It was a honeymoon trip that brought Bill and Ruth Albee to the north, but this was far from a typical vacation. The newlyweds had a desire to experience true wilderness and learn about the people who lived in the arctic and boreal forest. More interestingly, though, is that they wanted to do it in a way that no one had done before. Starting in British Columbia, they planned to walk to Alaska through the ‘back door’, avoiding the somewhat civilized parts of the territory, to experience what the life and people were like in the far away places.

It would be a near impossible task to travel the north woods country with few trails, no settlements, and only what they could carry on their backs. The B.C. authorities initially refused to let them go, concerned they’d have two more missing people in the books, likely never to be found again. The route they wanted to take from Prince George to Liard Post and eventually Dawson City, would entail hiking several hundred miles of uncharted territory – not even maps could help them – and if something went wrong there was no place to find help.

With a determination that would serve them well later on, Bill and Ruth went anyway. In the spring of 1930 they purchased all the food and camping gear they could pack and quizzed the locals for information on the land and routes they’d have to take. And then they disappeared.

A series of newspaper articles beginning in late June of 1930 told a story of a missing couple who defied the warnings of local authorities and experienced woodsmen, and were almost certainly dead somewhere in the wilderness. But after the news buzz went away, a weeks-old letter arrived at the California home of Bill Albee’s mother. It was from Bill. He and Ruth had reached a remote outpost and were continuing on their journey.

Another letter from mid-September carried news that the couple were still alive despite the mass speculation, common in matters where facts are scarce, that they had succumbed to the wilderness. More letters arrived periodically, proving the Albees were carrying on. What the letters didn’t describe, however, were the incredible struggles they faced trying to navigate unmapped territory, battling the elements and warding off starvation.

By winter they reached Dawson, and settled in town to earn enough money to continue the trip down the Yukon. For a couple determined to avoid civilization, the truth is that Bill and Ruth loved people and they got along great in the small town. They immersed themselves in the community, befriended the people and became part of the local fabric for those long winter months.

The second leg of the journey began the following spring. After building a boat and loading with supplies, a much less rigorous but just as interesting mode of travel described their second summer.

After the journey ended, the Albees found themselves in an interesting predicament that often confounds young people. It was time to settle down, find a place to call home and start a family. But home was no longer California. They loved the north and desired to stay. Plus, the costs of the trip had prevented them from saving the money necessary to leave.

A new chapter unfolded with an opportunity to teach in the Eskimo village of Cape Prince of Wales, the westernmost settlement in North America on the harsh Bering Sea. While most outsiders avoided the desolate, remote place, the Albees grew to love it. They became part of the small community there as they taught the kids, hunted and foraged with the locals, and now with two children of their own, began to build a life.

Books about the north seem to have a common thread, with folks from outside relishing their experience in a wild frontier, but almost invariably returning to civilization after a short time. With Bill and Ruth there was something different. They could actually see themselves staying in Arctic Alaska forever. Ironically, two of the only people willing to stay were forced to leave. The government terminated their positions due to lack of funding. The Eskimos lost their school, and the Albees found themselves back in California.

“Alaska Challenge” was first published in 1940 and was reprinted several times. It is also available in ebook and audio formats.

They were an All-Star team of fish and wildlife biologists. Alaska was still in its infancy as an official state, and its Department of Fish and Game was hiring young men and women from the top colleges in the country to get out and collect the data needed to properly manage some of the state’s most important resources. They were given an area, a budget, a special research question or a management objective, and most importantly, given the freedom to get out in the field and figure it out. Some incredible discoveries were made during those early years that helped shape the way wildlife are managed in Alaska and beyond, and Pat Valkenburg was right in the middle of it all.

Originally from South Africa, Pat moved to Alaska at the age of 21 in 1972 to work as a field assistant with his girlfriend, Audrey Magoun. Both were wildlife students at the University of Maine in Orono, and Audrey was beginning a graduate study at the University of Alaska focused on carnivore behavior. The two spent the summer in the remote Brooks Range, watching black and grizzly bears, wolves and wolverines as they fed on carcasses and interacted with each other and their surrounding environment.

