Want to write a book about it?

When I first found out about McCarthy, it was a ghost town that had a summer tourism season with a few dozen people in June, July and August.

A century earlier McCarthy was one of the more modern towns in America. Fresh eggs were the luxury in the middle of Alaskan winters where only powdered eggs were possible. The town was electrified before most of North America. Heat and lights created the light cycle needed to have productive hens. Pete & Ma Johnson had fresh eggs for their clients.

The gold and wealth of the company town of Kennicott made for a very prosperous sin city; McCarthy. The 'Alaska Syndicate' (aka Robber Barons) was a JP Morgan and Guggenheim joint venture to create the Alaska Steam Ship Company and The CR & NW rail, to facilitate the richest copper mines the world has ever seen. Kennicott Copper Corporation which extracted and refined the copper that was needed to industrialize the world.

I noticed how the NPS and most of the local population enjoyed the "Ghost Town". They got here, fell in love with the area, built cabins, and most did not want anyone else to find it. Many felt that 'Outsiders' would ruin it. That was my first lesson. Locals and NPS shared one common thread: Fear. Not fear of bears or injury or not being able to "get something from town' - but a real fear of the unknown. I understood the fear as this town has seen it's share of coercion play out in deadly ways. So the fearful feel the need to coerce and control the bad guys. Problem is they don't know who the bad guys are, so 'compliance' becomes a way of life for many.

Most locals, when politically pressed, are ok with coercion directed at them - for they don't seem to recognize coercion. Now that to me is the most ironic part of living here.

I have neighbor who's granddad founded the town, but this guy is a pure speculator. He claims to own the streets and therefore expects me to pay a toll for easement. Of course I, as has the whole town for 100 years, have been "open and notorious" about ownership of easement and all things related to access!

I enjoy the history and the meaning behind the mineral extraction at this scale as well as the carving and shaping the world to a livable outpost turned "sin city."

It just so happens that this copper mine surrounded by wilderness and the projects of restoring this town, satisfy my needs to be relevant to my ideals.

A bad day is when I consider lifting all the buildings in town and moving them 1 mile to a new location, outside the reach of the coercive neighbor who claims to own the streets. But moving the town a mile closer to the glacier would be destructive to the few neighbors who are freedom fighters.

As you well know, a much larger, more coercive force makes it all a moot point.

Yes, indeed.

2016 is NPS's centennial, which it wants to celebrate with more acquisitions and expansion of the empire. It's last centennial celebration in 1972 (never miss an opportunity to celebrate government power) resulted in its "Buy back America"
campaign removing tens of thousands of people for the massive expansion of the National Park System in the 1970s.

Ironic that you want to restore ghost towns back to life while NPS is creating them out of what already exists.

As I think about it more, I think you used the phrase 'going Galt' more accurately than the usual meaning. You are personally achieving, as Ayn Rand meant for the hero she depicted as her idea of the "ideal man". She recognized that productive people cut back in the face of punishment or otherwise try to escape it -- as she described in her "Is Atlas Shrugging?" lecture at Ford Hall Forum -- but I wonder if she could have liked the current all too common equation of "going Galt" with "drop out". She said that she was trying to prevent such a collapse, not predict or advocate it.

As for your discovery of the impact of NPS in what seemed like an isolated area safe for productivity, with nature the only enemy to overcome, this is an aspect of government today that few realize. Few know the real National Park Service outside its utopian PR imagery. Who would have thought that an agency known for its cuddly Smoky the Bear image charged with something as simple as managing picnic tables and parks could go so wrong.

There is no rural area left in the country (or the world) that government and the big viro organizations (like the Nature Conservancy) are not monitoring, controlling, and trying to stifle for forced preservationism under complete government control. Those who think there is some remote place to go to start some kind of libertarian utopian enclave in anonymity are in for a big shock.

I think you are like me, hanging on by our fingernails. I find myself jumping back and forth unable to decide. I have been in love with my country for a long time, but she is turning into a coercing whore.

Amen, brother.

Actually I am not frustrated at designing, building, or running the water system, that's a process. I do get frustrated at bureaucracy, doesn't everyone?

The water business must cost you much frustration.
Reminds of the time I was installing an electrical device and the plumbing inspector decided to come out because "all the other guys were inspecting."

Herb, At 56 I still have plenty I want to learn, but my background is in technical sales.

Before moving to Alaska I was a sales & marketing consultant.

Living in remote makes you skillful at things that you construct, repair, or resourcefully invent - but it can feel like a waste of valuable time. As ewv indicated in a statement above, why create what already exists? Restoring is interesting, but I am also stuck doing a lot of building infrastructure for the sake of moving forward. I can't have a resort without a restaurant. I can't have a restaurant without water. I need a certified well operator to run a public water system. There is not much business to begin with, so it started in 2001 as a tiny operation. Wanting to restore a ghost town into a remote resort means taking on a lot of projects and becoming adept at decision making. Deliberate practice.

It may seem like I have "abilities in a large number of applications", but most of the remote skills I have is because no one locally had the skills, so I had to become proficient in many things. Certified Well Operator? Some see that as a skill. It's a couple courses, a responsibility, a public safety concern, and something required of me by the government to run a business in a remote area.

Interestingly, the State Of Alaska will not accept UV sanitation techniques, so I, as a certified Well Operator, who enjoys a great restaurant experience (aka a foodie) must add Chlorine to our water in order to serve "safe drinking water for the public".

