Who Is North to Alaska?

Who Is North to Alaska?

Good morning and welcome back to the channel  we’ve received a ton of requests for a video   telling about who we are and why we moved to Alaska so today we are going to tell you our story. What you doing little guy?

As many of you already know our lab’s name  is Benelli and he just turned 9 years old and   this little guy is Diablo he is a long-haired Chihuahua and he will be 10 here in a few days. Drop it When it’s not snowing  and not super windy it’s really great to get the

Dogs out here let him run around  and play fetch with Benelli get some energy out of them because we do live  in a small RV it’s a little less than 300 Square feet so there’s not a lot of room in there for the dogs to do much.

Look at all the snow on his face oh you got a big old snowball stuck on you a look at this snowball stuck on him oh my gosh bud okay I think it’s time for you to be picked up that’s a big old snowball Drop

We have received a lot of questions about  who we are and we know we didn’t make a video like this at the beginning our first several videos were not intended for YouTube they were solely for our own memories and for family to let  them know  

and show them what we are doing up here in Alaska so we initially didn’t plan to make  a video like this but it’s been requested quite a bit in our comment section. probably the most requested definitely out of our comments so here we are.

I’m Chris and this is my wife Katie we’ve  been we are married we’ve been together for about   12 years roughly I am 35 and I’m 31 yep everybody  has a really big misconception on our age for some  

Reason I don’t know they think that she’s like  super young and I’m old or something but we’re   actually pretty close together prior to moving to  Alaska we both grew up and lived in Pennsylvania   our entire lives one commonly asked thing about  us is what we did for work in our past lives like  

What our professional background was and for me  that was working as a heavy equipment mechanic   for about 15 16 years and I was a correctional  officer I worked in Corrections for almost a   decade yeah we obviously had other small jobs and  whatnot in between side work and things like that  

But that was our primary profession we’ve had a  lot of questions in the comments section about how   do you know how to do this or how do you know how  to do that and we’re not professional Builders or  

Anything like that we’re just normal people out  here building up our lives and we do have some   past experience most of our experience with that  type of work comes from remodeling our old home or   building sheds and chicken houses and you know a  lot of things that homeowners would do but I also  

Have been involved in with helping build a couple  of garages and pole buildings and remodeling other   homes other than our own that’s gained me a lot  of skills and whatnot that I needed to know how  

To do this stuff instead of just being thrown right  into it with no knowledge at all that would be   really difficult so that has made it a little  bit easier for us but we still have to do a lot of  

Our own research and figure out how to do things  because there is we’re doing a lot of new things   out here that we’ve never done before in an  environment that’s new to us as well and I’ve  

Also always enjoyed helping Chris with all of our  home projects and DIY projects that we’ve done in   the past so this is a really fun experience for  me as well being able to give some contribution   and help and learn while we’re building our home  and everything out here we are working towards a  

Common goal and it really does just make sense  for us both to work together to achieve that goal these chickens are uh quite feisty if you  don’t pour the water out here they if you  

Don’t pour the water out here before giving it  to them they will literally try and jump in the water back up back up back up back up there she goes See how that one just flew down they  will fly into that water dish if you  try and stick it in there.

We have 14 chickens  and one of them is a rooster 13 hens and this   breed is called novagen and that’s what all the  hens are the rooster is not a novagen we’re not   quite sure what he is but over the years  we’ve raised about five different flocks  

Of chickens back in Pennsylvania and we had a  variety of breeds we’ never had anything quite   like these guys they’ve been doing really  well this winter they’ve continuously laid   eggs they’ve been handling the cold pretty  well we’re about a month away or so from Spring Yeah I got you I

Do he has some giant feet I know the coop that  they’re in right now if you watched our chicken   coop build is temporary this summer we do plan to  build them a pretty nice chicken coop something  

Similar to what we had back in Pennsylvania for  our flocks there we also plan to give them a big   run right now it’s really hard to freerange them  we have Eagles here all the time and between the   Eagles and the Ravens we’re really afraid of  losing one of the birds because they’re always  

On watch for something that’s easy to grab  and especially this winter it’s really hard   for them to be outside we’ve had a lot of snow we  don’t have a covered place for them to go right  

Now and so there’s there’s really nothing for  them to peck at it’s just snow so we can’t wait   to get something more permanent for them and  get them a huge outdoor run that’s protected   from the elements and protected from predators 

They’re ready for spring he’s already molting here you go back in with your ladies One in this box so far today oh she’s in there laying an egg hurry it up  hurry up she’s probably laying on a couple too oh  

That one got frozen oh no been dropping into the  teens at night we didn’t get it quick enough okay   well I scared her out of there from laying her  eggs so we’ll have another one here soon I want to  

Clear up a lot of confusion that we had especially  when we posted the video about the cabin we had a   lot of questions asking if we were living in the  cabin or where we are living here in Alaska and  

The the answer to that is we are living in our  1993 motor home that was an investment that we   made prior to moving here and while living in  an RV here in Alaska isn’t ideal and it would  

Probably be pretty rough to near impossible to  live somewhere north of us like say Fairbanks in   the winter in Alaska it’s faired pretty well for  us here even in our cold temperatures we’ve hit   I think the coldest it got was about -25° F and  we’ve been able to keep it climate controlled and  

Comfortable in there throughout this entire winter  we have a couple of reasons for why we purchased   the RV before moving here one is we needed a  second vehicle to haul all of our belongings   across the country and we needed something that  could haul a lot of belongings and a lot of weight  

And on top of that for the price that we got the  RV for we would not have even been able to build a   shed up here for that price to live in throughout  the winter until we got our cabin built we knew  

