Living in Alaska, but driving the lower 48?

I know a retired owner-operator from Fairbanks. He's a real nice guy and was always a frugal spender. Made wise investments and now retired on $10,000.00 a month pension, which includes his social security.
Anyway, he's kicked back in a beach front condo in Vietnam and living the good life. Last time I talked to him he had two live-in girlfriends.
The big plan was for him and his wife to retire to the beach overseas, but she died from cancer a year or so before he could retire.

 

Alaska trucking is VERY MUCH intrastate, for obvious reason, so trucking jobs are essentially are "local", line haul or running the haul road to the north slope oil fields. As far as interstate trucking out of Alaska the primary players are Carlisle Transport and Lynden Transport. There are some Farichild, Interstate and Schneider trucks making the trip and then there are several much smaller outfits and O/Os doing it.

http://www.carlile.biz/
Trucking to Alaska, Freight Service to Alaska | Lynden Transport
Minn-Alaska Transport
14517 Outer Springer
Palmer, AK 99645
Phone: (907) 746-3950

Your odds of landing a local job are much higher than landing an interstate job in Alaska. After I received my CDL in Alaska and applied to many companies outstide of AK a very small % would even respond because of my zip code, even though I made it clear that I was in the process of relocating to within there "hiring area".

Look at he trucks on the road around you for ideas on where to apply. Good luck in your search.

 

Set your freezer to its coldest setting and hop into it a few hours .. what you feel will be warmer than Alaska . What you see (darkness) is what Alaska experiences a big part of the year.. maybe start with a few trips to Fargo ND in January to see if you can even handle the cold before uprooting to move to ALaska . Which is beautiful btw

 

In 1986 I went to Alaska to climb Denali. We started in mid April, colder than the normal start of early May, but with less storms.

The bush pilot service picked us up at the Anchorage airport to drive to Talkeetna, where the bush planes fly out of. As we drove the highway in the middle of the day the temperatures hovered just below freezing. We passed many a Jeep convertible with the top down, invariably driven by someone wearing a short sleeve shirt and no jacket.

We thought we were witnessing Alaska macho. Three weeks later we got off the mountain after enduring temperatures down to -45°F. We wandered around Talkeetna at night with the temperature around freezing, in flip flops, shorts, and a t-shirt. Newly arriving climbers were bundled up in down parkas. We weren't making a statement, we were just ###### HOT in that now relatively balmy weather.

You adapt to cold. Especially your hands and feet "grow" more capillaries per square centimeter to increase blood flow. Hence the flip flops.

 

Well i guess the brilliant thing about it is if you run back into places like ID, MT, UT MN they won't seem so cold then.

 

Sourdough is another company you could look at for working there.

Got a friend who got his CDL and started his driving career there so, it can be done with little to no winter driving experience.

Still friends with some people that either still live there and are in the trucking industry or moved but still have connects. I can’t guarantee anything obviously but if you’re serious about moving I might can put an ear to the ground and see if anyone is looking or would be willing to hire you.

 

Woodys, i have a friend who lives there and shes trucking the lower 48 now. Yall are going to laugh at this, she works for a company out of Chicago , yes white volvos. They have been good to her. So it can be done. Shes headed back to AK in june, renew her cdl

 

Lynden seems to be a pretty good company. I have a couple of ftiends that drive for them.
They say it's hard to get a job there but worth it.