I lived 3 years in Alaska, my older brother, almost 30 years. I have met many long time Alaskans and shared many hunts and stories. If you are subsistence living, you keep things as simple as possible. Most shots are relatively short, except for sheep, because you can only see about 25 to 50 yards in Alaskan brush. When you are out hiking or snow machining from place to place every day, working while carrying your rifle, you fall down, you bump into things, stuff happens, and a scope is usually the first thing to bite it. You try to minimize things that can go wrong. Myself, and many hunters I met, used an '03 Springfield, still in military configuration, for all their hunting, or a similar open sighted 700 or Model 70. Post popular cartridges are 30-06, 300 Win. Mag. or 7mm Rem Mag. if you were "modern". People don't baby stuff out there, things get thrown around, and they have found what works and what doesn't, and scopes are generally a hinderence. My brother has a Ruger M77 laying in pieces at the bottom of a mountain somewhere. He was in pieces too, got life flighted out.