Coming up here that we were purchasing raw land  and we one didn’t want to rush and build something   inadequate to live in throughout the winter here  and two we knew that we needed something quickly   and that’s where the RV was very beneficial  to us and bringing it up here and having the  

RV has given the us the ability to not go into  survival mode because we didn’t have to rush to   get anything built we did do a semi- restoration  on the RV so if that’s something that you’d be   interested in seeing let us know in the comments  because we did document the entire restoration  

Of the RV and we would love to do a video if  that’s something that our viewers would like to see So why did we move to Alaska that is such a  huge question and there is a lot of answers the  

The reason why we moved to Alaska and the reason  why we’re living off grid is very different and   I think if I really got into all of it it would  probably take me about an hour to explain it all  

Of my reasoning anyways there’s a lot of good  reasons you know obviously it’s a beautiful   state but that’s not the main reason I think that  the number one reason is the freedom really the   freedom where we live you don’t have to have  permits most of it’s untaxed I mean we were  

Able to get a tax exemption for building our house  that’s a huge savings land here like good land I’m   not talking like swamp land like obviously swamp  land in Alaska is cheap but even good land here  

Is cheaper than where we lived in Pennsylvania we  probably wouldn’t have been able to afford to buy   this much land in Pennsylvania when I say that we  can’t or we wouldn’t have been able to afford it  

I mean without making a mortgage and payments on  it here we were looking to come here and pay with   cash and that’s what we did when I say that we  moved here for the freedom it’s a really broad  

Answer I’m trying to compare it to where we came  from one big issue with Pennsylvania is we had   so much taxes to pay I literally think that we  probably worked our first three to four months  

Just to pay for all of our taxes it was kind  of crazy cuz we had the school tax if you’re a   homeowner in Pennsylvania you have a school tax to  pay and that was huge I mean a big chunk of money  

Probably a full months of paycheck property taxes  where we lived were high energy generation where   we lived were was very high in my opinion compared  to what we’re paying here to live off grid for   electric to survive we had income tax there which  we have no income tax here our yearly taxes here  

Like total for to live on this property and I’m  sure it’s going to change if they reassess it for   our home but our total right now is about $200 a  year that’s unheard of yeah so I mean I guess a  

Lot of the freedom is from the taxes but obviously  that’s not everywhere in Alaska either I mean if   you live in one of the Cities your taxes are going  to be really high I think even Anchorage has a  

School tax like Pennsylvania had not everywhere  here is cheap to live per se and when I say cheap   to live like things are still very expensive to  buy here but overall it’s an incredibly less amount  

Of money compared to where we came from I’m not  really going to get into all the laws aspect but   there are a lot of laws that I agree with a lot  more here that do give you more freedom a lot  

Of people that know about Alaska already know  about those laws and I’m not going to get into   it because it might start like political arguments  or something which we’re not interested in in our   area of Pennsylvania you couldn’t live legally I’m  not saying people don’t do it you couldn’t live  

Legally off grid like we’re doing here in our  RV they would come in and kick you off of your   own property if you tried to live in a camper or  an RV there it’s totally illegal in the township  

That we were in that’s overreach really I mean  I understand why they do it because there is big   problems with the camper cities and stuff going  on right now in certain parts of the country and   that’s understandable that is a problem where the  roads are just lined with campers that’s crazy but  

I don’t see why they should keep you from doing  it on your own property as long as you’re not   trashing the entire place now with that freedom it  opens up a lot of possibilities for your neighbor  

In Alaska to have a junkyard possibly I mean we  don’t but luckily we’re surrounded by Forest here   but that is a possibility that could happen  because it’s not regulated here in this area   particularly one other issue with staying where  we were in Pennsylvania is we would have never  

Been able to have like the wilderness seclusion  that we have here that we wanted I mean we’re   pretty far out here the area that we lived in in  Pennsylvania was mostly farmland our house was   surrounded by mostly woods but we did have close  neighbors a lot of the area where we were were  

Like one to two acre lots so you can figure people  weren’t right beside each other but everybody had   their own yard but there was still a lot of  people you didn’t really get away from people  

Per se not that we’re trying to get away from  people but it is really nice to be able to go   outside and have some privacy and you don’t have  issues like with us always being involved in DIY  

Projects this is a really good example about what  we went through in Pennsylvania we would be in the   middle of some DIY projects and when you don’t  have a lot of money sometimes that stuff takes   time it really does and you might have building  materials sitting around for a while just trying  

To do the project at your own pace and back there  we actually had neighbors that reported us to the   township before and then we have the township  on us and they’re like oh you got to get rid of  

This you can’t have these Building Materials in  your yard out here you don’t have to worry about   that and that was something that we definitely  experienced there and we wanted to get away from   we don’t want to have to deal with that prior to  picking Alaska where we were definitely going to  

Go we did consider other states and we were mainly  considering northern states personally I wanted to   get away from the humidity the humidity even in  Pennsylvania was kind of dreaded for me I felt   like I had to hide in the air conditioning during  the summer because if not I just sweat profusely  

And it was disgusting and it was just hot like I  didn’t like that heat here is great like it’s 60   degrees all summer you don’t need air conditioning  in this area I think they do up near Fairbanks I  

Think it does get up to like 90 up there down  here stays pretty cool and that was one big   reason for picking this specific area is it does  stay cool even during the summer I want to say   that we originally started planning on moving  somewhere else we were specifically looking in  

The Rocky Mountain Area like the northern part  like northern Idaho Montana those areas that   was about 10 years ago it was quite a while ago  but when we were getting really serious about it   it’s a shame because back then land there was so  cheap compared to what it is right now that area  

Has really changed with that being said we still  couldn’t afford it even as cheap as the land was   back then we were just not at a good point to  where we could drop everything and go out there  

