Is it a requirement in Anchorage for a business permit?

It is stunningly beautiful here, just like all the photos. Since it is May, it is only cool, not frigid (although the wind can bite). After I took my first walk around town and got back, I realized that every store is named after an animal, or has an animal, or both. In fact, the best restaurant I ate at was named Orso, although it did not have a bear out front. So, here are the best of the bears.

necessities in Fairbanks AK

I have been at a fish congress in Anchorage AK this week. The bennies of company-sponsored travel are many. I have made a lot of friends and had interesting conversations all week long. Now Fairbanks, the capitol, is a small town. There is not a lot of snow melt, there is not a lot of municipal water. Evidently there is not water mains to much of the town, so one has to have it trucked in at $0.09 a gallon, store it in tanks with heat wrappers, and bring it into the house with a pump. This makes indoor plumbing a luxury, so many people have outhouses. -40F. Think about it for a few minutes. The 6" foam seat gets hung on the wall so it doesn't freeze to the platform. Nothing decomposes, so you get it pumped out every other year. Everything freezes where it lands, so there is a frozen cone of waste to deal with on a daily basis once there is a small accumulation. I hear they keep big sticks in the buildings. Now I have used outhouses at several relatives' places when I was a kid, and I didn't much care for it then. In Missouri. Where it doesn't get below -15F, and I was probably not even there, then. Count your blessings, anyone?