Heather's Reading List

Many People have asked me what books i have been reading or would recommend, so i'm going to start listing some that i found interesting. At a later date i'll add some descriptions to the list. Hope this is helpful.

1.Ordinary Wolves by Seth Kantner (no, it's not about wolves) – Written about a family that lived much like mine in the Bush of Northern Alaska. Seth’s main character grows up white and in the Alaskan Bush living off of the land due to his parent’s choices and ideals. This story is partially autobiographical.
2. Books by Nick Jans i.e. Tracks of the Unseen, The Last Light Breaking and Grizzly Maze – Nick writes beautiful books and essays and also is a wonderful photographer and person. He has also lived out in Northern and South East Alaska teaching in the villages, writing and photographing.
3. Four Seasons North by Billie Wright – Billie and Sam Wright moved to Northern Alaska after seeing my parents film. Billie’s book is about their first year in the Bush. Sam’s is more philosophical.
4. Koviashuvik by Sam Wright
5. Shadows on the Koyukuk, an Alaskan Native's Life Along the River - Sydney Huntington as told by Jim Rearden. An amazing story of a Koyukukon man who has spanned the generations between a time when the natives of the area lived mostly off the land hunting and trapping, and the current time when most people are leaving the villages to find work
6. The Long Exile, A tale of Inuit Betrayal and Survival in the High Arctic by Melanie McGrath. The Inuit people are both in Canada and Alaska. This is the tale of the forced relocation of the Inuit people to a desolate part of Canada, where most of them died of starvation etc. The forced relocation was took place so that Canada could claim that land as Canadian soil.
7. Books by Velma Wallis i.e. Bird Girl and the Boy that Followed the Sun, Two Old Women and Raising Ourselves: A Gwich'in Coming of Age Story from the Yukon River. Velma Wallis is Athabascan and her first two books are rewrites of traditional Athabascan legends. Her third book is a heart wrenching story of how the influence of white people, and thus the destructive repercussions of alcohol, affected her home village.
8. Sadie Brower Neakok: An Inupiaq Woman by Margaret B. Blackman. This book is a fascinating book about the first Magistrate in Barrow. Sadie’s life story straddles two worlds. Her mother was Inupiaq and her father was the northern most trader. Sadie grew up learning the traditional ways of her people as well as the dominant white people’s ways. As a teenager she was shipped off to SF to go to school and it is amazing to hear her stories of her first experience with car rides, electricity etc. Her return to her village as a social worker and magistrate is a window into a world that most of us would never have a chance to see.
9. One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey by Sam Keith and Richard Proenneke. Richard went out into the wilderness and built a log cabin at age 50 and then he stayed till he was 80. His book is short, sweet and simple and will send you off day dreaming about living your days out in a log cabin within minutes.
10. Alaska Wilderness: Exploring the Central Brooks Range by Robert Marshal. A Classic. Robert Marshall was the founder of what is now known as the ‘conservation movement’. He was (both in memory and in person) a major factor in securing park lands in Northern Alaska.
11. Vanishing World – the endangered arctic (photography book) by Mirelle De La Lez and Fredrik Granath. An incredible photography book of the coastal arctic, the best I’ve seen.

New websites and DVDs!

Hi!
Just wanted to let you know that we have two new websites. Heather Meader has now put her photographs up on the web. These photographs were not able to be posted on the blog while she was out in the wilderness. Her photographs show the stunning landscape of the Brooks Range Mountains - including brilliant Northern Lights, ethereal snow-scape's and dazzling foliage. Please take a look - we think you'll enjoy what you see. www.hmmphotographs.com

We have also created a website for Northern Light Legacy. The website talks about our family, our history and ideals, the film and our future projects. You can now order the DVD's of Fred and Elaine Meader's film Year of the Caribou and donate directly on the website. www.northernlightlegacy.org

March 2008 Returning to ‘Civilization’ : Part 1

Hi Everyone!
This update is a long time coming. For a while now I’ve been writing various blog updates in my head (and some have even been pretty good!). But, each time I sat down to write I found that I couldn’t put my experiences into any kind of perspective. My experiences were just that – moments in time with very little cohesion. I guess I thought that ‘culture shock’ meant that sounds would be loud and traffic fast and within a month I would be back to my good ‘ole ‘civilized self’. But battling culture shock was not that simple. I think it is only now that I am starting to feel semi comfortable in my old societal role. I was not aware, at the time, exactly how much my life up north had affected the core of who I am - not just my senses. I’ve felt so lucky to have Ryan to speak to as we both readjust to a world that doesn’t seem as normal as it once did. Although he lives hundreds of miles away we talk often and I find some comfort in the fact that our minds and bodies have reacted similarly over the last 6+ months.