We weren’t established enough we were pretty young  yet I mean we were in our early 20s and we didn’t   have the savings to be able to do something like  that correctly without like taking out a mortgage  

Yeah I guess that’s and that’s again when I say  I can’t afford something it means that I couldn’t   pay cash and that’s what we were looking to do and  we just couldn’t afford it one thing that I really  

Liked about Alaska is all the opportunities for  hunting and fishing different game and fish than   what we had back on the East coast both of us  grew up fishing and I grew up hunting and even  

Trapping with my father when I was younger and  I think that you get to a point where you kind   of have been able to almost do everything in your  area that you lived in and things start to become  

Monotonous and well at least for me I felt like  I had become monotonous and bored with a lot of   things and it’s nice sometimes to get a change of  scenery and do something different in life while  

You’re still young enough to do it because I feel  like if I waited a little bit longer I might have   a really hard time doing some of those things that  I aspire to do especially out here because it is  

Harder to do things here I mean you get a whole  different change of scenery and a whole different   change of wildlife out here and that gives a lot  of different experiences back in Pennsylvania we   were always into things like snowmobiling or ATVs  dirt bikes I’ve since moved on from them they’re  

Too hard on me not the snowmobiles will probably  eventually get back into snowmobiles but I got   really beat up on the ATVs and the dirt bikes  over the years so that’s why we had moved to side  

By sides it’d always go out on little adventures  just checking out new things going to new places   we’d always go camping with our friends and stuff  and that’s become difficult back in Pennsylvania   in the area we were in a lot of things have become  regulated and instead of it being like a free-for  

All where you just go out riding on public land  or big wide open areas it’s now regulated and it’s   like a membership fee and you’re not allowed  to do this you’re not allowed to camp here and  

Do that so it’s not it took a lot of the fun out  of it it really did and out here it’s still like   that you can still come out here and go camping  on public ground and go riding if you have an ATV  

Four-wheeler snowmobile snow machine side by side  all those things you can take them out and do what   you want to do and go on those Adventures still  here pretty freely I think that a lot of people   take that for granted you can even ride them  on the road here which is definitely unheard  

Of where we came from fortunately we’ve been able  to travel most of the United States over the years   and we’ve seen a lot of different places and when  we traveled here a few years back we fell in love  

With this state we literally drove the entire  highway system and we were looking at properties   for sale we didn’t find what we wanted back then  at that time but we pretty much knew after that  

And we were even here during the winter I I think  that the winter is one of the most beautiful times   to visit here personally winter and summer perfect  but spring time it’s kind of ugly in fall time it’s  

Kind of ugly cuz everything’s dead but if it’s  covered in snow it’s really beautiful or if   it’s all green it’s really beautiful we knew that  we were in love with the state when we visited   here and we started working towards the goal of  getting moved out here which took a bit of time  

I think it took about a year from the time that  we started till the time we actually got here and   it was non-stop cuz we we had to downsize we had  to sell our house we had to prepare our vehicles  

And gather the things that we thought that we  would need out here while there are a lot of   other reasons that we moved here that are smaller  or insignificant reasons we mainly moved here for   the freedom and for the experience it’s a new  experience and so far we love it here back when  

We were looking to move out west and we realized  that we couldn’t really afford it at the time   we started thinking well maybe this is something  that we should do when we retire so that we have  

A retirement income coming in and we can move out  to more of a rural remote area I guess you would   say but the more that we got to thinking about it  over the years we really me personally I worried  

That I wouldn’t be able to do it physically I  know so many people that things changed their   lives like they were injured their health went  bad they had kids things like that like and all  

Three of those things could play a huge part in  being able to come out here and do this or make   it significantly more difficult it would have made  it to the point where we may have had to just buy  

A house that was already built which would have  been very expensive we would have had to take out   a loan out here a property a 2-acre property with  a shed on it I’ve seen go for 150,000 that’s kind  

Of ridiculous I’ve seen Shacks for 300,000 and if  you’re looking at a decent house in Alaska you’re   looking at 500,000 I know that that’s obviously  pretty average these days housing is kind of   crazy we really wanted to get away from having a  mortgage by coming out here or moving in general  

We knew that when we were going to make this big  change it needed to be worth it to give up our   careers and giving up our nice home that we had it  was 2500 square foot home way more than we needed but it was  

Comfortable there and it was a nice house and in  order to give all of that up it had to be worth it   like it had to be a change that was very great I  love it out here this environment is perfect for  

Us it’s really what we were looking for we were  also able to eliminate that mortgage forever we’re   never going to have a mortgage again unless if we  decide there’s an eagle we’re never going to have   that mortgage again out here doing it the way  that we’re doing it building our own home and

Everything it looks like we did get a couple  inches of snow last night yeah I know it’s   springtime in most of the world right now but  it is still definitely winter here it’s been   in the teens at night and during the day  it’s been in the 20s I think this is the  

Warmest day so far it’s like maybe almost  30° now yeah starting to melt the snow a   little bit don’t paying attention to my little  mishap here I may or may not have accidentally   pushed a big Iceberg into the solar panel and  broke it out of the frame so yeah we’re going  

To have to repair this soon it’s not a big  deal it didn’t crack the panel or anything   I just need to flip it around and hold it  up back on on the top but oh well stuff

Happens we went and grabbed some tools so Chris  is going to flip this panel around and get it   put back on Chris already mentioned a bunch of  the reasons why we decided to move to Alaska   but I wanted to point out a couple more reasons  this video is totally unscripted and we’re just  

Speaking from the heart so some things might be a  little out of order or jumbled up one of our big   reasons that we wanted to move here or get out of  the situation we were in in general with having  

