I spend a lot of time thinking What if?...I insulated the barn house living space and replaced the wood stove. Waterless toilet and prortable thunder mug. The farm house is brick with two brick fireplaces but it has too many windows. When I had a 24ft motor home, I thought of bringing it into the pole building and stacking straw bales all around and on top of it. Your new friends could do that. Facing it towards the south door so on good sunny days, I could get some cheery light if the door would open. But otherwise it would be a truck enveloped in a box of straw. Good insulation but depressing.
A battery-operated heating blanket or pad would be nice too. Check voltage on both, use the one with less voltage. Small propane generator.
Best put lots of insulation in that. Most people I met ,I don't really want to know anymore, but I met some good ones too. just have to understand that time changes and so do people.
The thing is I have a standing marriage proposal from an 80-year-old widower cattle rancher 30 miles northeast of Fairbanks. He has been there for 40 years, still works hard long hours every day, grows a garden and has 100 head of cattle. The thought of mosquitos big as hummingbirds, dark all winter, and the snow, ice, and cold, leave me weighing the situation. His offer that we take our honeymoon on a dogsled trip up to a remote cabin sounded exciting, but those heavy parkas with fur all around the face seem confining and cumbersome. Also, my feet get cold in wool felt-lined snow packs with heavy socks due to Colorado frostbite 50 years ago, so I am leaning toward no, but maybe @Don Alaska can fill me in on some more positive aspects of living there.
When I lived in Bonners Ferry (Idaho) and had only the old trailer house, I did put straw bales all around for insulation, and it did a good job. I only had it around the bottom, not completely like you are suggesting for the RV in Alaska people. I am not sure that they could even get enough straw up there, and if they could, it would be expensive this year most likely. I heard that alfalfa hay is going for up to $500 a ton because of the hay shortage, so if there is a hay shortage, then probably some of the grain didn’t do well either, meaning not as much straw. My dad always went around our house and packed a good snow berm all the way around it, maybe 3 feet high, and that was what we had for insulation for under the house. I did that with my trailer house, too, so there was snow over top of the straw bales, and the RV people could at least have plenty of snow for insulation up there.
Up here in the northwest mountains, one learns quickly how to survive as you did. Using snow that slid off the steep roofs was what I did around my barns. The chickens and goats wintered very nicely. I had one new neighbor when living in the mountains that built a haystack with bales all around and on top of his trailer with only the windows and doors showing. He made a steep metal roof over it and sided the hay walls with a blue tarp. It didn't take much to heat it using electricity. It was so confined that gas would have been dangerous. The biggest drawback was all the mouse and rodent noise he had all winter under the trailer.
I guess we all can figure out what to do with cold conditions eventually but I am not sure the new 'Alaskans' have that much common sense or imagination. Especially if they are starting to lean on people already. My next door neighbors came here from Hawaii. Why? Her family was here and hubby retired from the military. Neither of them could figure out how to get up our slippery driveway after they backed in to turn around. I had to scream at them to stop everything as they were sliding back into our garage door, the more they spun their wheels. I went in got a bucket and put some sand down in their tracks. She was just amazed at how wise I was.
95% of my life has been spent in and near the Rocky Mountains, so I take for granted that people have common sense about cold, ice, and snow, but the older I get, the more I realize good sense is only common to those that have lived in such conditions.
April has been called the "Season of the Sled Dog" as the cold temps have broken and there is good daylight. It is the best time to go camping here, as it isn't real cold, there are no bugs, and the snow under the tent floor provides the best sleep you will ever have if you sleep on the floor. The frostbitten toes might be a reason to avoid it, however, as would taking you honeymoon in January. Most of the people in the small towns and villages are wonderful. Even Fairbanksans I find warm and friendly. All the seasons have something good, although my wife hates spring, as it is is totally mud. The tundra in the fall will rival even the best East Coast leaf display, and, of course, the aurora in the winter makes things brighter. Lots of reasons to live here, @Faye Fox , but thankfully, it isn't for everyone.
Straw is very expensive here compared to the Lower 48. I think I paid around $30 for the last bale I bought. Alfalfa hay is about the same I think, perhaps a bit more, as it gets brought up on a barge from Washington. I am just speaking of the small bales now, as I don't believe either is available in large round or square bales. Large bales are only grass hay that is grown here and is a bit cheaper.
Straw would be expensive, and they would have to build the pole barn.... I think they watched too many of those Alaska shows on TV.
The cool air might actually make it easier for you to breathe in the summer, although I can't recommend more strongly THAT YOU SHOULD QUIT SMOKING....