After that first summer in Alaska, Pat was hooked. He worked with Audrey again the following summer, and entered the University of Alaska to work on his own Master’s thesis, a study of grizzly bears around Denali National Park. He was hired as a Game Biologist with the state in 1977, beginning a storied career in wildlife management.

Pat and Audrey were married, and Audrey continued on with a PhD project working on wolverines, where Pat helped out in his off time. Audrey’s research built much of the foundation of our understanding of wolverine biology and life history today, and she continued with wolverine research throughout her career.

As he settled into Alaska, Pat became a highly skilled hunter, angler and trapper. He had moved there already a licensed pilot, and the ability to fly was an incredible advantage. He eventually acquired an airplane and used it to access many remote areas of the state. During the early years of his career Pat would be laid off for a couple months in the winter. He would often fly to areas to trap, and with the high fur prices at the time, could make more money than he would have at his Fish and Game job.

Valkenburg worked on a ton of projects in his twenty-eight years with Fish and Game, creating lots of memories that make for great stories. He worked extensively with wolverines, wolves and bears, and eventually became the statewide caribou research biologist. Toward the end of his career, he even served as the agency’s Deputy Commissioner.

Pat Valkenburg was a common sense, practical scientist with an unending curiosity and eagerness to learn. He was a strong advocate for the importance of on-the-ground experience in wildlife management. He often questioned the real-world validity of increasingly popular complex computer models, and bemoaned the increasing paperwork, policies and red tape throttling the work of modern day biologists. Pat’s era of fish and wildlife biologists did a ton of good work, and it shows in the state’s wildlife resources today.

“49 Years in the 49^th State” is a collection of stories and reflections from Pat Valkenburg published in 2021. It’s a fascinating read, both entertaining and educational. Sadly, Pat passed away in December of 2021, shortly after the book was published. He’ll be greatly missed.

Guy Grieve seemed to have it all – a wonderful wife and two kids, a home and a steady job at a newspaper in Scotland. Yet he was miserable. The job felt like a prison he couldn’t escape, and he spent all his waking hours searching for a way out.

His search led to Alaska, and Guy began dreaming about building a cabin in the wilderness and living alone off the land. With the family on board with this seemingly crazy scheme, Guy quit his job, convinced his newspaper editor to pay him to write a weekly column, found a few sponsors, and began preparing for Alaska.

He made contact with a family in the Yukon River village of Galena, accessible only by air, and arranged for them to help him get started. With a great deal of enthusiasm, some gear and supplies, and little else (including virtually no experience in the bush) he got on a plane in Scotland and went.

Every year numerous adventurers like Guy Grieve come from all over the world to little bush villages in similar attempts to find happiness, and most fail miserably. Guy was lucky. He was befriended by Don Lowe and family, a kind and generous bunch who were the key to his success. Don imparted wisdom, lent Guy all of the tools he needed, and helped him both morally and physically pretty much every step of the way.

With help from Don, his family and many others in Galena, Guy found a place in the bush and built his cabin over a couple of long, grueling months. He spent the winter there too, eventually borrowing a dog team and using them for transport. When spring came, he returned home to his family in Scotland, in many ways a changed man.

“Call of the American Wild: A Tenderfoot’s Escape to Alaska” is Guy Grieve’s story of his year in the Alaska wilderness. As someone who has long had a similar dream, I found it interesting to follow along with Guy as he went through this journey. His learning curve and cultural acclimation to the lifestyle was probably more extreme than most, as he had zero experience prior to Alaska. The one thing he did have that allowed for his success was humility and a willingness to learn from those around him who knew how to survive.

So, did living in isolation in the wild allow Guy to find happiness that year? It’s hard to tell. He seemed to be miserable much of the time, digging into menial tasks and constantly bemoaning the hard work and dangers associated with the place. Much of the narrative seemed overly dramatic and left little room for the few moments of peace and happiness that shined through in the story. Guy was obviously not built for that land, and wasn’t destined to stay there. But one thing is for certain, it changed him.

“Call of the American Wild” is available in paperback and all other formats. I listened to it as an audiobook while making circles around fields on a tractor.

The idea of living a remote lifestyle in the woods is appealing to most of us outdoors folk. We get a small taste of it each time we’re out there hunting, fishing or hiking, and wonder what it would be like to be ‘out there’ full time.