A mortgage and having to have two incomes was  really being forced to have two incomes with that   mortgage and we didn’t have time for each other we  worked opposite shifts we saw each other a couple   of hours twice a week that was something that  we really wanted to change we wanted more time  

To spend together we get to see each other every  day which has been really awesome where we decided   to purchase land we don’t have building codes  and that is giving us the ability to build our   own home and we had initially looked into doing  something very similar back in Pennsylvania and we  

Realized that it was just unaffordable and there  was so many regulations and restrictions that we   would have had to pay a contractor to build  our own home and that was just completely out   of a budget for us by coming out here and being  able to buy property cheap we not only eliminated  

That mortgage but we eliminated those high taxes  as well and that’s going to give us the ability   to go down to that single income that gives us  the opportunity to have me be a stay-at-home mom  

When we decide to have children and that is super  important to us as many of you know Child Care is   really expensive and that would have forced both  of us to continue working and paying for child   care and having somebody else raise our children  and that’s just not something that’s acceptable  

To us we want to raise our own children and we  want to homeschool and the homeschooling aspect   here in Alaska is a lot more free than in a lot of  areas there’s a lot more opportunity for different  

Curriculums and that was again very important  to us to be able to have those options for our children. There we go I want to answer a question that we get quite a  bit and probably multiple times on almost every  

Single video and that is why does Chris carry a  gun cuz I’m scared first I want to point out that   both of us do have professional training I’ve had  professional training through my career and Chris   has had professional training as well so we both  fully understand firearm safety the main reason  

That we carry firearms out here is because of  the wildlife there are bears that seasonally   come through our area and some of the other areas  that we travel to there are even more bears here   we’re most likely to see black bears there are  on occasion brown bears but normally they stay  

Out by the spawning areas our biggest threat here  is actually the Moose for the most part the Moose   mind their own business and we have them here all  the time they’re always in the forest here it   seems like you just walk around a corner and  they’re like peeking out behind a tree looking  

At you all the time they stay here constantly  and there’s always new ones coming in and out   of our property as well this is a good example  of why we carry roughly about two weeks ago we  

Had a bull moose that was staying he was just  sleeping on the property and right now with   the snow really deep they love to go in the areas  that we have plowed out or trails that we’ve made  

Because it’s easy to walk and I think they might  be getting a little cranky because of the deep   snow and the long winter and now we’re getting at  the end of the winter they’re just kind of taking  

Out their anger but anyhow for no apparent reason  the bull moose came out of the woods and violently   chased Benelli trying to stomp him with its front  legs luckily benelli’s really fast and he got away  

From it and he ran away from it around the RV and  it couldn’t catch him and I was able to get him   back inside before where there was a real issue  shooting wildlife is a last ditch resort we don’t  

Want to have to go to doing that but I personally  wouldn’t be able to live with myself if there was   a situation where that moose would have been  stomping my wife or stomping my dog and I had  

No way to diffuse it I can’t just run up to the  Moose and punch it we’re not superhumans I just   wouldn’t be able to live with myself knowing that  I didn’t carry a tool that could possibly  

Diffuse that situation from losing my wife or  my dog or even myself you know I can’t outrun   a moose there’s no way they’re fast and a lot  of them are aggressive yeah that bull was very  

Aggressive and he laid about 15 feet from the RV for  hours and hours yeah and you can try and shoo them   away and they don’t care they they’d  assume just stomp you to death then leave mhm  

Yeah so hopefully that clears up a little bit  of the questioning as to why we’re carrying a   firearm it’s not that we live in a war zone like  one comment or just because we want to while  

We’re out here working I mean sometimes it does  get in the way a little bit but it’s that extra   protection that we have in case we’re building  and we’re using power tools and can’t hear a   moose coming up behind us I mean sometimes we’ve  been working out here and we’ll walk around the  

RV and there’s a moose 10 feet from us so it’s just  that extra precaution just in case one does decide   to come running at us exactly where we came from  and here and in a lot of the United States firearm  

Usage and ownership is perfectly legal and normal  and we are firearm enthusiasts we enjoy target   practicing from time to time we do enjoy using  firearms for all types of different hunting and   they do serve that purpose of self-defense  from whatever that threat may be like a moose.

Out .You’re like a tack driver like every bullet is  in the same hole should we go take a look at it yeah oh I only had one off to the side all the   rest all of them were in the  same hole that’s pretty dang good.

Got some silt in there still pretty iced up it’s getting to the point where if the ice is  too high almost to get the jug underneath the water So we’ve mentioned our reasons of why we  moved to Alaska let’s talk about how we got to  

Alaska as Chris already mentioned it took about a  year from the time we came up here initially and   fell in love with Alaska to the time we actually  got moved all the way up here it took a lot of  

Planning a lot of budgeting and just a lot of prep  we downsized quite a bit we looked at our budget I   think five or six times or more just rewriting and  rewriting can we really afford to do this trying  

To determine what we needed to take what we were  getting rid of and as different costs came up or   if things ended up being cheaper versus what we  thought they might be we didn’t initially have  

The RV when we had planned to make the move  up here and we had looked into a couple of   different options on moving up here the first one  was a moving company and the moving companies are   just insanely expensive to move from where we did  up here yeah it was just completely unaffordable  

It would have taken a lot out of our budget  to buy a property here so that was just not   an option for us the next thing we looked at was  taking the ferry from Washington up here with two  

Vehicles and two trailers and with what we were  looking at bringing I think it was going to cost   us roughly $30,000 is what they quoted us I can’t  even remember whatever it was it was obscene and  

