Alaska has always been about money though. It started with furs, then went to gold, then fishing, copper (the Carnegie fortune was made at Kennicott), then logging, then massive influx of federal defense dollars for the cold war build up,  then came oil (which eclipsed them all). My family came here in the late 1940 's and from what I've been told from great aunts , uncles, etc, they cam here for economic opportunity, not to "live at one with nature".