Despite two days of heavy snow in Alaska's largest city with temperatures dropping into the teens at night, the protesters at Occupy Anchorage, an offshoot of the national Occupy Wall Street movement, show little sign of letting up. A few personal tents line the sidewalk of Sixth Avenue, while demonstrators congregate under a larger tent with tarps for walls, gathering around propane heaters.
The Occupy movement has received plenty of publicity -- condemnation and praise. Although the demands of the protesters vary from city to city -- even from protester to protester -- complaints generally revolve around the role money plays in U.S. politics, unequal distribution of wealth, and the growing divide between the "haves" and "have nots."
Protesters assert that 1 percent of the population controls more and more of the country's wealth.
While the Occupy movement continues to draw publicity around the country -- with protestors being injured or arrested in places like Atlanta, New York City and Oakland, Calif. -- the Anchorage protest has been quieter and smaller. Day or night, people walking or driving downtown and passing by Anchorage's Town Square Park have a good chance of seeing people parading up and down the sidewalk, with signs touting "Peace," "We are the 99%," or "1% got bailed out, 99% got sold out."
This isn't to say the protests have been without action. On Saturday, two protesters dressed in hazmat suits dumped a pile of fake money in front of a Wells Fargo bank branch inside the Fifth Avenue Mall and were arrested for trespassing.
Jacob Snyder, who describes himself as a liaison between the protesters and city and police officials, as well as a retired physician, said the Wells Fargo protest was not meant to end in the way it did. "We had not intended for anybody to get arrested," Snyder said. He accused mall security officials of being too rough, adding that the protesters "have a set of nonviolence principles" that they adhere to.
How long protesters are able to hold out in cold-weather U.S. cities has been a subject of debate. On Monday, the Occupy protests in New York City erected 16-foot-square "military-style" tents in Zuccotti Park with the intent of creating a haven for winter occupation. Protests in Boston, New York and Portland, Ore., continue to draw hundreds or thousands of protesters.
In Anchorage, winds whipped protesters downtown, kicking up snow into their two-sided tent, where they remained, sitting in camp chairs and wearing heavy coats. Fewer than 10 protesters were present Monday while others drifted in or out for a few minutes. Still, Snyder said that there has been at least one person protesting 24 hours per day for the last 11 days.
That doesn't mean that Occupy Anchorage isn't feeling the pinch of winter. Snyder said he jokingly suggested to another protester that they go occupy Honolulu instead. Another protester, who asked to be identified only as John, said that the cold wasn't the main impediment to people protesting.
"Most people aren't able to participate because they're worried about maintaining an apartment or job," he said.
Then comes the big question: what are you protesting? What goals do you hope to achieve? "Peace," one protester offered simply. For John's part, he advocates for permaculture, a system of food production that emphasizes sustainability and "using everything you have," he said.
Snyder said that some of the goals of Occupy Anchorage resemble those of the national movement, including promoting small, local banks and credit unions instead of large national financial institutions. This included "Bank Transfer Day," where people on Sunday were encouraged to leave banks like Wells Fargo and Bank of America and join credit unions.
Though it's too early to tell how much impact the event had on large and small bank enrollments, the Credit Union National Association reported 650,000 new enrollments in October. Snyder said that the protesters were working on a list of "good banks and bad banks" that they would recommend patronizing or avoiding.
"Good banks are small ones, local credit unions," Snyder said.
How long will the protest last? No one can say. But with winter here to stay, likely another four or five months -- and protesters thus far hanging on to protest round-the-clock -- it seems like Occupy Anchorage may be here to stay, too, at least for a while. Despite geographical isolation from the national movement, Snyder said Anchorage's demonstrators draw solidarity from other sources.
He said that he recently went online to search for liability insurance, and found that other protesters in other cities had been doing the same.
"It feels very much like we're part of a national movement," Snyder said.
Contact Ben Anderson at ben(at)alaskadispatch.com