We weren’t doing that right right and the worst  part about that was when we had called about 6   months in advance they could not book two large  vehicles on the same ferry so we would have had   to ride in separate vehicles on separate ferries  in two different months I believe one was July  

And one was August and again that just wasn’t  an option for us to come up here two different   months yeah keep in mind the only reason why  we were looking at those options was because   it was during Canada’s covid restrictions which we  didn’t meet all the requirements to come through  

Canada at the time and it was going to be almost  impossible for us to come through without a lot   of hassle so that’s why we were looking into the  alternate methods to try and kind of get around  

Some of that and we weren’t really sure how we  were going to get all of our stuff up here we   only had the truck and the Jeep at the time which  the Jeep can’t really haul anything other than  

Whatever’s inside of it maybe a small trailer but  not enough to really get anything done and we had   the enclosed trailer as well yeah we already had  our enclosed trailer and our dump trailer so we  

Knew we wanted to bring both of those up use the  enclosed trailer as a moving trailer and use the   dump trailer to haul up our equipment and our  side by side the issue was is getting the rest  

Of our stuff up that wouldn’t fit in the enclosed  trailer and that’s when Chris started looking for   box trucks we thought that might be an option for  us we even looked at semi trucks cuz we had that  

Much stuff we ended up having to make a third trip  that wasn’t in the original plans while Chris was   looking at box trucks on Facebook Marketplace  yeah he ended up stumbling upon I guess maybe   a couple weeks into looking stumbling upon two  different RV deals finding a a diesel RV that’s  

In decent usable shape for a decent price was  pretty difficult back at that time might be   easier now I don’t know I don’t haven’t check  the market so when the RV popped up on Facebook  

Marketplace it was an insanely good deal or what  we thought was a really good deal no it was yeah   it was a good deal and we knew that that was going to  be the way we were going to come up here and in  

Temporarily and live comfortably yeah so we ended  up messaging the guy and we drove about 5   and 1/2 hours to go pick it up and we picked it up  for $99,000 did need some work inside but we were  

Able to make it livable and comfortable yeah we  had to do things like put a new roof on it which   we did ourselves we repainted the interior  took up all the old carpet and put in regular   hardwood flooring something that’s more durable  with like having a dog in there and with a lot  

Of foot traffic and with it being 30 years old  Chris had to do some mechanical stuff to it just   to make sure it could make the 5,000 mile trip up  here yeah it had been sitting I mean we drove it  

To 5 and a half hours home no problem but it had  been sitting for quite some time so it did need   some maintenance to make sure that we wouldn’t be  breaking down on that long trip especially running  

It at close to its max combined GVW what we were  hauling inside of it in the basement and behind it   in the trailer it’s almost time to switch my jug  it took us about 4 and 1/2 months to restore the  

RV to the point to where it was livable and then  we took a little bit more time to get all of the   mechanical stuff done with the RV as well once  the weather got nice because I think we bought  

It in like January so there was snow on the  ground it was cold we didn’t want to do any   of that mechanical work until it was warm out we  knew we had plenty of time before we were making  

The move up here yeah we worked on the interior  work during the winter because we could heat the   inside pretty easily it was probably in the 20s  or 30s that winter in Pennsylvania it wasn’t too  

Cold yeah over the next several months we worked  on downsizing our belongings we had had a lot of   stuff that we didn’t necessarily need because we  did have a 2500 square foot house it was full of stuff and  

It was just us two living there I don’t know  why we had so much stuff but it actually was   a big relief to downsize all of that and we had  extra vehicles I had an extra truck that I sold  

Off another old truck similar to what I have extra  trailers to sell off different things like that so   we cashed out our assets that definitely went  part of the ways on helping us get up here and  

Make this change as well as we made some last  minute repairs on our house and put it on the   market which luckily it was a really good time to  sell I’m sure the markets actually went up even  

Higher right now but we were living in that house  for over eight years so we had some good equity in   it and we were able to cash out and use some more  of that money to help us get to where we are now  

And make this change we already had a lot of the  things that we brought here but we did go ahead   and start planning ahead and buying some of the  things that we knew we would need here that were  

Very expensive to buy up here versus back East  so we could bring that stuff with us and have   it right away because that’s the other thing is  some things up here take a while to get it seems  

Like everything just takes time up here compared  to down there or it’s hard to expensive yeah if   you can’t buy it used which we try and buy stuff  used as much as we can our skid loaders of 1995  

We bought it used 10 years ago the RV is a 1993 we  bought bought it used for dirt cheap your truck’s   a 97 my truck is a 97 it’s rotted out it’s 500,000  miles on it and it’s old that was a sacrifice we  

Had to make to get where we are cuz we aren’t  rich we just worked blue collar jobs ever since   we’ve gotten out of high school essentially I  mean she went to college you didn’t really talk  

About that but she did go to college so she has a  college degree and her degree did help in some of   you know I guess your endeavors for work we’re  not retired or anything anything so that entire  

Time we were just hustling to get what we needed  essentially I think something that’s really helped   us out here is that we were already doing a lot  of things back in Pennsylvania that we’re going   to be doing here anyways we lived on a gravel  road that we had to self-maintain so we had  

The equipment for that we had to plow ourselves  out in the winter so we already had all the snow   moving equipment for doing that we had the skid  loader for moving firewood because we split and   burned our firewood almost every year I mean we  had a lot milder winners in Pennsylvania and some  

Of these last few winners we almost didn’t even  need any firewood hardly because it was so warm   but I’d say back when we first bought our house  we were going through a lot of firewood because  

It was so cold we also grew up doing that just  to save money because we didn’t grow up rich or   anything and that was one of the ways that our  family saved money was by burning firewood cuz  

