They're not wrong. It does depend on where you're at but we're basically the Alaska of the Lower 48. People don't understand that and move here thinking that it just means there's less Applebees or whatever. Then they end up going for a walk in a chinook and freezing to death when the temperature drops 70 degrees in 15 minutes. Or they end up getting eaten by a grizzly because they go camping with soap in their tent. Or they just go for a hike, break a leg, and starve to death in the woods because there's no cell service and no one passing by the same area for weeks at a time.

We've got less Internet access per capita than Alaska and the highest rate of highway deaths. Huge rates of alcoholism, suicide, divorce is off the charts. Lots of drug problems. Winter lasts 7 months and from November to March you go to work in the dark and go home in the dark. You can go two or three months where it never gets above 25 degrees or so and there's only two or three sunny days. And yeah, if you go even 15 minutes outside of a "major" city then there's certain places where people live and commute daily from that you can only access by snowmobile and only have generator power.

All that said though I wouldn't ever want to live anywhere else...well, maybe Alaska. But it does take a certain type.