The reasons we give to ourselves and others about why we never pursued that wilderness dream are varied – too busy, need a job to pay the bills, family to take care of – but perhaps the most common is age. We don’t get any younger, and there’s a point at which time catches up with the body, and you can no longer do the things you once did.

But how old is too old to live alone in the woods? There’s no one answer, but you might be surprised by what’s possible. Dick Proenneke didn’t start his wilderness journey until after his fiftieth birthday, and he kept at it for 30 years.

Flown in to a remote part of Alaska with a load of supplies in the spring of 1968, Proenneke built a 12’x16’ log cabin from scratch on a site he’d scouted the year before, using only hand tools. Dick was a skilled craftsman, and the cabin was a beautifully done work of art. The structure was to become his full time home. Other than the occasional bush plane delivery of supplies and food staples, Proenneke lived off the land, hunting, fishing, berry picking and gardening. He also spent a great deal of time simply exploring and enjoying the natural beauty around him.

The most important aspect of Dick Proenneke’s journey, at least for us, is that he documented it all through countless hours of video recordings, photographs and a detailed daily journal. Through painstaking and tedious work, he left a record that the rest of the world could enjoy.

One Man’s Wilderness, first published in 1973 by Sam Keith, a friend of Dick’s, is a compilation of Proenneke’s writings from his first year in the bush. It’s become an incredibly popular book and has been republished multiple times.

In addition to the book, Proenneke’s extensive collection of film clips from his experiences was turned into a movie, “Alone in the Wilderness”. The film became an ever popular feature on PBS for years, captivating millions of people with the beauty of the area and the incredible craftmanship in cabin building.

Dick Proenneke’s experience, shared through the book and movie, can teach us a lot. The biggest takeaway for me, though, was that it’s never too late to get out there. Even after age 50, the journey might just be getting started.

Masten Beaver moved to Fort Yukon, an isolated Yukon River community near the mouth of the Porcupine, to work as a trader for the Northern Commercial Company in 1943. It was war time, and young men were being drafted from all over. One of the men who worked at the post had been sent to war, leaving a job opening for a trader. After being wounded during the war and spending a year in a hospital overseas, Beaver had been discharged from the army and was longing for a different adventure. He’d read everything he could get his hands on about Alaska and the trader job seemed like a perfect fit.

The Northern Commercial, or N.C., had taken over trading in Fort Yukon after the Hudson’s Bay Company left in the 1800’s, and remained a true trading post in every sense of the word. For the fur trappers scattered throughout the Yukon Flats, it was one of the only places to purchase much needed supplies for their survival and success.

When Masten and his new wife Helen arrived in Fort Yukon for the first time it was late winter, and the area was virtually a ghost town. Local business owners, their employees, government officials, and those too old to live in the bush made up the majority of occupants. Most of the town’s cabins were empty – they served as temporary dwellings used by the mostly Gwich’in Athabascan Indians in between trapping seasons. As Beaver’s boss Jack Ferguson told him, they had a lot of work to do in the store in preparation for trade, as the place was set to come alive after spring break-up.

As soon as the ice let go in the rivers, small bands of Indians and white trappers began to trickle into town, and their first stop was the trading post. In addition to the N.C., the village boasted two other stores: Horton & Moore and James Carroll’s place. With their large catches of fur, they visited the posts and negotiated prices with the traders. It was during this time that Ferguson spent long, tedious hours counting and grading furs and purchasing them from the trappers, while Beaver manned the store, selling goods and trying to understand the locals and their unique language and mannerisms.

After receiving an offer they considered acceptable for their hard-earned furs, most trappers – the responsible ones, at least – would begin to purchase their outfit for the next winter. Supplies included clothing, ammunition, traps, axes and knives, cooking gear and various canned foods and sacks of flour and grains. Outfits were put together in the store and set aside for the trapper’s planned date of departure back to the lines.

For those who lived in truly remote country, the trip to Fort Yukon could be a long and arduous journey, and the stay in town would be short. Some would arrive in June and be ready to return to their trapline territory sometime in July. A journey of 200 or so miles upriver with a year’s outfit could take two months in a dry year when the rivers were low. For those who trapped closer to town, they might spend most of their summer in and around the village, many using that time to fish for salmon to feed their dogs through the winter or work odd jobs to earn cash.