This blog will be the first of (hopefully) several that speak about my thoughts and feelings of adjusting back to living in CA. I believe it was Steinbeck who said: “I can’t write hot on a subject, it has to ferment.” I wouldn’t consider this blog fully fermented by any means, but I fear that to make a fine fermented blog it might take years.

My initial return to ‘society’ was discombobulating and overwhelming but yet exciting and adventurous.

While at the lake I wondered often what it will be like to return to ‘civilization’. What would be the first thing I would want to eat when the possibilities were endless? What would be the first thing I would want to do when I could drive in an hour the distance that it took days of hard hiking to accomplish?
When I first arrived back in Fairbanks, I immediately sat down on the sidewalk and took in the assault of sounds and smells. It was all very strange, like waking up from a dream or going into a different dream. It felt like deja vue –like a strong far away memory that I couldn’t exactly remember the details of but that I somehow knew had occurred.

Therefore, I was mildly amused to find myself craving two very specific things that seemed so meaningless when my options seemed so limitless. I craved a milkshake and a new book to read. Strangely these cravings didn’t seem like minor cravings they seemed guttural - I would have got up and walked 10 miles to get them (luckily my friend had a car, so it took me 20 minutes).

Looking back now, however, my supposed odd cravings made a lot more sense then I realized at first. While we were up there – fat was one of the most important items. We were constantly aware of how much fat we had and how much we needed to put in the food. In a world of lean meat and basic staples fat was the key to our survival. The milkshake, then, was the perfect example of living turned luxury. Looking through the lens of about the last year and half of carefully watching and rationing sugar, flour, salt and above all else FAT, it felt like true riches to pour that much whole milk (not even powered), sugar and chocolate into one drink - my body enjoyed every moment of that fine creamy shake like no other shake before.

The book made sense as well. Books for us, represented knowledge of course and was our key to learning many important skills, but just as important they also represented friends and community. We spoke of the books we were reading as if we spoke of actual people: in agreement, in disappointment, in awe, in frustration and in gossip. I absorbed books like I have never absorbed the written word before. With nothing to distract me, the words seemed to create their own reality in parallel to mine. Even today, when I’m feeling lonely, I take down one of those many books I’d read about people living in northern Alaska and carry it around in my bag. It’s like hanging out with an old friend, I can read it’s words and it’s as if I called a friend and heard her babbling on about the life we shared together up north. I suppose in my new land of East Bay CA cement and traffic and people who never look at you – those books have become my secret security blanket, dragging them from one place to another, if for no other reason than to remind myself that multiple realities exist in the same time frame, and that where I am now is not the only reality inside me or anyone else for that matter.

After I got my hands on my milkshake and book I pretty much holed up in my friends cabin right outside of Fairbanks, and tried to let sounds and smells and electrical heat and hot showers (that I enjoyed thoroughly) and people, come back into being part of my daily reality.

And so there I was, a mere 48 hours after leaving the Brooks Range. Car sounds would send me flying out of the sleeping bag thinking a plane was landing on the lake – only to find me standing in the drive way in my long underwear with no lake or plane in sight. The taste of foods and spices was so overwhelming that I lost my appetite and there were many foods I couldn’t digest well anymore. People’s body language was no longer as clear to me and I spent far too long in confusion. Driving in cars felt as unreal as watching TV – I couldn’t figure out a single sane reason to be hurtling down a street in a metal box at 50 mph. I dreaded the phone, no longer familiar with its tennis match communication style. Things seemed strange and discombobulating but yet I felt healthier, stronger, more grounded and happier then I’d ever felt. I felt like I could do anything, that the future was endless in possibilities if you had a good plan and worked hard and paid attention to your surroundings. I suppose I felt empowered. I had nearly a year and a half of hard work, thinking, dreaming and planning and I had had very little societal influence of what is possible and not, of what you should be and shouldn’t be…without the constant barrage of societal opinions in the form of media, friends, family, government, schools etc. my mind, heart and body did something it had never done before – it simply lived, because living is what comes naturally when we aren’t battling the constraints of the correct way to be in ‘civilization’.