Some of my deliberate practice is interrupted by legal snafu's. McCarthy has what is likely the closest old (glacier melt) water source to a town. As a certified well operator, I am required by state law to add poison (chlorine) to the best water in the world in order to legally serve it to the public.

File this under an example of "What Hasn't Worked".

.

Very interesting...

understand;;; Thank You! -- j
.

Thank you.

One regret on posting it as "Going Gulch for 15 years" is that I am being inaccurate, and presumptuous.

I wanted to compare other versions of the process of removing much of the government overreach from one's life. But to imply that removing government was the big reason for going to McCarthy, is inaccurate. The main draw for me is the restoration of the ghost town and building and stabilizing businesses.

The NPS battles make my work as "at risk" to government over reach as anyone in the lower 48. I should have spent more time considering the depth of that issue and how it impacts the ability of "Going Galt".

Very true.

Picking McCarthy wasn't for the fight, it was for the potential. Early on it turned into a fight when I was approached by the lead ranger who wanted to talk about how the NPS was "partnering" with me. It was a roller coaster ride from that moment on.

I've enjoyed the work and doing what I can to get it ready for the next owner. Included in the process is awareness on all fronts. Creating a consumer product that ties in Alaska land rights and tourism is part of the work.

The NPS has fought us before and we expect a new fight every decade, we are overdue.

At this point my little idea will have to wait until I can come up with enough to get a patent. As to the big one. It has the potential to be as big as John Galt's motor and with the current direction the world is going, I would rather it sit than for them to receive the benefit of even the taxes it would generate.

It will take more than showing that you are thriving. Aside from the fact that some know that and want to destroy it, too many people still believe that NPS and the rest of the ideological viros are 'white hats' which are only to your benefit. Most people don't know what the National Park Service and the rest of the anti-private property rights land control movement have been doing to people. It is wrecking people's lives in rural communities across America; it isn't just conniving NPS brutes in Alaska targeting inholders where the public doesn't know you exist.

I still don't know what you meant by calling it 'going Gulch', but I'm glad you posted it, too. It has been a genuine contribution to the discussion.

Thanks for finding that! And for sharing a hint of your story here Neil! I was going to say that this is the kind of decision and lifestyle that needs to be told...now I have to read through all the comments here when I can make the time. Having a TV show about you and the town is awesome. I don't have cable so I'll have to learn what I can from the comments here. My huge kudos to you for what you've done and built for yourself. Cheers!

Ken has seen the destruction caused by land grabs. He creates bureaucratic heroes from those that actually despise mankind.

please consider letting the world reward you for
creative thought, E2;;; this world needs some shaking! -- j
.

The Duncan-Burns National Parks is literally government propaganda. It was produced by Burn's partner Dayton Duncan, who said he got the idea in the late 1990s when he was on the government-run National Park Foundation, which exists to promote the National Park Service. Duncan was appointed by the Clinton administration and had previously been a big shot in Democrat politics for the Mondale campaign.

Burns toured the country for at least a year before promoting his prop-flick before PBS aired it, which it has done over and over and over for the campaign, and is now pushing again for the centennial celebration. Burns and Duncan collaborated with both NPS and the NPS lobby, and were made "honorary rangers". Burns repeatedly extolled the National Park System in religious terms, describing his various mystic states while in the scenery and proclaiming NPS to be "America's best idea", a slogan he took from Wallace Stegner, ideological viro and government wilderness zealot. Burns said he wants to double the size of the National Park System. He doesn't mention the civil rights abuses.

Of the entire 12 hours of the 6 part viro Castro speech with scenery, a couple of minutes acknowledged the mass condemnation of thousands of people for the Smoky Mountain National Park and nowhere else. It is too well known to ignore completely and must seem safe to them to mention now as 'ancient history' no longer relevant. Equal emphasis was put on trashing the private logging companies who dared to cut their trees before the government could get them. It showed no remorse or conscience for the forced population displacement, only academic double talk weighing the so-called necessity and rationalizing it away.

At the beginning of the Obama administration, Burns, the Sierra Club, et al gave a specially edited showing of the film in the White House designed to appeal to Obama's ego. Obama appointed radical viros to his administration, including the Interior Dept, and has already set a record for land (and water) locked up by presidential decrees of National Monuments bypassing Congress.

Ken Burns, America's propagandist.

I have witnessed this first hand. Several times. I am fully aware of the likely outcome.

My strategy is to thrive. Creating awareness that we exist, long before they come back to take it away, offers some protection. Admittedly not much, but McCarthy is worth my efforts.

NPS waiting people out when it can't get what it wants without too much political blow back takes a couple of forms. One pattern is to wait until most of a town or area has forgotten or never knew the history, The other is to wait out particular individuals until they are too old or too sick or have some other personal problem preventing them from fighting back. Then it goes in for the kill.

the Frontline documentaries.

In film, the park system's advocacy led by Ken Burns, is another expression of the contempt of mankind.

I hope to get the mine open as an expression of man's ability to create - and how this specific mine was critical in industrializing the country.

Restoring town is my work. That is not restoring buildings as much as it is restoring commerce.


I haven't got far in my campaign to call the park a 12 million acre park. It's currently billed as America's largest, a13.2 million acre park. One million of those acres are private.