Average Joe or Jill can't afford Alaska's Big Wild Life

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Big Wild Life (if you can afford it)

That ought to be the subtext for the new marketing campaign for Anchorage.

Bear-viewing at Wolverine Creek. Flightseeing. King salmon fishing at what appears to be Clear Creek. Rafting the Sixmile Creek thrill ride. Four-wheeling the Knik River Valley. Watching glaciers calve from the deck of the tour boat Klondike Express in Prince William Sound.

"It's all in a day's work."

Or so the advertising claims.

Don't get me wrong. I sort of like the ads.

They make me feel warm all over, giving precedence as they do to Alaska over Los Anchorage.

And I think it's cool that all the activities featured in the new marketing campaign are accessible from this city.

But isn't it all just a little disingenuous?

You can fly direct from here to Maui too. So why isn't some sunbathing on the beach featured?

Yes, the adds do capture many of the many of the attractions to be found in or adjacent to the city:

Skiing on the city's excellent nordic trails.

Snowboarding at the Alyeska Resort.

Mountain biking and hiking in Chugach State Park.

These are things the average Anchorage resident can do in a day without spending an entire week's pay, but then comes a leap that goes not just from coach to first class, but from coach to a private jet.

Personally, I just wish I could afford all the equipment featured in that Big Wild Life: Snowmachines (which one might note are largely illegal to ride anywhere in Anchorage), four-wheelers, that jet boat for waterskiing in Cook Inlet (something we all do), river rafts, kayaks, single-engine airplanes, mountain bikes, not to mention the various paraphernalia — dry suits, climbing gear, parkas, etc. — that go with each of these activities.

If you live here, it gets pricey fast.

Trust me, I've got an overstuffed gear room, and I shudder to think how much money has gone into filling it over the years.

And I've tried to avoid a lot of the big-ticket items, even unloaded a few — like the jet boat — in recent years because they were eating up too much time and money with required maintenance.

Call it the Big Expensive Life, with too few hours in the week even to take care of all the equipment unless you can afford to farm out the maintenance, which just adds to the cost.

Then again, I guess that if you're going to develop a scheme to try to attract people to the city, you might as well target those with money.

FedEx pilots do tend to buy big, pricey homes that contribute more to the tax base than do the residences of your average Wal-Mart employee.

That is not meant in any way to belittle the hard-working people at Wal-Mart.

It is simply a statement of the economic realities of who can, and who cannot, afford the Big Wild Life.

If someone wants to rent that life for a week or two, of course, that's a different matter.

That's why credit cards were invented.

You go on vacation to someplace cool like the Alaska (oops, Anchorage) featured in Big Wild Life.

You have fun. You spend your time charging things up. You go home, and you work for months to pay off the bills.

If people want to come to Alaska and do that, I'm all for it.

I just hope no middle-class folk decide to pack up and move here thinking that they're going to get the life featured in Big Wild Life.

Bits and pieces of it, certainly.

But the totality is a lot more the dream-vision of Anchorage than a nitty-gritty reality of the $5-per-visit parking fee admission at the Glen Alps entrance to Chugach State Park, the shoulder-to-shoulder king salmon fishing in Ship Creek, or gangs shooting it out at the Dimond Mall.

Take that from a guy who tries hard to live the Big Wild Life every day.

In fact, I'm going to stop right here now and go ski — cross-country style.

The skiing is right out the door, and it is one of those things accurately depicted in the advertising.

Nordic skiing has a nice, long season in Anchorage.

There are hardly every any crowds. And the costs are comparatively low.

Why, for what you would spend for one day at Wolverine Creek lounging in a boat watching that brown bear featured in the advertisement, you can buy a pair of skate skis to use the whole winter.

This will provide about seven months of skiing as compared to those three months when you can enjoy all the summertime activities — if you don't mind crowds — and the two months when you can hope to get a chance to enjoy something, anything, if the weather will just cooperate.

Will the slush actually be shallow enough to allow a mountain bike ride, or will the snow get deep enough to ski?

I like Anchorage. There's no place in America I'd rather live. But I'm not sure it's quite as nice as it's made out to be by the marketers.

Then again, journalism is supposed to be a reality-based business, and marketing is a fantasy-based business. So maybe it's just me.

After all, whether you like the slogan Big Wild Life or not, I don't think anyone can deny the fantasy featured in the marketing is pretty dang sweet.