Alaska has aged a lot. Silver is the new gold.
Governor Tony Knowles felt that if we had one more Prudhoe Bay we'd weather this recession. Alas, the belief that another 27 billion barrel oil seam is hidden somewhere in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is what keeps this retired graveyard whistling fellow upbeat.
Simultaneously eliminating Power Cost Equalization the Cook Inlet Renaissance worked remarkable, Southcentral Alaska enjoys refilled natural gas reserves with utility prices affordable, at the expense to the rest of the state. This trend to keep majority aging populations happy and content may appear cannibalistic to sparsely populated rural Alaska: yielding mass exodus to Mat-Su, Anchorage and Kenai. 
I'm so 907naive and old. As my hearing fails, my geriatric friends jockey for rooms at the senior center and my wife looks more and more like my grandmother, I happily enjoy deafness to the issues facing hardworking folks of Alaska. What recession? 
Home sweet (Pioneer) home.