“The individual has always had to work hard to avoid being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try, you will be lonely often and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high for the privilege of owning yourself.” - Nietzsche

Spring/Summer '07

The long and warm days of spring made travel easy and enjoyable and in April friends of ours: Ed, Carrie and her son Toben arrived via dogsleds and snowmobiles.





Heather eagerly learned to dive one of the dog teams, careening over the snow and crashing across overflow in utter glee. But, of course, not before putting her ego in check by falling off the sled in the first two seconds.




A few days later while Heather and Ed took the snow machine on a two-day trip to the nearest village to pick up building supplies, Ryan and Carrie took one of the dog teams north in search of caribou.













What started as a leisurely dog-sled ride culminated in Ryan finding himself clinging to arctic shrubs with mouth, hand and foot while climbing a steep snow covered mountain for a better look at the valley. Unfortunately, after following the completely erratic caribou trails all day, Ryan found himself peering at an ice-covered mountaintop, unscalable and without a caribou in sight.

It was wonderful to see Ed and Carrie again and to meet Toben. And we’re looking forward to hunting, dog-sledding, fishing or just plain hanging out with them again.

After Carrie, Ed and Toben left, we were tempted by fresh caribou tracks within a few miles of the cabin, and headed north on foot, again to see what we could find.

After hiking for 15 miles and being surrounded by crisscrossing trails in every direction we returned again exhausted and unsuccessful.

It is hard to explain, however, the humbling feeling of awe that overtook us standing - two small dots - amongst mountains and valleys crisscrossed with trails, dug up patches of lichen and smooth beds of melted snow where they had slept less than 24 hours ago.

Caribou have for many been the mysterious animal of the north, appearing by the thousands at one moment and disappearing the next. This valley is but one of many that has at times heard the clicking of their hooves.

To us, it was exhilarating to stand within the invisible presence of these animals, to be part of their mystery, to know that they were ‘just here’ and could be anywhere. To know that at any moment we could enter a spruce forest and see the flash of thousands of antlers or crest a mountain and see a sea of tiny dots moving across the landscape. Wilderness should never be expected to act or perform to appease the desires of humankind, that is for zoos and circuses to try to contend with. And thus, for us, to enjoy the caribou (and through them wilderness), is to be in love with their mystery and to feel honored to be part of it, to feel that our presence among the signs of their recent absence is as much a part of them as to be among the flash of their antlers.

As the sunlight neared the 24 hour mark in mid-April we decided to try our hand at snow camping.






We made camp on a small knoll surrounded by tundra and went off to explore one of the mountain streams. Although we found nothing but a solid sheet of ice, we heard for the first time in about 7 months, the rush and tumble of water as it flowed under the ice. It was hard to walk away from the creek- it seemed at any moment the water would bust through and the silence of the snow-covered world we knew would disappear.

Alas, the camping aspect of the trip was far less enjoyable. By 9 pm having been hankered down in our sleeping bags for some time due to the tundra’s lack of wood and our lack of interest in extended twig fires, we decided to cut our 5-day trip a bit short. And after one too many times of rolling off the tarp into the snow we determined ‘short’ to mean returning home at first decent light.

That night between the faint darkness colored by the pinkish clouds of sunrise/sunset, we saw our last burst of northern lights. Lying on our backs on the arctic tundra, we watched our ‘winter light’ dance and swirl into the midnight sun of spring and summer.

Soon after our snow camping experience the winter landscape started changing at a rapid speed.

The small creek nearest us broke with the sound of a jet plane and we watched in awe as walls of snow, ice, rocks and mud forced their way down the creek-bed towards the lake.







Soon the warm midnight sun turned the larger creeks into channels of overflow and rotted the edge of the lake ice creating small pods of water.





Gathering our drinking water became a challenge as the lake ice was rotting (and becoming not safe to walk on) and the creek and shallow lake water was full of mud and silt.























