• Home
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Consulting
  • Contact Me
  • Guest Posts
  • Links
  • Photo Gallery
    • North America
      • Alaska
      • Rafting the Grand Canyon
      • Taos Timber Frame
    • Central America
      • Belize
      • Costa Rica
      • El Salvador
      • Guatemala
      • Honduras
      • Mexico
      • Nicaragua
      • Panama

freewheelings.com

Life, Travel and Technology for the Unconventionalist

  • Life
  • Travel
  • Technology

Jobs in Alaska

By Brandon Edward

Share
Stumble
Tweet
Share
Pin
+1

So, you’re headed to Alaska to seek out your fortune, or just get a summer job and explore an absolutely amazing part of the country. Good for you, and good timing, spring is just around the corner and there are a plethora of employment opportunities on the horizon.  I thought I’d take a moment and share an insider’s perspective with my fellow travelers on the job market up here. I have been bouncing around Alaska since the fall with my ear to the ground and here is the long and the short of it:

Jobs with Uncle Sam

Denali National Park
Okay, here’s the deal. Denali is one of the most incredible strips of mountains that you can imagine. Between Anchorage and Fairbanks there is a town that goes by the name of Denali and it’s chalked full of shops, pubs, hotels, guest houses, restaurants and adventure services. Guess what? It’s bone empty right now and the entire thing needs staffed. The best route for this may just be to simply Google the business themselves and find the jobs or employment section of their website. There are many job listings with Career Builder, Cool Works and Jobs.net as well. Also, I hear that most of the hotels and some of the businesses in the park will provide lodging along with your salary. Bonus. And that’s just the town. There are a ton of jobs to be had with the National Park Service itself in Denali. Here is the Denali National Park Jobs site.

The National Park Service Alaska
The National Park Service itself employs over 1,000 people in Alaska alone during its peak summer months. They have seasonal positions for everything from Park Guides to Biological Science Technicians. Check out the full NPS Alaska seasonal job site.

Wildland Firefighting
Now this one’s not for the faint of heart. I don’t think that they actually let the rookies on the front lines and realistically you would probably spend most of your time the first year digging ditches and clearing shrubbery, but you’d be smack in the middle of god’s country doing it. I’ve heard several stories of folks working their way through the University of Alaska on a wildland firefighter’s summer salary. One guy worked his way up to Smoke Jumper by the time he graduated. Here’s am employment search URL of all wildland firefighter jobs in Alaska, if for some reason that doesn’t work the root site is can be found here. That link is also good for trail crew jobs. I’d be lying if I said that this wasn’t on the top of my list.

Field and Research Jobs

I think this is one of the most overlooked fields by travelers and adventure seekers in general. Don’t let the fancy title scare you off. There are full time and seasonal field research jobs out there for people with education levels high school and above, some of which pay living expenses. The best place to start is the University of Alaska’s Job board. Here are some other possible sources for field and research jobs:
Pacific Seabird Group
Polar Jobs
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Labor and Construction

I worked as a laborer for a few weeks in Fairbanks this winter. The scoop is not too good unless you’re in the know. From what I’ve seen, this market looks something like the good old boys network dressed in bunny boots and parkas. However, I have heard stories of carpenters and construction workers landing big buck jobs in Alaska over the summer. They are generally skilled labor and in remote villages, but imagine working 65+ hours a week at $35 an hour with overtime and nowhere to spend the coin. Remember, the sun shines pretty much all the time here and summer is really the only window for construction and it goes pretty much nonstop from May until October. Here’s my advice: First, unless you really know someone, you need to be here. Popping into construction sites may not be as easy in remote Alaska so try one of the big cities first, Anchorage or Fairbanks, grab a job if you can, talk to everyone you can and work it out from there. You are just going to have to meet the right person at the right time. That’s all there is to it.

Oil Rigs

This isn’t my gig, but there’s a ton of money to be make in the oil and gas industry here. Head on over to Google and type in “prudhoe jobs” or “pipeline jobs” if that’s your thing.  Drill baby, drill.

If anyone else had ideas or links I can add to this post to make it more useful, please use the comments sections below.

Related Posts:
Driving to Alaska – 10 Things to Think About

Share
Stumble
Tweet
Share
Pin
+1

Filed Under: Travel, Workin' on the Road Tagged With: Alaska, Working on the Road

About Brandon Edward

Greetings, I am the bar keep of this fine establishment. In the tradition of a good bar keep I want to know what you think about the article you've just read and the service we're providing here at freewheelings. Can't find your particular brand of scotch? Maybe we have it in the back, just ask. Use the comments section below.

Comments

  1. Nadine Bedford says

    September 9, 2010 at 12:36 pm

    Another great site for seasonal work is http://www.alaskatourjobs.com/. It’s from the Princess and Holland America cruise lines, so it has some fun tourism type jobs available.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Stalk Me

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • Linkedin
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • StumbleUpon
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Never Miss a Post


The Best of Freewheelings.com

  • Finding Into the Wild's Magic Bus
  • Motorcycle to South America
  • Alaska Highway by Volkswagen Bus
  • Salmon Fishing in Alaska
  • Hitchhiking Tales
  • Dog Sled Alaska
  • Tales From Mother India

You check out my sponsers and I get to eat, pretty neat right?

Popular Posts

Copan Ruins, HondurasCopan Ruins, Honduras2.2K Total Shares
Converting WordPress to HTTPS (SSL) – AND – Preserving Social Share Button CountsConverting WordPress to HTTPS (SSL) – AND – Preserving Social Share Button Counts1.3K Total Shares
Visiting Into the Wild’s Magic BusVisiting Into the Wild’s Magic Bus612 Total Shares
Freewheelings Five Best Travel Articles on FridayFreewheelings Five Best Travel Articles on Friday429 Total Shares
Ice Alaska, The World Ice Art ChampionshipsIce Alaska, The World Ice Art Championships212 Total Shares
Freewheelings Five Best Travel Articles on FridayFreewheelings Five Best Travel Articles on Friday145 Total Shares
10 Tech Tips For Travelers and Bloggers – How Not to Get Hacked10 Tech Tips For Travelers and Bloggers – How Not to Get Hacked114 Total Shares
Five Days Motorcycling El SalvadorFive Days Motorcycling El Salvador98 Total Shares
I’m Afraid it’s Time For Us to Part Ways94 Total Shares
Lahore to Amritsar – A Humorous Tale of Hitchhiking the Pakistan BorderLahore to Amritsar – A Humorous Tale of Hitchhiking the Pakistan Border93 Total Shares

By Tag

Alaska alaska highway alaska marine highway system ALCAN alternative energy Amritsar Asia Belize biogas digesters blogsherpa Border Crossings climate Cloud Computing cordova Delhi Denali Digital Nomad fairbanks fishing freewheelings5 Funding Gear goldstream kennel Guatemala hitchhiking Honduras Ice Art india into the wild Japan magic bus Marine Highway Mexico Motorcycle Panama Pierre Heritier prince william sound Sled Dogs Taos Timber Framing tokyo usa volkswagen Whitewater Rafting Working on the Road

Connect

  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Contact

  • Email
  • Work With Us

  • Guest Posts
  • Advertising
  • Services

  • Consulting
  • Dive In

  • Life
  • Travel
  • Technology
  • Search Me

    © Copyright 2015 Freewheelings Enterprises, LLC · All Rights Reserved

    Thank you for making freewheelings possible! We couldn’t do it without you. Now you never have to miss a post with email updates. Whaddya say?



     

    ×