To supply the area with goods required a massive amount of inventory, and the N.C. received most of this on just an annual basis, when the steamboats made their way up the Yukon during high water. An entire year’s worth of goods had to be unloaded from the boat and stored away in the company’s warehouses. Able men were recruited from throughout the village to help carry in supplies that represented life necessities for people living throughout the surrounding area.

In addition to being a much needed supplier of food, tools and other goods, the trading post provided for the community in other ways. Kids traded muskrat pelts for candy, marveled at the toys they couldn’t afford, and dreamed. Women brought in beadwork, mittens and other handmade crafts to consign. Old men sat by the stove on cold nights and told stories of the old days, or talked about their trapping season and what might lie ahead. And when a new trader like Masten arrived, practically the entire town flocked to the store to give him a look.

Three years in, just when he felt like he’d settled into the trading business and Fort Yukon, it was all about to end for Beaver. He learned that the draftee he’d replaced had been discharged and was returning to work at the trading post. He would have to leave the wilderness he’d grown to love and take a transfer to the barren, windswept village of Nome. But instead, he quit. It had always been a dream of his to own a trading post, and Beaver got the chance when he took a scouting trip to the village of Chalkyitsik, about 45 miles northeast of Fort Yukon. After getting to know the people and the area, Masten and Helen took out a loan and set themselves on building a trading post there and getting together an outfit of goods. Beaver got his trading post, and operated it for a few years, but I’m not sure what happened to him after that.

The N.C. still operates in Fort Yukon today, under the name “Alaska Commercial Company”. It no longer barters or buys fur, and resembles a modern day grocery store more than the old trading post. The village is no longer a collection of seasonal cabins used between trapping seasons. The cabins are now permanent residences and trappers are hard to find. But it’s neat to think that the entire community was once supported by the fur trade and the adventurous lifestyle it entailed.

Fort Yukon Trader was published in 1955. The original is hard to find, but it was reprinted in recent years, and the ebook version is available to read for free at Archive.org. It’s a quick and enjoyable read.

In Jeremiah’s new book, “More than Wolverine: An Alaska Wilderness Trapline” he spends time in the old trapping village of Fort Yukon and talks more about area history.

A few years back, life kind of settled down a bit and the Alaska wilderness bug bit me again. I started reading old books about Alaska wilderness trappers that had fascinated me as a young man. I dreamed again about blazing trails in the bush and surviving in the remote Arctic. I began to share those dreams with others, and as a result, I met a new friend.

You know that whole Alaska dream I’d had back in my teens? Jim Firmin had done it. Fresh out of high school, he and his brother moved to a remote village on the Yukon River with a dream of trapping fur for a living. This was back in the 1970’s, when fur prices were high enough for a hard working trapper to make wages. Jim ran his trapline from a remote cabin more than 40 miles from civilization for more than 40 years. And in 2020, I had the opportunity to join him on a journey I’ll never forget.

In February 2020 I flew to Fairbanks, Alaska and then to the village of Fort Yukon. Jim and I took snowmachines and toboggans 45 miles up the Porcupine River to his remote trapping cabin. We spent two weeks cutting trails and setting traps for lynx, wolf, marten and wolverine in one of the more remote places on earth.

This area was once a home for families who made a living trapping fur. It was a bustling place, with traplines spread throughout the territory radiating out from the village. People spent most of the year out on the land hunting, fishing and trapping, with only occasional visits to town to catch up with friends and resupply. Today, it’s a quiet country. Most people live in town, and only a few venture out from time to time in search of fur.

There are some who have bucked the societal trend toward town life and continue to live in the bush like the old timers. If you’ve watched the TV show “The Last Alaskans”, you know some of them. Tyler and Ashley Selden are just north of Jim’s trapline – a short distance by air, but unreachable by land. Bob Harte’s old cabin and Charlie Jagow’s place are reachable via a long snowmachine journey if you bring plenty of gas. Heimo and Edna Korth are further north still, on the edge but still within the greater Fort Yukon area. But there aren’t many more.

