Overview

The true story of a unique family who has lived for over sixty years on a remote island in the Colville River Delta on the edge of the Arctic Ocean along Alaska's northern coast. It is an amazing saga of a frontier-homestead life laced with hard work, adventures, struggles, joys, setbacks, and successes--all wrapped in a fiercely independent and free lifestyle. The description of life in this harsh but beautiful land spans the early years of great isolation, through the years of the discovery, development, and expanding of the petroleum industry which brought increasing population surrounding the once extremely isolated homestead. These stories stretch over 60 years of wilderness survival beginning with the early days of bare necessities and tent accommodations, to a modern home with all the amenities; from transportation limited to a small bush airplane in which to cross the vast distances between home and civilization, to vehicles traveling those distances on new roads; from going months between any communication with the outside world, to constant digital communications now available in the modern world. The Helmericks home is an island of wilderness, a specially protected sanctuary that is home to hundreds of birds and other wildlife. The land has remained unchanged even though their living conditions have evolved from small tents to modern homes and isolation has given way to more neighbors. Despite the many changes all around them, the Helmericks love and hang on to the independent life they have carved out of a harsh but beautiful land.

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9781954896239

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Teena Helmericks is a frontier woman who has lived and thrived along the edge of the Arctic coast of Alaska. After her childhood in Utqiagvik, the northern most village in Alaska, and school years in Washington State, she then took up life on an island in the Colville River Delta where the river meets the Arctic Ocean. There her life progressed on the family's three-generation homestead-like parcel of land from meager means and extreme remoteness to modern homes and many neighbors.Teena and her family witnessed the discovery and development of the North Slope Gas and Petroleum Industry. They observed many changes across the whole North Slope over the years as local governments formed and villages expanded along with this petroleum industry. She and her husband raised four boys who thrived on homeschooling and their frontier-style life laced with adventure, hard work, and exceptional wilderness expertise.

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