Heather standing on ice cake

Ryan caught our first fish in 7 months on a warm sunny day from a hole in the lake ice. It was wonderful to have fresh fish again! (Does it count as ice fishing if it’s 65 degrees out?) During the break-up of the lake we had a continuous stream of visitors.

It started with a handful of seagulls that landed in the small pool of water along the shore. The gulls were quickly followed by what seemed to be every duck the world over and amongst all the ducks came 18 trumpeter swans.





The ducks, swans, terns and seagulls all shared the small melted areas of the lake and chased off any last remnants of the winter silence with their continuous clatter.

For a while a young bald eagle was sighted in the nearby trees. In fact, at one point the eagle even made an attempt at carrying off a rather upset swan.

The lake broke up with ‘booms’ and cracking and grinding sounds that went on for weeks. Eventually larger and larger pieces of ice broke off until it was just a sea of ice cakes.

During the end of May a stiff north wind blew all the ice sheets south and out of sight – leaving us for a moment to look upon the large body of shimmering water. However, by the next day, the wind had changed and the ice came back to our shore grinding and crashing and melting quickly into the rising lake water.

As spring melted into summer we watched the sudden growth of new life: we enjoyed many long awaited willow and fireweed salad; watched the young gray jays learn how to make fewer crash landings into nearby branches; and enjoyed watching the not so sneaky young grouse with feathers still sticking out in random ways.

As the young squirrels ventured out for new territories, the cache and its valuable chocolate stash as well as the cabin became battlegrounds. At one point, Ryan entered the cabin, unsuspectingly, to find a flying ball of fur make a defensive leap for his leg before making its escape out the door and to a nearby tree to chatter endlessly at us.

On May first, with less time needed for firewood gathering we switched gears and began working on a small cabin to replace the one that Heather’s father built many years ago (and is now falling down).

We worked diligently through May and June where the especially hot summer kept the temperatures near eighty degrees most of the day (and our days are 24 hours!).

Only a few logs short of completing the new ‘creek-side cabin,’ we switched gears again at the end of June. Between summer thundershowers we began taking off the roof of the old main cabin in hopes of salvaging some of the logs for the creek-side cabin.




We are happy to say that the creek-side cabin is a ‘true bush cabin’ all of its logs have been taken from fallen or standing dead trees.

During the end of June we also took a several-day hike along a creek leading deep into the mountains. It was on this hike that we discovered the first ripe blueberries and marveled at an albino mosquito.

It was also amazing to follow the winding creek up as it carved its way deeper and steeper into the mountains.

Unfortunately, we were unable to make it over the pass and into the next valley as we planned due to a sudden weather change.

And so, after practicing our techniques of fire-starting in the rain for nearly two days, we returned back, the way we came, wading through the shockingly cold and suddenly swollen creek.

Although we would have liked to make it to the other valley, there was also a feeling of admiration that there are still places that can make you feel so small.


Now that it is the light of summer the berries and flowers are dotting the landscape. Heather is already setting the jars aside for a (hopefully) good batch of blueberry jam.

As we also slowly begin to lose our daylight, Ryan is making his plans to leave Alaska and return back to Humboldt County, California this fall while at the same time, towards the middle of July, Heather’s longtime friend, Adam, will visit to enjoy the land and continue work on the cabins.

Heather is also eagerly looking forward to a visit by her mother, Elaine, and then to seeing friends and family over the holiday season this winter.

Once again, both Ryan and Heather would like to thank their friends, family and other folks who have sent them mail and packages (we received our first mail in 3 months just the other day!).

We hope everyone is well and healthy and enjoying their summer.

Winter Blog Update

0 PIC OF NORTHERN LIGHTS

As November ticked by, the sun hung lower and lower on the horizon as the land became quieter and quieter. At times it seemed it was only us and the grey jays that were left in this immense land. We were struck by the silence and stillness- nothing seemed to move and our footsteps seemed to echo off the mountains.

On November 19th, the sun rose above the mountains for a mere 2 minutes before sinking out of our site for the next 2 months. Over those two months our indirect light shrunk until we reached the darkest days. During this time a pale bluish light began to bathe our world around 12 pm and began to creep way at 3 pm- giving way to stars.