The trip was quite an experience. I trapped and snared lynx and wolverine, roamed the vast Porcupine River and dozens of miles of bush trails, endured minus 50 degree weather, and experienced the isolation that makes the place so special. It was a taste of what I could have experienced if I’d made a different life decision all those year ago. A brief taste.

My new book “More than Wolverine, An Alaska Wilderness Trapline” documents my trip to the Alaska bush and explores the history – both natural and human – that shape this special place. If you’ve ever had a similar dream, no matter how brief, I think you’ll enjoy coming along for the ride.

“More than Wolverine” is available on Amazon.com or the Trapping Today Store.

The problem with oral histories is that they are just that – oral. Nobody writes them down! So the stories usually die with the story teller, and they tend to lose details and accuracy with each retelling, until they’re lost in the past.

Fortunately, some people with really interesting stories were good writers, like Walter Arnold, Helen Hamlin, Chick Ferguson and others, and they preserved their mark on history through magazine articles and books. But they were the minority. Let’s be honest, most folks will talk your ears off with gold, but would never sit down and put a page of it on paper.

Enter the listener. The compiler. The editor. The second-hand story teller. In short, the person who’s passionate enough about learning and sharing history that they make the effort to tell other folks’stories in the form of books. Jim Reardon was a classic conveyer of others’ stories. He made part of his career on telling the stories of Alaska’s most interesting outdoors men and women. Jay Lawson did similar work in Wyoming. Actually, a little pawing through my book shelf reveals a surprising number of these second-hand story tellers. You’ve probably stumbled across a few of them yourself.

My most recent experience with the work of a second-hand storyteller came after my first real vacation, a three week fur trapping expedition in the interior of Alaska last winter. I joined a friend on his bush trap line up the Porcupine River, forty miles from the nearest neighbor. The area, which had once supported a thriving community of trappers, is all but abandoned today. I had a strong desire to learn everything there was to know about the local history and read every book and historical account available. I thought I’d gotten pretty close, until just a few weeks ago.

“Kaiiroondak: Behind the Willows” is a collection of stories and accounts from Richard Martin (1914-1986), who spent most of his years living a subsistence lifestyle on the Porcupine in its heyday. During a three week riverboat trip in 1983, Bill Pfisterer recorded Martin’s stories and accounts of the settlements, families, unique events, and everyday life as it occurred in a vast wilderness that’s quiet today.

Now, when I see a place on the map, remember a bend in the river or a prominent tributary, there’s a real life story associated with it that I can reflect back on, rather than just speculating what may have been. The old cabins are hidden from view to a river traveler now, obscured by willows, but if you know where to look, you can find some neat stuff behind those willows. That’s the value of oral history. It gives a deeper meaning to the experience of a place.

To all you second-hand story tellers out there, thank you. Your work helps enhance the outdoor experience for all of us. We could use more of it. In fact, I may even chip in.

They say the country makes the man. The tougher the country, the tougher – and usually more interesting – the man. Not everyone was up for settling the remote and rugged country in Wyoming during the turn of the last century, but those who did had a few things in common. They were adventure seekers, weren’t afraid to risk life and limb, and most didn’t really have a whole lot to lose.

In “Men to Match our Mountains”, retired Wyoming game warden Jay Lawson cataloged the lives of some of the most notable pioneers of the West, folks who braved the wilderness and harsh weather, hunted for food, trapped fur for income, ran guiding and outfitting businesses, and established homesteads in the state’s early days.

The generation that was born around the late 1800’s and early 1900’s took part in a special time in the settling of that country. Their parents’ generation had fought off Indians, established homesteads and towns, and ran cattle on the open range. They were coming of age at a time when the land was being fenced in, big game populations were starting to recover from overharvest, and the land was still vast and unoccupied, with plenty of beautiful valley bottoms open for staking.

Many of these early pioneers were cowboys for the big ranch outfits and quite a few ran the rodeo circuit in their younger years. Almost all left home at a very young age to find work. Most served in the military during World War I, probably none came back the same. All kept a few horses to travel in the mountains and pack deer and elk out. They’d build cabins and small shelters and run trap lines for marten, coyotes and other furbearers in the deep snow of the rugged mountain country.

