At the Fairbanks International Airport's main terminal, we went to the ticket counter to pay for our plane trip. The young lady working asked us if we were going to Lake Minchumina for trophy fishing. She continued to tell us that a lot of people go there for the big fish. I made the mistake of telling her that we were going on a hike to the federal land settlement area to find land to stake a claim. Her mouth said nothing, but her eyes screamed "crazy person." I resisted the urge to try and explain further because it was obvious her mind was made up. I said no more and walked away with my dignity (somewhat) intact.
This book is about 1987 and is the third book in a continuing series of the life adventures of the last Federal Homesteader in America to have filed on The Federal Homestead Act of 1862. This act was closed on October 1986, never to reopen. Read to view parts of 1987s construction stage, struggles, hardships, accomplishments, bears, and up close encounters with what I come to call the Hairy Ones. The Hairy Ones are peaceful beings and not the scary monsters that there made out to be. The Hairy Ones are bashful elusive and friendly beings.
Homesteading in the Wilderness of Alaska... Duane Ose moved to Alaska on a whim nearly 30 years ago, after surviving a gunshot wound to the head. He and his wife Rena were the very last persons to file a claim under the Federal Homestead Act of 1862-for a piece of property Duane describes as "a giant, fertile garden bowl, cupped warmly in God's loving hands." His new book, Alaskan Wilderness Adventure II, is part biography, part adventure, recounting how he and his young friend Jeff Peterson established Duane's homestead in the center of Alaska. With humor and vivid imagery, Duane has chronicled the trials and tribulations of building trails, constructing a home, and turning this five-acre slice of heaven into a habitable piece of property-a homestead Duane and Rena call Ose Mountain.
The stirring memoir of one man's harrowing solo adventure in the Alaskan wilderness, and his discoveries about the home he leaves behind. 'This is the best wilderness narrative I've read for a long time. The tension between nature at its most exquisite and most lethal makes this the story of our times. A remarkable book' Nicholas Crane, TV presenter and author of Coast In the spring of 2007, hard on the heels of the worst winter in the history of Juneau, Alaska, Lynn Schooler finds himself facing the far side of middle age and exhausted by labouring to handcraft a home as his marriage slips away. Seeking solace and escape in nature, he sets out on a solo journey into the Alaskan wilderness, travelling first by small boat across the formidable Gulf of Alaska, then on foot along one of the wildest coastlines in North America. Walking Home is filled with stunning observations of the natural world, and rife with nail-biting adventure as Schooler fords swollen rivers and eludes aggressive grizzlies. But more important, it is a story about finding wholeness-and a sense of humanity-in the wild. His is a solitary journey, but Schooler is never alone; human stories people the landscape-tales of trappers, explorers, marooned sailors, and hermits, as well as the mythology of the region's Tlingit Indians. Alone in the middle of several thousand square miles of wilderness, Schooler conjures the souls of travellers past to learn how the trials of life may be better borne with the help and community of others. In Walking Home Schooler creates a conversation between the human and the natural, the past and present, and investigates, with elegance and soul, what it means to be a part of the flow of human history.
FIVE SOULS, huddled against the aching cold of the Alaskan wilderness. On a hunt for truth amid the shrieks of wild animals, the clouds overhead race swiftly by. Adventures from left to right: Mike Liston, Buddy Davis, Dan Specht, George Detwiler, and John Whitmore. LOCKED in a remote, frozen wasteland where man has rarely been lie remains of creatures so mysterious, science can scarcely believe the truth. A team of scientists and researchers endured incredible hardships to reach a site many would rather avoid - the Alaskan wilderness - and in the process, uncovered unfossilized dinosaur bones. The implications are enormous, for how can dinosaurs be 65 million years old if their bones are still unfozzilized? Join the team and thrill at the photographs and tales of danger, as The Great Alaskan Dinosaur Adventuredrops a bombshell on the scientific community. See once again why true science honors the pages of the Bible.
