried about the prospect
of living without electricity, let alone being caught squatting, he looked
at me strangely and explained that people around here do this all the
time. I originally understood squatters as impoverished people generally found in lesser-developed countries or as homeless people who took refuge in empty buildings throughout America's cities, but I never considered that people actually chose this lifestyle. Yet, there was this guy with a decent four-wheel drive vehicle, wearing a Gore-Tex jacket, telling me that living like this was not done out of necessity but out of personal choice. Indeed, it looked as if he were putting in a lot of effort to live this way. When the mosquitoes finally got to us, we parted ways, and the squatter trudged on down the trail ankle-deep in water, deftly stepping over tussocks, his blue sled twisting behind him. |
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Video courtesy of KUAC This aerial view of Fairbanks shows the steamy whiteness of a typical interior Alaska winter. View an online physical map of Alaska. Visit Yahoo''s interactive map of Fairbanks. Visit a live WebCam view of downtown Fairbanks. |
The concept of a squatter's lifestyle
fermented in my mind over the summer. I looked more closely at the many
empty cabins tucked among the spruce and birch forests forming Fairbanks.
It was tough to wrap my head around the idea that people chose to live
in this environment without electricity, and chose to do so illegally.
Sitting in the interior of Alaska, Fairbanks tenders a potentially lethal
environment. Temperatures commonly drop to as low as minus 30 degrees
in the winter. People pack sleeping bags and emergency snacks in their
cars just in case of a breakdown on the road. Tires can freeze to the
ground, and some have been known to throw water from a cup in the air
to see it freeze before it hits the ground. The fact that people ever
chose to live in this town is remarkable. By the fall the young bearded fellow had simply stopped showing up on the trails, but I began searching for other squatters by asking friends and associates if they knew any. I was surprised at the number of people who had experiences with this type of person, and my thesis project grew from there. What fascinated me most about the project was that these people were not forced to live this way but seemed to intentionally hunt out this lifestyle. The squatters I interviewed exhibited a sort of frontier mentality, and this seemed to define why they lived as they did in Alaska. |
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Judith Kleinfeld, professor of psychology and director of Northern Studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, is in the process of writing a book tentatively titled "The Frontier Frame of Mind." In it, she explores the state of mind of Americans gone extreme. She places people who have chosen to relocate to Alaska into four categories: seekers of spirit, wilderness people, opportunity seekers, and people of opposition. Kleinfeld describes seekers of spirit
as those who have come to Alaska seeking religious freedom. They often
live in communes or are involved in a loosely organized network of other
religious people in search of answers. Kleinfeld describes the wilderness
people as those who risk their lives trying to recreate the frontier experience.
These people are often end-of-the-roaders who choose to live somewhat
hermit-like lives communing with nature and away from society. Opportunity
seekers relocate to Alaska in search of personal gain. They arrive having
followed the catch phrase "Go West, young man" and hope to carve
out a niche for themselves in a place of relatively low population. People
of opposition are those who have come to Alaska to escape from the norm.
Kleinfeld suggests that these people oppose the "Californification"
of the United States and hope to get away from the binds of modern culture.
The squatters I interviewed for this project fit loosely into a blend of Kleinfeld's categories. Each of them arrived as opportunity seekers and has either formed or maintained an opposition to the norms of American society. Each also seems to have a heightened appreciation for wilderness. Whether this comes out of knowledge of what it's like to live without basic necessities, or simply out of a respect for nature's wonders is unclear. Dom seems to have chosen the squatter's lifestyle out of convenience. Jethro has intentionally chosen to live on the edge of society, either to fulfill his bohemian philosophies or because it's all he can tolerate. Kyle and Becca live as squatters out of a romantic sense of the lifestyle. Categorizing people is always hard.
When lines get drawn, there are always those who don't fall perfectly
within them. The one true fact is that most people who live here have
chosen to become Alaskans. It's not necessarily an easy place to live,
and it's often very far away from family roots. Those who come and stay
have found something special that keeps them here. While I have lived in Alaska less than two years, I find myself touched by this frontier mentality as well. While traveling down to the lower 48 for a family visit, I watched the traffic of Seattle stagnant below the plane and shuddered. I felt that tightening in my chest when I disembarked – all these people standing around competing for space, staring at monitors, pulling big blocks of luggage, riding beeping carts. I immediately tried to find the place in which I wouldn't bump elbows with anyone else, where I could have a little room of my own to breathe. I thought that perhaps I'm no longer fit for the confines society places upon us. Alaska provides a necessary escape for me, and, I believe, the majority of people who choose to live up here. In Fairbanks, I can go hiking and never run into a fence, let alone another person. There is relatively little traffic and few buildings over five stories high. And there is undeveloped land, lots and lots of it. |
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Perhaps this amount of land, both publicly and privately owned, is what allows these squatters to get away with living as they do. Tom Hancock, a land officer with the North Star Borough's Land Management office, has some experience with local squatters. "The majority of what we term as trespassers are temporary," he said. "They're people who show up in spring of the year and set up a temporary camp and are generally just there for a few weeks. We like to see people enjoying the public lands." Hancock can recall only five times in the last five years in which state troopers had to get involved with a trespasser on public land, and these situations generally ended quietly. The troopers informed the people that they were in trespass and gave them 48 hours to leave, which, in most cases, they did. The Fairbanks district attorney's office has no recollection of ever prosecuting someone for trespass either. "In over 12 years of community
planning, I've never had to deal with that issue," said Bernard O'Hernandez,
director of the North Star Borough Community Planning office. |
Other Online Resources:
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It seems that many people around town
know there are squatters here but consider them a provisional problem.
Through my research for this project, however, I have found squatting
in Fairbanks to be more of a community phenomenon. I know of at least
seven squatters who live as such in more than a temporary capacity. The
city provides certain amenities that make living as a squatter easier.
Over six percent of Fairbanks' residents live without running water. There
are water pump stations around town where one can fill jugs for just two
cents a gallon, and local Laundromats have showers where one can pay to
get clean. Cabin culture nears institution-like significance to many Fairbanksans
who appreciate the remoteness and privacy afforded by such dwellings.
This city also resides on an urban-rural edge, and these squatters succeed
partially because they can choose from a wide range of social possibilities.
They can hide out in the woods and live off the land, but they can also
dash into town and buy themselves the latest Ben and Jerry's ice cream
flavor if they get the urge. And, as in all of Alaska, there is a prevailing
attitude here that people should be able to live the way they want to.
Each squatter I interviewed reflected this heightened sense of independence. While I found every squatter's story to be unique, the search for something different and the quest for personal freedom united their experience and drove them to live as they do. |
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On the Edge Home | Dom | Jethro | Kyle & Becca | About the Project
Contact the author, Gretchen King