I’m pretty sure Fargo is actually harsher than Anchorage. It’s so coastal that it’s not as cold as you might imagine.
If you’re talking about eastern Alaska, I can answer from a Canadian perspective, because the same stuff continues across the border (for a much larger area). Most people are native, plumbing has to go over the ground, roads are sometimes limited to the cold season or even non-existant. Lots of poverty, because that shit is all expensive, and traditional hunting plays a big role in livelihoods, just with skidoos/snow machines and rifles now. The biggest communities are still small or even tiny, and if it’s above the arctic circle people might not schedule their days the same, so you’ll see kids playing soccer in the sun at 2 AM.