We could get the wood for free and if you have  a truck and trailer and a chainsaw you can get   it for pretty cheap just your fuel to go get it  we sold our house in August of 2022 and we stayed  

With family until we got everything prepped and  ready to go by the end of September of that same   year we started making our trip up here yeah and  we initially wanted to get here in like 7 days we  

Really wanted to kind of book it and get up here  we didn’t want to be traveling on the road with   all of our stuff for that long we were running  both vehicles very close to the maximum GVW of  

What they should have been carrying and we didn’t  want to have any issues you can burn up axles and   stuff pretty easily when running that heavy we  were prepared with like brand new tires and things  

Like that so that we wouldn’t have as many issues  and a couple of times throughout the first couple   days we had little mishaps here and there we had  an awning blowoff because like 70 mph winds and  

Then we had more winds later on that tried to blow  open the rest of our awnings we had to stop and   shot those down but as we’re about halfway across  the country Canada advised that they were lifting  

Their covid restrictions that was a big relief  for us because one we weren’t sure how we were   going to fit a 40 foot RV with a 20 foot trailer in a  Walgreens parking lot to get tested for covid oh  

Yeah and finding a place where we could go with  both of those big vehicles and all of our stuff   basically our whole life with us was going to pose  as something a little difficult yeah they wanted  

You to have hotels planned out and all that it was  a lot of crazy stuff we did have a lease agreement   which would allow us through but it was mainly  all the covid testing and stuff we were trying  

To avoid that and the arrive can app which it  could have been done we ended up deciding to   take a couple of extra days and just do a bunch  of short days and I’m glad we got to do that we  

Took our time and my dad drove up and stopped in  Montana to see us and spend the day with us while   we were up there before we crossed the border we  did have a minor breakdown in Montana we had an  

Equalizer break on the dump trailer I did forget  about that you were welding in the parking lot in   the rain yeah we just pulled out a welder and we  started the generator on the RV and welded it back  

Together and kept on going just got to roll with  the punches yep that’s the I I would rather have   a breakdown like that there could be a lot worse  things happening that’s for sure and then we got  

To the border which Crossing was super quick and  easy I mean we were at with the Border agent for   2 minutes yeah Crossing I went inside and declared  our fire arms which probably took maybe a half an  

Hour and then we were on our way they never even  looked at anything we had which we were shocked   because we had a lot of stuff we had most of our  life belongings that we had left with us mhm that

Yeah with Canada lifting the restrictions too  that gave us more time to be able to get from   border to border and we were a little anxious  about doing that at first because I think it  

Was like a 3 or 4 day limit to rush through  the country and get back into Alaska yeah and   driving as big of equipment as we were through the  mountains at that point we were a little yeah we  

Weren’t sure how long it was going to take we  were able to take our time and get here safely   through Canada and we stopped in to for the night  and then because of all of the frost heaves and   potholes that are completely unavoidable next is  throughout the Alan and from the Canadian border  

To to you’re were doing like 20 or 30 with the RV  the RV was the problem because it was so long with   a with also a 20 foot Trailer Plus a 5 foot tongue  on that trailer right it was ridiculous the frost heaves

Pivoting at the trailer and yeah it ended up from  all of that constant motion of heaving it ended up   starting to crack the welds on the hitch receiver  of the trailer and we did stop and weld that back  

Together just in case cuz I don’t think it would  have fell off but it was starting to track and   I was like you know what let’s just take care of  this now cuz I don’t know what condition the roads  

Are between to and Anchorage at that point it had  been like a year since we had driven them after   Chris got that all welded back together we were  able to finally make it to Anchorage we do have  

Family up in Anchorage and so we were able to rent  a room from them and keep all of our belongings   there while we continued our search for properties  which that was a big thing when we were trying to  

Purchase land while still living in Pennsylvania  it was very hard because we were narrowed down to   a specific area here in kenai that we wanted  to buy and a few properties that we were very   interested in popped up but they would sell very  quickly and it was probably because the price was  

Right and you could tell it was clearly good land  it wasn’t a swamp living in Anchorage gave us the   ability to continue our search and we’re really  grateful that we had a place to stay and a place  

To keep all of our stuff yeah yeah in the meantime  that was really awesome plus it just so happens   that it’s my best friend that we were staying with  so that was a good experience because you know who  

Doesn’t want to hang out with their best friend I  think our official date in Anchorage was October   6 and we came down here on the peninsula within  3 or 4 days to look for properties and we found  

This one which was not the first choice on our  list no we actually looked at this property that   we bought online and they didn’t do a good job of  advertising it probably that was good in our favor  

Because the proper itself was great but all they  advertised was the falling down Shack that was on   the property in the ad I would say wouldn’t you  mhm yeah so it we seen that and we were like oh  

My gosh look at that place it looks terrible and  they were asking way too much they were asking   over double what we paid for it and that was  why we had kind of eliminated it but we ended  

Up looking at almost close to 40 properties after  we got here oh well we tried to look at around 40   I would say some of them we couldn’t even find  the properties up here are kind of strange they  

Like list them and they’re not where they say they  are or you can’t find them and a lot of what we   thought was good land in pictures was pure swamp  yeah you get out there and you try and walk onto  

The property and it’s a foot of water during  that property search while we were down here I   think we came back to this property three times  after we made the trip back up to Anchorage we  

Kind of sat on it for about a week deciding what  we wanted to do and then we decided to pull the   trigger and put an offer in on this property so we  called a realtor and they wrote up an offer for us  

And in about 6 hours is yeah they actually took it  right away maybe we should have even offered them   less after a long ordeal with paperwork we finally  settled on this property in December of 2022 and  