When Her Friend Goes Missing, Every Minute Counts Darcy St. James returns to Alaska to join a journalist friend undercover on the trail of a big story. But when Darcy arrives, she finds her friend has disappeared. Troubled by the cruise ship's vague explanation, Darcy uses her cover as a travel reporter to investigate further. The last person Gage McKenna expects to see during his summer aboard a cruise ship leading adventure excursions is Darcy. And in typical Darcy fashion, she's digging up more trouble. He'd love to just forget her--but something won't let him. And he can't help but worry about her as they are heading into more remote regions of Alaska and eventually into foreign waters. Something sinister is going on, and the deeper they push, the more Gage fears they've only discovered the tip of the iceberg. "The third book in Pettrey's Alaskan Courage series ratchets up the action and suspense. It's difficult to stop yourself from peeking ahead to the end, but the ride is worth the anxiety." --RT Book Reviews "Dani Pettrey has delivered another incredibly compelling adventure in Alaska. STRANDED is full of suspense, beautiful rugged wilderness and white-water rapids, and a heartfelt romance. I loved catching up with the McKenna family." - Dee Henderson, New York Times bestselling author
For fans of Cheryl Strayed, the gripping story of a biologist's human-powered journey from the Pacific Northwest to the Arctic to rediscover her love of birds, nature, and adventure. During graduate school, as she conducted experiments on the peculiarly misshapen beaks of chickadees, ornithologist Caroline Van Hemert began to feel stifled in the isolated, sterile environment of the lab. Worried that she was losing her passion for the scientific research she once loved, she was compelled to experience wildness again, to be guided by the sounds of birds and to follow the trails of animals. In March of 2012, she and her husband set off on a 4,000-mile wilderness journey from the Pacific rainforest to the Alaskan Arctic, traveling by rowboat, ski, foot, raft, and canoe. Together, they survived harrowing dangers while also experiencing incredible moments of joy and grace -- migrating birds silhouetted against the moon, the steamy breath of caribou, and the bond that comes from sharing such experiences. A unique blend of science, adventure, and personal narrative, The Sun is a Compass explores the bounds of the physical body and the tenuousness of life in the company of the creatures who make their homes in the wildest places left in North America. Inspiring and beautifully written, this love letter to nature is a lyrical testament to the resilience of the human spirit. Winner of the 2019 Banff Mountain Book Competition: Adventure Travel
In 1918 painter Rockwell Kent took his nine-year-old son to spend a winter on Alaska’s Fox Island. In My Wilderness, Claudia McGehee recounts this vivid nonfiction tale from Rocky’s point of view. Colorful scratchboard-style illustrations echo the rugged subject matter with whimsy while showcasing the wonder of Alaska from a young boy’s imaginative point of view. Hailed as “a tale to treasure again and again” by School Library Journal (starred review), this gorgeous picture book highlights the beauty and power of the Alaskan landscape seen through a boy’s eyes.
The powerful and affirming story of a father's journey with his teenage daughter to the far reaches of Alaska Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, home to only a handful of people, is a harsh and lonely place. So when James Campbell’s cousin Heimo Korth asked him to spend a summer building a cabin in the rugged Interior, Campbell hesitated about inviting his fifteen-year-old daughter, Aidan, to join him: Would she be able to withstand clouds of mosquitoes, the threat of grizzlies, bathing in an ice-cold river, and hours of grueling labor peeling and hauling logs? But once there, Aidan embraced the wild. She even agreed to return a few months later to help the Korths work their traplines and hunt for caribou and moose. Despite windchills of 50 degrees below zero, father and daughter ventured out daily to track, hunt, and trap. Under the supervision of Edna, Heimo’s Yupik Eskimo wife, Aidan grew more confident in the woods. Campbell knew that in traditional Eskimo cultures, some daughters earned a rite of passage usually reserved for young men. So he decided to take Aidan back to Alaska one final time before she left home. It would be their third and most ambitious trip, backpacking over Alaska’s Brooks Range to the headwaters of the mighty Hulahula River, where they would assemble a folding canoe and paddle to the Arctic Ocean. The journey would test them, and their relationship, in one of the planet’s most remote places: a land of wolves, musk oxen, Dall sheep, golden eagles, and polar bears. At turns poignant and humorous, Braving It is an ode to America’s disappearing wilderness and a profound meditation on what it means for a child to grow up—and a parent to finally, fully let go.
