What a truck has to say about the place and the person who drives it
When living in Columbia, Missouri, I observed that there were two types of truck owners. The suburbanites who, for some odd reason, had to drive a truck. Then there were the people who made their living using the truck as a tool. The former washed their vehicle religiously, kept the interior clean, lined the pick-up bed and almost never scratched it. The guy (or girl) who used their truck to do their work usually drove older vehicles, constantly struggled to keep it somewhat clean, eventually succumbing to numerous scratches and dents, and drove the things until the fenders fell off.
Alaskans are not much different. But the place does provide a special meaning to the phrase “Ford tough” or “Like a Rock.” I owned four-wheel drive vehicles throughout my tenure in Alaska. Living up a two hundred foot incline in up to three feet of snow required a special vehicle. While I never owned a truck, I did own several SUVs: Honda Passport, Jeep Cherokee, Isuzu Rodeo and Nissan Pathfinder. None of them were new. The latter three were “Alaskan vehicles.” Let’s just say, would you take your new $45,000 pickup, flip it into four wheel drive, and drive it through three feet of snow on an unmarked road? Would you get upset when limbs started scraping the sides of the car? Would that big pothole send your car to the shop? Would you get uptight if your interior wreaked of a dozen salmon, dressed meat or wet dog?
The Gentleman’s Truck
Before progressing too far on this subject, it must be confessed that there is a subset of owners in Alaska who drive “gentleman” trucks. The phrase was presented to me when I asked a friend if I could borrow his truck to pick up a load of gravel. His reply was “My truck is more of a gentleman’s truck.” I smiled and made no comment. He did have a nice truck and it was relatively expensive. I could understand his reservation of seeing a bucket load of gravel being dropped into his truck bed even though it was lined and I was adding a heavy-duty tarp (easier to pull out the gravel).
But it must be qualified. Even this gentleman was still an Alaskan gentleman. This man had his truck for two reasons. First, ease of travel during the snowy days. Second, he needed it to put his boat into the water and pull it out again. That, in Juneau, is a big deal! Folks don’t ride around in bass boats around here. Already, at this juncture, his idea of a truck was a bit more on the tough side than how people treat nice trucks in the lower 48.
Then there was the other gentleman I knew. It was sort of like Caddyshack when he pulled up with his oversized pickup truck to pick up a load of furniture. Equipped with large tires and high-clearance suspension, it had automatic running boards! He kept it meticulously clean. Yet his truck was designed for a third reason — he had a hillside lot along the coast. Getting in and out of that driveway in winter was one thing. But the snow plow he mounted on the front was another thing. Expensive truck? Yes. But still a working man’s truck.
The Typical Truck
The typical Alaskan truck is older, a bit beat up, and highly functional. They are usually four wheel drive, with large tires. It is expected they will be used in adverse conditions. Most will have their moment driving down beach roads, over bedrock and through sandy tidal flats. Many will include come-alongs mounted on their front bumpers so as to pull themselves and others through muddy logging roads. Many will have their day on the ferry or landing craft visiting a remote island where roads are barely more than trails. Their rear bumpers usually have box hitches, with three different size ball sizes in the back, something for every occasion.
Up here, there is no “right to repair” issue. It is “the necessity to repair.” If it can’t be fixed, it makes no sense to have it in Juneau, Alaska. So it was that the poor devils who pulled up to a repair shop to have their Range Rover’s shocks replaced. No deal. The shocks required special software to align with the computerized suspension of the vehicle. They ended up putting the thing on the ferry to Seattle (about a $1000 bill, plus your own travel fee, food and board). Trucks that survive up here are the sort that can be maintained for decades, with parts that are easily obtainable.
Here is a great example. First saw this old thing tucked away in the bushes of this guy’s house. I thought it was derelict, only to realize that is where he normally parked it! He picked me up one time and I had to personally experience a truck that simply would never die. Alas, he had to use a rope to keep the front hood on.
The SUV “Truck”
For some folks, an SUV does not count as a truck. I think in many cases that is true because the term is bandied about a lot. Subaru’s makes SUVs. You see fancy SUVs from Mercedes and BMW. But there are actually real truck-like SUVs. For Alaskans, the SUV has a more bohemian mission. For most folks, it is a tidy place to put their dog (or dogs). Alaskan dogs are probably the luckiest in the world. They have lots of room to run, and folks in Juneau love their dogs. Most are larger. You will frequently see SUVs with cage screens behind the front seats.
I only buy used vehicles. The real challenge is finding a vehicle up here that does not smell “deeply” of dog. Take my Nissan, for example. No doubt, there were dogs in this car. But it was not as bad as others I looked at. My Jeep Cherokee and Isuzu Rodeo both had that signature, faint, dog smell.
But I was not in the dog category. I had two cats sharing space with three humans in a five-level townhouse. No — and SUV had another, distinctly Alaskan, function. It was my storage bin for summer activity. It was here you would find my fly rods, waiters, boots, tackle, bear spray, back pack, three gauges of rain gear, and plastic bags (for the fish). My colleagues would add to that their hunting gear (the guns they kept in the safe). Then there were the winter activities: skis, snowboards, ski boots, and poles.
A car can also show aspects of the previous owner’s history. The Nissan included two robust key marks down the entire length of the car. Rumor had it the owner had an angry ex-wife. The electronics on the car were a mess. It is all those fancy features which get a beating in Alaska. Years in the rugged outdoors, the whistles and bells do not hold up well. Let’s just say the electronic redesign is a bit “creative.”
The critical question a true Alaskan asks is whether the vehicle rolls down the road — in 2-3 feet of snow! As you can see from the photo, this was no problem for me. Feel free to read my article on snow. There were days I came out of the house and really had no time to mess with shoveling the snow, even though there was a two foot burn of ice and snow in front of the car. I simply put it in four wheel drive and road over the thing. The same applied to sidewalks and curbs, often hidden in deep snow. You depend a lot on a truck when you are going down a highway with two feet of snow with no cellphone connection.
I loved my old SUVs. Whether it was my oldest daughter getting a good laugh when we drove over a speed bump at 30 miles an hour, or when I took my next daughter over wilderness roads to get water samples for her science project. It was all a fun adventure.
© Copyright 2026 to Eric Niewoehner