Ever worked & lived in very remote area?

[shootingstar]

Seriously I don't mean just 100 kms. away from a town.

Meaning areas involving remote/isolation pay on top of regular salary.
How long were you there? What was it like? Etc.

Just curious..I've heard some stuff where I am cause there's a small handful who have done it.

[bmccasland]

I lived on a fish hatchery at the end of 9 miles of dirt road on an Indian Reservation in the mountains of Arizona. 5 houses on the hatchery. I actually worked in a lab in town (17 miles away), so it wasn't that isolated. Was either snowed in or snowed out once or twice every winter. The town's economy was based on tourism, so the population would boom in the summer with all the summer-people. Lots of gift shops, not so much praticle things. Got to know the FedEx or UPS delivery man - both for the office and home stuff. On more than one occasion I chased him down, a particular Christmas Eve comes to mind. Since my lab was in town, and I lived on the hatchery, I'd often get the hatchery deliveries in the winter and take them home myself - the FedEx truck wasn't 4WD.

If you needed a specialist (medical) it was down-the-mountain to either Phoenix or Tucson, 4 or 5 hours away. Ditto for airport.

There are certainly more places more isolated, but it qualified. Life is bad if you don't get along with your neighbors, as you're going to have to depend on them for stuff. Ask the neighbors, do without, or run to town....

Living in remote areas is a completely different lifestyle. You have to be self sufficient. If you like going out a lot, want to see the newest movies, or have high maintenance medical issues, then it isn't for you. However, if you can amuse yourself, like a quieter life, think watching hummingbird wars over a cup of coffee in the afternoon is prime entertainment, then go for it!

[tulip]

No. But I actually considered a job in Nunavut. That would have been remote, at least from all I know (like trees). But the job was actually in a town, just a very remote town.

I did work in Alaska on a project, but it was in Juneau and despite what folks in Anchorage say, it's a real city, albeit on the small side.

Do tell--you movin'?

[shootingstar]

Well it was suggested to me recently by a human resource recruiter...it floored me abit... and puzzled me...since my skills set is too advanced for the job role.

And tulip I did go to Nunavut for a job interview. Libraries are found worldwide in all types of areas.. there was actually a shortage of librarians at that time up there.

Obviously I didn't get the job...but it was an experience to remember being up there...including being snowed in during a blizzard at the airport there for over 6 hrs. Winds were clocking at 180 km/hr. and planes could not land at that time..because of the wind. They had to land 200 kms. southwest at another location.

And I went hunting for Inuit literary/books at their general store...stuff outside of the academic/scholary journals and art books. Not much. I'm sure we will see more Inuit publish in Engish with the upcoming generation.

this is only a snippet of what I experienced up there ..

[MomOnBike]

Maybe this isn't as remote as you are thinking, but I used to live 6 dirt-road miles from a very small town in the poor part of Colorado. We were turns, snowed in, mudded in and flooded in.

We made our own electricity, the phone was a pre-cell phone mobile phone (mobile, in this case, meaning that you could carry the thing around in the car if you were willing to forgo trunk space), pumped our own water (by hand when the pump went out) and made much of our own entertainment. It was a good life, but I have a hard time believing now how much work it was. I didn't notice at the time, oddly, that was just what we did.

Does that count? If you have specific questions, feel free to contact me.

We left, BTW, because the school just wasn't challenging our girls enough - and we got tired of being poor.