They were cowboys, loggers, outfitters, guides, artists, wardens, biologists, and some were women who were tougher than most men. As he spent time among these people in the course of his travels throughout Wyoming, Lawson realized these were special people whose stories should be told, as most were quite old and didn’t have much time left to share them. Jay began to interview these folks, get their stories down on paper, and eventually compiled them into a book.

“Men to Match our Mountains” was published in 2007, and features 27 legendary characters who embodied the true pioneer spirit of Wyoming. I don’t believe any of them are still with us, but thanks to Jay Lawson’s efforts, their legacy is.

Hunting sheep in the high country is adventure enough on its own, but what if a bush pilot dropped you and your partner off on a glacier in Alaska’s Chugach Mountains? How about if that glacier wasn’t your intended destination, but a forced choice due to bad flying weather? No problem, you’d go about your hunt and the pilot knew where to come and get you at the agreed upon date. But what if the pilot never returned? What if, unbeknownst to you, he never made it home the day he dropped you off and the mounting search parties could find no trace of him or his plane?

The steep rocky terrain that sheep call home can be extremely hazardous. What if, after a successful stalk and shot, you and your hunting buddy are packing a sheep back to camp and he takes a fatal fall down the side of a cliff? These are the days before personal locator beacons and satellite messenger services. You wait for the pilot’s return. Days overdue, he doesn’t show. Maybe you stay out in the elements too long, in a state of shock over your hunting partner’s death, and you freeze your feet. In order to survive, you have to amputate part of one leg. Food is getting low and you can’t move around very well. Winter is setting in on the high country, with snows piling up. The food supply is playing out. It’s clear that nobody is coming for you. They must assume you went down with the pilot, who remains missing.

Think the odds could be stacked any further against survival? How much of a test would it be to stay alive and make it back to civilization on your own? How unbelievable would it be to beat the odds and get through an entire winter with one leg, some matches and a few rounds of ammunition? How close could you get, and how easy would it be for one slip up to end it all?

Just some things to think about. I’m not saying any of these events took place in Jack Whitman’s 2017 fictional book, “The Last Hunt”. After all, I wouldn’t want to be a spoiler. But if they did, it would make for one heck of a captivating story, with an ending you’d never expect!

When John McPhee visited the Alaska’s upper Yukon River in the mid 1970’s, he was met with an eclectic group of individualists who had decided to make the rugged wilderness their home. They ranged from folks like John Borg, who settled in the village and ran most every part of it, to Dick Cook, who lived off the land in a remote cabin and relished self sufficiency. The Ulvi’s and friends were hippies from California. Brad Snow and Lilly Allen showed up from New Hampshire. They were all different, but all had something in common. They wanted to get away from the life they’d lived elsewhere, and they weren’t afraid of hard work and brutal conditions.

McPhee’s book “Coming into the Country” was powerful in its ability to captivate readers with the stories of its subjects. Each was a unique character, and as a friendly, unassuming observer, McPhee described them beautifully.

Mike Potts was one of McPhee’s many interesting subjects. They met while John was visiting the Indian Village of Eagle, a separate settlement a few miles from the main village. Unlike most of the white settlers who’d either moved to Eagle or settled on down the river in a cabin, Potts had immersed himself in the native village. Born in Iowa, Potts dreamed of being a mountain man and trapper as a boy. He left for Alaska the day after he graduated from high school.

After discovering Eagle, Alaska, Potts made friends in the Indian Village. He had a great respect for the natives and took every opportunity to learn from them. He built cabins in the mountains nearby, ran a trapline, and hunted and fished throughout the area for years. He married a native woman from the village and they started a family.

Once in a while I take an interest in learning what ever happened to different characters I read about. It’s human nature to want to hear ‘the rest of the story’. So when I wandered across a book written by the very same Mike Potts forty years after McPhee’s book came out, I had to pick up a copy.

“Tales of Trails in the Far North” is Mike Potts’ story of his life in Alaska. In 180 pages, Mike writes of his adventures, shares trapline journals and discusses the various life changes and pursuits he’s experienced through the decades. It isn’t exactly a literary masterpiece, but if you’re interested in hearing more from the young man McPhee introduced to the world back in the ‘70’s, check it out. For me, it’s another addition to my fast growing Alaska book collection.