Without direct sunlight, changes in our visual environment were drastic. We could no longer tell whether the trees sported green needles or black twigs until we were close enough to touch them. The subtleties of color disappeared with the sun. Shadows were non-existent, making our trails in the snow disappear quickly from view. During the days when the snow fell and the clouds seemed to touch the edge of the lake, we experienced ‘white outs’ where the horizon would disappear and sometimes our equilibrium and depth as well.

But where the lack of sun flattened our world, the moon, stars, and northern lights made up for it. The moon literally replaced our sun, casting long shadows and lighting up the landscape. Our world became defined more by nightscapes and with all the light bouncing off of a world cloaked in snow we rarely experienced true darkness.

In December, we were lucky enough to be hiking on the frozen lake, when at midday we looked up to see the large bull moon rising. The moon rose straight our of the north over the Brooks range mountains and began its full 24 hours circle above us.

Our arctic winter will be represented by memories like that forever.

The dreaded cabin fever never got to us. Instead we both fell in love with the calm, quiet, routines of winter life.






We went outside everyday to gather wood and water and look for the tracks of what little critters had passed by recently.





Our long nights were taken up with board games and popcorn, reading, writing, knitting and learning to play the harmonica (Thanks Stacy!). Ryan read the whole Harry Potter series and Heather read all of Sherman Alexie’s short stories and the two of us plowed through over 50 books, from hunting and building, to Native and Arctic history, to Tolstoy and Steinbeck.

On December 22nd, we celebrated Christmas, Chanukah, and solstice. It was the darkest day of our year and we eagerly awaited the sun.

Breaking the silence and stillness of December 24th, we were visited by Richard Wein (from the family of bush pilot pioneers) who once flew Heather’s parents. Richard and his son-in-law swooped down like a modern day Santa and brought us a Christmas basket full of fresh fruit, cheese, chocolate and the Fairbanks Newspaper! It was wonderful to see them and to eat fresh fruit after so long! Thanks Richard and Sally!



Several weeks later, after a bout of bad weather, our faithful pal Max and his lil’ plane came bumping down our homemade runway laden with mail and gifts!














We had a wonderful evening opening packages and mail from friends and family, and felt more than a little bit of homesickness. On New Year’s we drank rootbeer in the middle of the lake to watch the northern lights bring in the new year.




Ryan also celebrated his birthday in January and Heather made him a chocolate cake covered with donuts and promised to finish a pair of slippers she was knitting him. We had a grand time and got thoroughly sick to our stomachs from ingesting too much sugar.






In January with no sun to warm the land, the temperatures dropped significantly, hitting days as low as -47 degrees.

We were surprised to see how fast our bodies adusted to the lower temperatures and had a good laugh at what we once called cold.

Although the air in the cabin was kept cozy warm, the old arctic joke that if you drop a pencil in winter you have to wait ‘til it unfroze in spring to pick it up began to apply as the door, floor, windows and walls began to freeze.







This was a time of many little surprises such as buckets of water left on the floor that froze solid- not to mention the now slick splash puddles around them, or when Heather closed her eyes to rest them from the wind, and then spent the next several minutes picking ice off her eyelashes so she could open them again, and of course everything plastic shattered. Heather went through two tripods and was only saved by mass amounts of duct tape and string.




Then to keep things interesting we had a spike in temperature hitting plus 20 degrees and sending us out in the snow with buckets of hot water. Our bodies, so recently adjusted to negative degree temperatures, thoroughly enjoyed our rustic showers.






In January we also experienced our first sunlight which bathed the land for 2 brilliant minutes.

It was strange how incredibly impressive its return was after its absence had become so ordinary.







That night we celebrated with a bonfire and a bottle of our own homebrew: DEAD VOLE ALE.


















But even with the sun back the temperatures would not follow suit. After a warm first half of February, we met the cold again with temperatures of -40 degrees for ten straight days.

In February, Heather also joined Max in his little faithful plane for a quick jaunt to Bettles to take care of some business. She immediately contracted every flu bug in town (and there were surprisingly many) and returned gratefully to her bed cursing the germs of society loudly.