We took our first trip here as property owners in  January to kind of scope out the property and just   kind of see what was going on around here we had  already walked the prop property when we looked  

At it but we really wanted to get a good idea now  that it was ours of what we needed to do to get   all of our stuff here fast forward to February I  made the decision that I was going to go by myself  

Back down to Pennsylvania and purchase another  trailer to bring the remainder of our belongings   back up like Katie’s Jeep and everything I mean  our Sawmill was down there and a bunch of other   belongings that were heavy that we created up  on the trailer so I started heading down there  

And I had very unfortunate luck on my way down  there in where was I what part of Canada oh you   were in Calgary right yeah in Calgary Canada my  pickup truck encountered an issue which slowed  

Me down a bit luckily it didn’t stop me it has  a manual transmission and the fifth gear in the   transmission it rides on like a cluster shaft  I’m not sure what exactly the shaft’s called I   can’t remember the perfect name for It Whatever  the technical name is but anyways it completely  

Sheared the shaft off and fifth gear just  dropped to the bottom of the transmission   and it was while I was cruising down the road at  65-70 and I was like oh wow what just happened and  

Luckily I went for fourth gear and it was still  there I was like thank goodness I’m still moving   this is a really bad place only halfway back to  Pennsylvania so I ran all the way from Calgary  

Canada back to Pennsylvania doing about 58 miles per hour  in fourth gear that was that was terrible it felt   like it drug on forever but it still only took  you like six days to get back yeah I got back  

To Pennsylvania I covered those almost 5,000  miles in about 6 and a half days and I was still   sleeping at night I would just sleep in my truck  I actually had a little bed in there that I took  

The passenger seat out and I made a bed platform  in the passenger side to sleep in once I got to   Pennsylvania then I had to pull my transmission  out rebuild it put it back in on top of having  

The flu yeah and also got the flu terrible timing  so I was sick for like a week so anyways after   getting everything packed and getting everything  repaired headed back up the road and I actually  

Had a co-pilot on my way back up which was kind  of nice my grandfather came back up with me on   that trip that was awesome I think he had a good  time I don’t know he I was giving him long driving  

Days I think that I don’t remember how fast did we  get back in six days it was like six or seven days   yeah I think that we got back here in six days so  we were running pretty long days it was it was a  

Lot of driving in short time but you were gone  for a month total yeah I was almost gone for a   month because of getting the flu and repairs and  just getting packed in general and securing a new  

Trailer that took a little bit of time because  I was trying to find a used trailer there was   just none on the market that weren’t any cheaper  than uh new price at the time unfortunately people  

Didn’t have the titles for him so once he got back  to Anchorage that same day we started digging out   all of our stuff Anchorage had a lot of snow  few days to get everything dug out and hooked  

Up tra to trailers and trailers pulled out that  was that was a lot of work but the reason that   we wanted to do that and come during the winter  and not once all the snow melted is because the  

RV was 40,000 pounds and then without the trailer  without the trailer and we needed to make sure   that our trail coming back into the property was  still ice covered so that way we didn’t just sink  

In the mud if you saw our our mud season video  that’s what the trail looked like all all spring   and it we wouldn’t have been able to get the RV  back here yeah we had to get our stuff into the  

Property while it was frozen for sure if we had  waited until it thawed we would have not gotten in   here it would have been a massive amount of  winching and I still don’t we’ probably had  

To hire a bulldozer to drag us in or something it  would have been ridiculous yeah so I guess uh we   got here and luck have it it had snowed another  2 and half 3 feet so we had to dig the entire  

Driveway out again since the time that  we had been here in January when we snow blowed it   out luckily we had the skid loader this time and  we were able to bucket snow yeah we brought the  

Skid loader that time we couldn’t bring the skid  loader the first time cuz it was buried almost 6   feet of snow probably it was insane in the back of  my friend’s lot where we couldn’t get to it that’s  

About where we started with our videos which was  about a week or two after we got here and we were   still removing snow for days oh we were trapped  we didn’t have anywhere to put the snow because we  

Were just surrounded by trees and we were finding  stumps and we couldn’t get the snow very far away   from us and it was just so much there you go  you keep inching forward and your head keeps  

Getting cut off oh sorry you’re good so that’s  pretty much the basic story of how we got up here. last one yep for today so this is uh definitely the most dreaded part  of living out here in the winter is moving all  

This water like this six gallons at a time so  that we can have warm water for showers and do   our dishes and wash laundry but it’s worth it  I mean without doing it you kind of living like you’re homeless and it’s really demoralizing  not being able to get a shower or having to  

Drive you know if you have to drive into town to  get a shower or something that’s a lot of extra   time for us so this is well worth it it’s just  a lot of work I’m going to have to estimate how  

Many gallons I’ve actually had to carry this  winter I mean it’s been it’s been a lot of water there’s a penny in that dirt no way what are  the chances that’s so weird I don’t know you’re   probably wondering where we’ve been so back at  the beginning of February I had to travel back  

East I had a death in my family so I went back  and visited with family for about a week and   when I came back I ended up getting the flu and  so then that put me out about another week but  

Just as I started to feel better Chris then got  the flu and was out for about a week so right   there that was a little over three weeks of time  that we just weren’t recording we didn’t feel up  

To recording and we really just wanted to take  the time for me to spend time with my family and   for Chris and I both to just get better and back  on our feet yeah and on top of that we also found  

Out recently that I probably should technically  have a hip replacement because I’ve been having   an issue with my nerves becoming pinched off and  I get basically incapacitated I guess you could   say essentially where I can’t do a whole lot  and luckily now they have me on some medication  

To help with that and it’s bringing the infl  inflammation down I’m getting more back into my   normal routine and back to normal I’m still having  some issues with it like major pains at night when  

