Cash is an interesting product in rural Alaska and probably in rural northern Canada. Cash is king and not always easy to obtain in the rural villages. When I would be wandering around the state in my Piper Super Cub, which burned about $50 to $80 an hour in aviation gasoline, it was all paid for in cash.So it wasn't too unusual for me to have somewhere in the range of $5,000 cash with me, at the start of a trip.
Many of the rural men, would work summer jobs out of the village, as fire fighters, equipment operators, labors, whatever it took to make a living. So when they returned home in the fall, they brought their summer earning back in cash, no local banks available. But by Thanksgiving time, the money had been handled so much it looked more like a used green kleenex with writing on it, than it did a bill of legal tender. LOL One village where I lived, Koyukuk,350 miles west of Fairbanks,the store keeper was also the post master. So after about the first of the year, when people came in to cash checks, social security or whatever, they got back postal money orders instead of cash. There simply was not cash available. Most people ran a book at the store for groceries, so cash was not used and the book was to be paid up each fall when the folks had cash.
So at times when I was going to fly into Fairbanks for some reason, the store keeper, a good friend of mine, would often make out a check to me to cash for her and bring back for her store use. These checks were often for $20,000 or more. Was a reassuring feeling as I figured if I crashed my plane, more people would be interested in looking for me if they knew I had that kind of cash with me. LOL Postal money orders were used just like cash if cash wasn't available. The were not make out to anyone and just circulated around and around.
Once you get up into northern Canada, you will from time to time find places that don't take credit cards. Many local artists don't accept them and at times, the lodge's card machine is down, they aren't accepting them either, for for fuel, a meal, etc. it is cash or wait till the data line comes back up for the merchant. I have had this happen several times over the years I have been driving to/from Alaska. Also as mentioned by someone, most of the governmental campgrounds don't accept plastic, they want cash only, whether it is a CG with a host collecting the money or one run on the honor system where you fill out the card, attach your money and drop it in the pipe.
Along the US-Canada border, plastic rules on both sides but once you get north, it is a different game. The last time I was at Boya Lake Provincial Park in northern BC, a older guy and his daughter came by selling fire wood at what I thought was a fair price. No way he was set up to accept plastic as payment for his nice dry fire wood. LOL
joe b.
Stuart Florida
Formerly of Colorado and Alaska
2016 Fleetwood Flair 31 B Class A w/bunks
www.picturetrail.com/jbpacooper
Alaska-Colorado and other Trips posted
"Without challenge, adventure is impossible".