As we begin Spring the sun is returning quickly, we gain about 45 minutes of sunlight a week and currently (Feb. 22) can read a book @ 9:30 pm.

Soon April will come bringing us 24 hour daylight and the melting of ice and snow.

With the warming temperatures and long days our world is making drastic changes. Our once silent and still environment is quickly giving way to the flurry of animal life, fresh buds and new leafs and the sound of water. The speed at which things are changing is mind-boggling.

We hope all is well with our friends and family and thanks again, so much, for the wonderful gifts and letters.

(No cabin fever, but Heather did make snow people to keep us company.)









(Drinking water being melted on stove after it froze during a cold night.)










(Heather sits weighing mail for proper postage in order to reply to all of our letters.)

Winter Update

Hello out there beyond the snowbank!


In a couple of months we'll be updating this blog with stories of our winter. But right now we wanted to say a special thank you to all those who have sent us letters and amazing care packages. Our taste buds have been thoroughly spoiled and it was wonderful to hear of your lives out in society.

Because of everyone’ s generosity we are plenty stocked with tasty goodies for many a coming month. Therefore we are taking down the old care package list.
If suddenly it pops back up you'll know that the battle with the neighborhood squirrel was lost and the little booger managed to "capture the flag" by making off with all our chocolate bars.





But have no fear! we have been busy building barricades; playing with metal @ negative degree temps while dangling off the back of the cache. Great fun.
And so, as we dare each other to stick our tongues on the new barricades, while claiming that cabin fever doesn't exist , we would love to receive notes, letters and rants about your lives in the Outside.
However, if you send us letters about your wonderful time in the Florida Keys or other such place, we expect complimentary tickets to be included as compensation for your outright cruelty.


If you are just itchin to send us a care packages we always welcome:

sony Memory sticks and compact flash memory sticks of all sizes so we can continue to get images out on the web.

journals to keep our pens moving and life documenting

and of course we always welcome gifts of basic staples: Sugar, flour, powdered milk, oats, tomato paste, baking soda, noodles and rice.

If you are thinking of buying bulk food you may want to drag a few friends along and buy direct from Span Alaska Sales www.spanalaskasales.com; they will deliver directly to our PO Box.
Once again thank you to everyone for all the wonderful letters and packages. We hope everyone is doing well and having a wonderful winter.
- heather and ryan

End of September through November

Sept.

Our adventures in Bettles culminated in a chartered flight over the Arrigetch peaks thanks to two new friends we had made: Lance & Roger, hunters all the way from Michigan.

The Arrigetch peaks were an amazing sight. Sheer face granite peaks reaching skyward with spectacular pinnacles, glaciers and tiny turquoise lakes. Tyler, the pilot, skillfully weaved in and out of the peaks and alongside the sheer faces of shiny rock sometimes 3,000 feet tall.

It was a wonderful and awe-inspiring last flight before we settled down into our cabin for winter. If Roger and Lance are out there reading this, Ryan and I thank you immensely and it was wonderful to have met you.

After our great sight seeing adventure we landed home, on our glassy arctic lake on equinox.

It was amazing to realize that although we were far away from many of our friends and family, and although our daylight would soon quickly dwindle, today, our day/night was the same everywhere. It was a good way to start the next season.

As if to signal the new season our temperature dropped to near freezing our first day home. With the change of temp. we celebrated the end of all the bugs that had plagued us this summer and fall.

Although our moose hunting was unsuccessful, we did find success in hunting grouse, snowshoe hare and after reading many glowing reports in the wild game recipe books, squirrels.

In line with the history of this land and our own beliefs, we made a point of trying to use all the parts of the animal we could: tanning hides and using the brains to help with the process, boiling the scraps and bones for soup…

On October 1st, we woke up to the first snow covering the ground and celebrated with a dried veggie sushi party! On the 8th, eight grouse descended upon our cabin from all sides to happily pluck away at the grit. The actual cabin and homesite is a designated “No hunt zone,” so we just stood by in utter bewilderment.

During Ocboter we also harvested some large trees that had fallen over in last winter’s blizzard.

After an exhausting two-mile canoe ride, pulling two 20’ logs behind the canoe. Heather walked the next four logs back home, wearing waders and occasionally having to stop to break through the ice forming on the edge of the lake.