I’m trying to sleep I just can’t sleep because of  that going on so that kind of brought us to a halt   a little bit as well with getting big projects  done because we really wanted him to get better  

And rest up enough to be able to walk around yeah  it is still winter here and it’s been winter ever   since then to October it’s been snowy frozen  ground short days in the beginning of winter   are terrible like you it’s hard to record almost  anything because it’s dark constantly and we found  

That we couldn’t get our cameras to really show  up you can probably see in our last couple videos   at the end of fall our cameras really don’t pick  up the light enough to show anything the pictures   look terrible it just looks like dark even though  it’s not actually completely dark it’s because  

It’s dim all day and then we had other times where  we would be prepared to get a project started and   get out there and start recording and we’d wake  up to 8 inches of snow and by the time we cleared it  

All to start our project it was dark outside yeah  it’s nice and snowy unfortunately that’s kind of   slowed progress just a little bit as well we have  a lot of temporary things in place here but we’re  

Still really unestablished it’s not like we have  an indoor work space to go and work in and we also   don’t have all of the equipment that we need to  do everything that you can do here in the winter I  

Mean we’re getting there but it takes time unless  if you have a lot of money it takes time for sure   on top of that we did back in those beginning of  winter we were working on a lot of projects that  

Are our personal interests I guess you could say  that just didn’t really pertain to the channel or   we also recorded a few videos that we just didn’t  think fit our Channel and we were like you know  

What we’re not going to put these out because  it’s just I don’t know we just didn’t it didn’t   the content just didn’t seem interesting enough  for us to release to be honest so we didn’t put   it out there and that actually happened several  times unfortunately because this is our first  

Year here too we’ve tried to spend some of this  winter just really seeing some different things   and enjoying ourselves yeah and sometimes that  means an incredible amount of time just filming   wildlife and searching for wildlife and and  we really enjoy that sometimes just enjoying  

Life unfortunately means keeping the camera off  sometimes yeah that is one unfortunate thing about   making YouTube videos is it does kind of take  away from the experience a little bit it takes   a lot of extra steps to record what’s going  on and plan everything out to where you can  

Actually capture it on camera it’s it does take  away from it a little bit not that we don’t enjoy   doing it when we do it but I don’t know where I’m  going with that I guess I’m rambling we just kind  

Of wanted to enjoy life off camera a little bit  as well yeah exactly so that being said with our   channel we’re not really looking to make weekly  vlogs we want to capture projects that we’re doing  

Or experiences that we are having but we want  it is interesting for you guys as well we don’t   want to just try and capture every moment of our  life because kind of like today with our chores  

Around the the property I mean that’s kind of an  every other day every couple day occurrence yeah   and that’s not interesting to for the film yeah we  don’t all the time we’re not passionate about just  

Showing like everyday chores we are normal people  just like everyone else and a lot of that stuff is   just boring to us yeah to us it is anyways but  if we have anything that’s interesting we will  

Definitely record it and put it out and we have  a lot of ideas of things that we want to do but   the weather’s been pretty prohibitive on a lot  of that we really enjoy doing videos about what   projects we’re working on and what experiences  we’re having say we’re out fishing or hiking or  

You know whatever but this video in particular  we’re not going to do a lot of videos like this   where we’re just talking the whole video that’s  not very interesting to us but there were a lot  

Of questions that we’ve been getting that we feel  that we just really needed to answer yeah we we   answer almost anybody’s questions in the comments  it’s hard to answer everything that we just went   over in yeah in a comment section exactly and  that isn’t even all of it like there is there’s  

Actually even more to the story and we’re going to  get into that in our next video I believe where we   talk about why we decided to move off grid and  that is a big part of why we’re here right now  

It’s a whole another story on its own and we’re  also going to do a little bit of talking about how   it’s went living off grid and a cost breakdown  yeah a little bit of a cost breakdown so that  

People know what it costs to do what we’re doing  roughly cuz we’ve had a lot of questions about   that like people have been wondering you know  they’re like how much do you run your generator   in the winter when there’s no solar and that’s  an awesome question because usually you don’t  

Ever hear people talk about that kind of stuff  while we don’t intend to make a Q&A video that’s   not quite something that’s interesting for us to  make we do want to answer any questions that you   might have regarding living off grid or living  off grid specifically in Alaska that maybe we  

Can answer in that next video it look like your  seeds are on top no those aren’t my seeds oh oh   that one might be at fall fell off my finger but  this one is not as you can see we are planting  

Tomatoes right now we already have some onions  started and that’s because spring is just around   the corner which means a lot of our projects can  start picking back up again and keep in mind when   we make these videos all of our projects that  we’ve done up to this point have been really big  

Projects and they’ve taken roughly two weeks or  more to complete those projects for most videos   yeah yep and we condense them down to almost just  20 minute videos so we will be getting back into  

The swing of that when spring picks back up  and we have a lot more that we can work on oh   yeah absolutely in the meantime I hope that we  answered all of your questions and you enjoyed  

Learning a little bit more about us we will see  you in the next video thank you for watching I   think pick these up and tap them tap them I know  you were talking about cuz there’s a little dirt  

That can go in here so you want me so see how  like where my dirt is the tomatoes are going   to be transplanted pretty quickly into those 4 in pots. pots okay sit sit sit you’re facing the wrong way buddy oh my look at how bad he’s

Shaking thank God the birds are  there it’s like causing them   to look that way you’re gonna kill  them Birds you’re gonna kill them oh

Our most requested video! When we began our YouTube journey, we hopped right into projects, never really introducing ourselves or explaining why or how we moved. We are Katie and Chris and this is our story.

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-Katie & Chris

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