Susie's AlaskaMen magazine looking for some real Alaska men

VICTORIA BARBER

June 19, 2008 at 10:19AM AKST

Susie’s AlaskaMen magazine, a homegrown publication that’s won worldwide renown with single girls who have a thing for the rugged type, is calling out for more men from rural Alaska to feature in its 2009 issue.

The magazine has been helping lonely bachelors find love since 1987, when publisher Susie Carter asked the people of Alaska to nominate their single sons, brothers, coworkers and buddies.

Out of their stories and photos, she created a publication that’s half lonely hearts for the last frontier, half magazine matchmaker. It features men who are “husband material,” single and looking for a long-term relationship or marriage, but suffering from a famously unfavorable male-to-female ratio.

Since then, the magazine as won a measure of global fame, showcased on Oprah and in Life magazine, inspiring the ABC romantic series “Men in Trees” and drawing letters from women the world over — everywhere from Berlin to Japan and Brazil — who think they might be just the lady for one of the men featured on the magazine.

One peek and it’s easy to see why. AlaskaMen trades in the fantasy of rugged masculinity that’s headlined many a romance novel since the West was won.

“Every time I get interviewed on TV shows or media, what people picture is someone from the rural areas, that down-to-earth guy that is working doing what he loves,” said Susie Carter, the magazine’s founder, publisher, editor and writer. “Women with men ... there is always a fantasy, it’s just the romance of it.”

It’s an image that Carter says has inspired hundreds of real-life romances. However, many of the women who write in hopes of a frontier-style storybook ending find the reality behind plaid-bedecked fantasy to be a little more metropolitan than they expected.

Carter estimates that about 75 percent of the men in the magazine are from the Anchorage bowl, a community of more than 280,000 residents with all the fast-food chains, highways and strip malls of Anytown, USA.

But Carter is hoping to change that for the 2009 issue of AlaskaMen. This issue she is calling out for nominations from Alaska’s wild places — towns such as Dutch Harbor, Barrow, Bethel and Dillingham.

In these communities reside exactly the kind of men that women subscribers are looking to get acquainted with. Carter said that Dutch Harbor, in particular, has generated a lot of interest amongst women drawn to the daring crab fisherman of “Deadliest Catch.”

But Carter said that nominations from these areas are few and far between, and there is little representation in the magazine as a result.

“It’s harder to get to these areas and get the word out ... . And I’ve done radio interviews in (rural Alaska) studios with dirt floors,” Carter said. “I can’t do anything unless people are willing to help nominate.”

All the men in AlaskaMen are nominated, either by themselves or someone they know.

Most of them are in fact nominated by the mothers — “and mothers are the ones who can tell you everything you need to know about a man,” Carter said.

Children are the second most likely nominators, and companies have also been known to nominate and sponsor all their bachelors in one go.

If the men agree to be featured in the magazine, Carter interviews them and writes up a short biography. The men send in photos of themselves based on certain guidelines.

“I tell them no bare chests and no sunglasses,” said Carter, who said she often feels like a protective mother or grandmother of the men she sets up.

If a woman subscriber wants to know more, she can write to Carter, who will pass along the correspondence. Contact information for the Alaska men are only provided by the men themselves if they choose to reply.

Men of all different types and ages have played a part in the magazine’s history, including some local celebrities. John Tracy, news anchor at KTUU Channel 2 News, Jim Patton, promoter of Thursday Night at the Fights in Anchorage, Mark Begich, mayor of Anchorage and candidate for U.S. Senate, and the Alaska Aces hockey team have all been featured.

Carter said that she thinks that showcasing rural men can help draw new people into remote communities.

“So if people see it and think it can help their friend, then it’s like, ‘Hey — come to our community, we have great guys here,’” Carter said. “The buddies (of the nominees) will sometimes laugh at them at first ... but when the guys start getting letters and maybe find a wife, it’s a whole other story.”

To find out more about Susie’s AlaskaMen Magazine or to nominate a real Alaska man, visit www.alaskamen-online.com.

Victoria Barber can be reached at (907) 348-2424 or toll free at (800) 770-9830, ext. 424.