Yeah every year the official population declines!
I'm on a septic. No way to pump it here, though, so I'm really careful about what gets flushed. (There's a little trash can in my bathroom for used TP). That's typical around here. Yeah I'm on the "rural" side. It's almost a well-kept secret. This side of town wasn't really even developed until 1971 when the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) homesteading act went through, as an attempt to revitalize the town (It was pretty much a ghost town from WWII until then). Basically you went and staked your claim, then lived there at least seasonally I think for 5 years and it was yours. Also known as the "Hippie Land Giveaway". My house is one of the hippie land giveaway homestead houses, and it shows. (That's why there's so many weird things and add-ons, it's a homestead house!). It has character though, although it needs either a major rennovation or to meet the bucket and thumb of an excavator LOL...there's some serious issues. My house isn't the only one like this either: there's a paradox here that houses on what you'd call the "rural" side are never totally finished...especially never getting actual siding on the outside.
Some notable unique houses in my neighborhood: One is this driftwood log cabin for a kitchen/etc, then turn around and you see modern 90s Sheetrock and vinyl windows LOL. Another one is the one a friend has with the outward-tipping walls! (Like an A-frame in reverse). That one's stick-built, though it's an octagon with a "normal" addition. Another is out-tipping but it's a "log cabin". So yeah without building codes you get some unusual designs! My house has a lot of driftwood logs incorporated as structural members, though it's not a log cabin by any means. It looks normal but unfinished from the front/"street" side, though in reality it's only a shop/garage where a kitchen/living room would be and a storage room full of fluorescents where a master suite should be. (They were evidently doing a duplex or tearing the back off). Then you walk back into a little tiny kitchen with nothing on an exterior wall since the original part of the house is added on to on multuple sides. My living room is especially bizarre; a "shedding gable" roof. Looks like something pulled from a 1970s Sunset home improvement reference book for sure. I have pics of it in it's day 30+ years ago, it was pretty cool when it still had skylights.
We don't pay property taxes, though I think that is going to chance, and soon. The town is sorta underfunded, and we're not in an organized borough. (Alaska doesn't have counties). We used to be in Sitka's borough until the 1970s when we seceded, since we were being taxed, yet get no services (electric power, etc) from them. We don't want to be sucked into someone else's borough so if we tax ourselves as a town we might be able to sustain ourselves. Also it might create a resurgence for the (dying) town since so many people own property here but don't live here...since it's not costing them a dime they hold onto it forever it seems. If we had taxes people would likely be more inclined to sell, which would create movement in town.
The other side (school, post office, etc) was crowded with 2000+ people in the 1920s and 1930s, though not much remains relatively speaking. There are several cool old 1920s-1930s houses still in existence on that side though, whereas everything on my "side" is homesteaded. (hence unique 1970s houses).
I kayak or canoe across, or drive a skiff with a gas-powered outboard motor.
There's some "trails" but it's pretty wooded for the most part.
You might get a kick out of this place if you saw it in person, though I can totally understand not wanting to live here. I've kinda developed a "Been there, done that" mentality about living here honestly...it was pretty cool for about 5 years but I've kinda seen it all as of now.
I've always been half here, half California though, all my life. I came here first as a toddler in 1999. I was concieved in Seattle, my parents found out they were expecting in Sitka, and I was born in California, and am a 5th generation native Californian with Alaska residency at this point. Like I said I've entertained the thought of moving back to that area if my captain's carreer here doesn't work out. (I may or may not end up with a 72' wood boat).
If I ever make it back east, we've got to meet up! (We just have so much in common it seems). I plan to finish college in Alaska, then maybe travel for a year. Maybe a cross-country road trip in a Deuce at that point. If I did I'd bring some light goodies...like a decently-made slimline.
The area of California I'm in was pretty rural but it's quickly becoming the land of shopping centers and cookie-cutter housing developments. There was/is a huge controversy in Atascadero about putting in a SuperCenter WalMart and as one article put it, "It would no longer be a truly rural community". Ha! I live in something truly "rural" LOL. (National forest 200 feet from where I'm typing).