By the time we hauled back the last two logs several days later, the temperature had dropped significantly. The freezing temperature gave us extra trouble, freezing the ropes before we could tie them and freezing our mittens to the metal canoes.

In the end, it was a wonderful feeling to have the logs home and ready for next summer’s cabin building.

Ryan eating chocolate chip pancakes in bed to celebrate the cook’s day off!

October 26th was our first subzero party with the temperature dropping down to –4 degrees. We enjoyed chocolate cake and homemade party hats.

On October 31st we celebrated Halloween with a haunted house, trick-or-treating and Halloween feast that included a bottle of orange soda saved for just such an occasion. On two fine sunny days in Oct. and early Nov. we hiked up two of the nearby peaks to get a fuller glimpse of the surrounding Brooks range dressed in snow.

The highlight of our first hike was our fast descent using our rears as sleds on the snow covered shale slopes.

Our second hike held even more breath taking views, which were well earned after fighting steep sloped knee deep snow to get there.

On Nov. 3rd, the lake completely froze over making eerie and loud noises as it buckled and cracked and re-froze into a thick solid sheet. The arctic environment is clearly settling in to its winter world.

The sun no longer peaks over the mountains and instead we are graced with hours of sunrises/sunsets without the sun. Darkness sets in around 3:30 pm and within a few hours the northern lights, moon and stars light up the night in such a bright way that you rarely need a flashlight.

The temperatures hang around –20 degrees now and are promised to go much farther down.

We spend our time outdoors getting firewood and water and taking walks.

Indoors we are cozy and warm surrounded by the humming of the wood stove, the flicker of candles and lanterns and our stacks of books and projects.

Ryan & Heather's Fall Update

August-September 2006





















Fall has come to our home, turning the landscape into bright splashes of orange, yellow & red & dropping the night temperatures into the 20’s.








Darkness has also crept into our nights bringing with it sparkling stars, the immense fall moon & amazing green, red & purple northern lights that dance across our sky.










We have been spending most of our days preparing for winter by gathering firewood & cranberries. And with the fresh north wind, the trout started jumping & we filled up the last of our pint jars with fish to help supplement us during the winter months.




Of course we have also taken a few days off to do a couple of last hikes along the ridges.









It has been breathtaking as usual to look over this vast colorful wilderness. Hiking the ridges & looking out to the far away peaks & valleys has also been fascinating as we have begun to read about the surrounding area, the land & ecosystem, the native people & the old mining & fur trapping communities that dotted this rugged landscape.


September began with our first bear visit. While we were busy jarring fish one evening Heather stepped outside to take a piss. She had barely gotten her pants down to her ankles when she heard a large snort & looked up to see a small grizzly, about 25 feet away, tear off into the bushes.


During our first week in September we also received our first mail delivery.









It took two sleds to pull up all our letters & packages. After all the mail was brought into the cabin we spent all day reading letters & munching on treats!










It was so nice to read the newspapers & get all the wonderful food people sent! Thank you!


Thanks also to everyone who sent sinus infection cures. It looks like the nasty sinus infection is getting under control.







In the middle of September we joined friends Ed, Carrie & Emil to go moose hunting down the river.









We had a wonderful week, first hiking the valley looking for moose, then climbing a mountain to look for sheep & then later floating for five days down the river looking for moose again.


We had an exceptionally warm September. The temperatures have been in the 60’s and 70’s and instead of snow & ice we’ve had sun & rain.


Because of this, moose hunting was bad this year. We, like many others, floated into town empty handed.



We did, however, have a wonderful trip & even had a couple of stories of the moose that got away. Or rather, the moose that wouldn’t step out of the willows & instead won in a stand-off with patience & the encroaching darkness.


We arrived in the nearest town, or as we’ve taken to calling it “the big city” (Pop. 31), in time to attend our first city council meeting which lasted 30 minutes & consisted of setting policy to stop people from joy-riding on the snow plow.


We took our last hot shower for the next year, ate a three-dollar handful of grapes & prepare to take the last, last plane back up north.


After we are dropped off, the float planes will fly to Fairbanks signaling the end of fall & solidifying our isolation as even the nearby town’s airport won’t be flying planes our way ‘til next summer.