How to successfully live off the grid in remote areas is the subject of a new book called “The Alaska Homesteader’s Handbook: Independent Living on the Last Frontier.”
The book features profiles and how to tips by Alaska homesteaders and offers practical advice on a wide range of topics from How to age game meat to packing horses for the backcountry to safely crossing rivers.
The book’s authors Tricia Brown and Nancy Gates divided 44 homesteader interviews. Nancy said it was a bit intimidating to go to their homes and ask personal questions but she says once she did, it was so interesting, she couldn’t take notes.
“Because I was so riveted by their expressions and by how they looked off in the distance and how they looked at their wives and smiled at certain, and so I started taking a tape recorder so I could get all of the words and still be able to watch their faces,” Gates said.
Building root cellars, feeding your family and how to handle isolation are also covered, along with many other useful wilderness survival tips. Tricia Brown says they wanted to cover the entire state because challenges vary by region.
“I talked with the Helmericks family that lives on the Colville River on the Arctic coast, and they’re second generation, actually have kids and grandkids there,” Brown said. “Their difficulties vary greatly from Steve Axelson who’s in a boat in Southeast.”
“So that whole aspect was extremely fun because we understand the breadth of Alaska and how it has all these micro climates and ways of living, but our outside readers don’t always.”
Nancy Gates says the book won’t give you everything you need to live off the grid, but does help you consider what those needs are and how to cope with things that will happen. She says the last homesteader in all of America is living here. His name is Kenneth Deardorff.
“He told us how to live in a tent in the winter and he told me about how he didn’t sleep on a cot because having cold air underneath you it was hard to stay warm enough, so he would build up snow, he would shovel the snow away from where the woodstove was going to go inside the tent and he would pile that where he was going to sleep and he would put caribou skins over that and then his bedding on top of that,” Gates said. “And he’d always arrange it so he could reach the woodstove and put in kindling and get the fire going before he had to get out.”
The women say there is a difference between the latest survival movement, called preppers and Alaskan homesteaders who were practical preppers. Not preparing for the end of anything, but with an eye toward living in the moment, being in Alaska and being self reliant. They also found that most homesteaders learned a lot from local Native people about how to survive. Tricia Brown says Dick Proenneke’s book “One Man’s Wilderness” attracted many people to Alaska in the 70s. One of the people they profiled, Roy Corral, had a copy.
“He had Dick Proenneke’s book in his cabin in the Brooks Range and then while he was away trying to make money so he could live without money, a bear broke into his cabin and ate the book,” Brown said. “He said there was some of Dick Proenneke’s words here and some of Dick Proenneke’s words there. So yeah, “One Man’s Wilderness” got spread around a little bit.”
The Alaska Homesteader’s Handbook is available now.
Lori Townsend is the chief editor, senior vice president of journalism and senior host for Alaska Public Media. You can send her news tips and program ideas for Talk of Alaska and Alaska Insight at ltownsend@alaskapublic.org or call 907-550-8452. Read more about Lori here.
