Searching for Single Men? An Alaskan Connection Could Lead You to Gold

Whenever women friends start complaining about the dearth of available single men in the urban centers where they live, I tell them to travel to Alaska.

I’ve been there three times in the past five years and am always struck by the number of friendly, attractive and apparently unattached men roaming the state. Men in Alaska seem to be as plentiful as sheep in New Zealand, many drawn to work on the 800-mile oil pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez. The pipeline was finished in 1977, but men--many of them single--continued to come to the state.

That’s where AlaskaMen comes in. This bimonthly magazine features pictures and descriptions of guys from the far north seeking mates. Susie Carter Smutz, a Laguna Beach native who lives in Anchorage, founded the matchmaking magazine 13 years ago, when there were still slightly more men in the state than women. In 1980, 52% of state residents were male, though the population is split almost equally between the sexes now, according to the Alaska Department of Labor. It never seems that way to me in Anchorage or Juneau, and when it comes to remote spots like Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands, men substantially outnumber women. In such places, work stops if men see a woman, Smutz says. And if the woman is wearing a dress and heels, the guys quit work for the rest of the day, she jokes.

Since the magazine started, Smutz claims it has helped three to five couples get together per issue, which may not mean wedding bells but does mean that the happy fellows write AlaskaMen to say they’re taken.

Women who find appealing men by perusing AlaskaMen magazine send them letters and pictures in care of the publication or call the AlaskaMen hotline to leave a voice message, striking up long-distance relationships, some of which have resulted in trips to Alaska.

It’s enough to set a single woman’s northern lights glimmering. But before you send in your $49.95 for a year’s subscription, note that most of the men are average Joes. Smutz calls them “moose cake,” not “beefcake,” because the snapshots they submit show them in parkas and rubber boots, currying horses, catching fish and riding snowmobiles. Photo captions contain such quotes as: “When people need help, I am there for them,” and “I am a person with a lot of get up and go.”

The pictures reveal details you’d never find in GQ: bald pates, long stringy beards, potbellies and myopic squints.

“They’re just nice working guys who don’t know where or how to meet a girl,” says Smutz, a mother of nine who is known affectionately as “Mom” among the guys of AlaskaMen. She landed in Alaska 15 years ago, when her then-husband went there for a job in the petroleum industry. While she was working at an Anchorage day care center, single dads deluged her with requests to set them up, which led to the founding of the magazine. Smutz’s father even found a mate by appearing in AlaskaMen, as did her ex-husband. Recently remarried to a computer consultant she met in the office, she’s a firm believer in love at first sight, but she’s also a realist.

Family and friends nominate men for the magazine. Smutz then interviews the nominees, who sign a release guaranteeing they’re single. “I want men who are really interested in meeting a mate, and tell them to start thinking about what they’re looking for in a woman,” she says. Occasionally she runs across a married man, which is, of course, a definite disqualification.

Smutz, who has also taken prospective mates to conferences and country fairs in the Lower 48 (she calls this “AlaskaMen takeout”), thinks her approach to matchmaking is safe for women and reaffirming for men. “A lot of [the men] have been kicked in the teeth a few times and think they’re a loss,” she says.

But when the men appear in the magazine, they usually get letters. One man who found the woman he eventually married via AlaskaMen was so overjoyed when he got his first letter from her that he told Smutz, “She saw my picture and still wants to write to me!”

Among the matches, there’s been at least one annulment, and Smutz warns women who are thinking about contacting men featured in AlaskaMen to be careful. Among the tips published in the magazine: “Use common sense when giving out information” and “Don’t send money, credit-card information or airline tickets to the men.”

But when it comes to forming a relationship with a man from Alaska, something more than common sense may be called for, as an adage often repeated by Alaskan women suggests: “The odds are good, but the goods are odd.”

Smutz rejects this. “I’ve met strange guys in lots of other places,” she says. “That kind is always right in your face.” Real Alaska guys, on the other hand, are independent and courteous, Smutz says, adding, “They run to open doors for me up here.”

Would a self-respecting woman opt to become a virtual mail-order bride in Alaska? Perhaps.

On a visit to Fairbanks several years ago, I met one of the sort of Alaska men Smutz is talking about. He was the divorced owner and builder of the log lodge where I was staying, and the stuff of fantasies--handsome, smart and looking for a “female business partner,” he told me. I never figured out exactly what he meant because I didn’t take him up on the offer. But you have to love a state that has available men like him and scenery that’s attractive too.

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AlaskaMen, 205 E. Dimond Blvd., Suite 522, Anchorage, AK 99515; telephone (907) 522-1492, fax (907) 344-1493, Internet https://www.alaskamen.com.