My son, Mark, built a wall. Rock by rock, he moved twelve tons of granite, to create a thing of rugged beauty. The granite, blasted into chunks at a local quarry, came back together again by the toil and hands of someone I love – a person whose lineage includes veterans who had to […]
Kaylene Johnson-Sullivan
Kaylene Johnson-Sullivan lives on a small horse farm in Alaska. She is an award-winning journalist and author of several books. Her book Canyons and Ice: The Wilderness Travels of Dick Griffith was recently made into a PBS documentary. For more information visit www.kaylene.us
Thirsty
We have built a fence and gate to keep animals in, people out. I think about water that once flowed through the dried-up creek bed, and the tree that stands a century old, sentinel perch for generations of ravens, and the hubris of thinking it “ours.” If I could keep it wild I’d have […]
Animal Strangers
When I enter the woods, I expect something strange and interesting to happen. Watching a deer lying down for a nap, or a pair of gray foxes climbing an oak, or looking into a hollow log and seeing a large rabbit looking back, I’m surprised and delighted. My friends and I see animals as […]
Our Perfect Wild
Before Alaska villages started falling into the ocean, this couple saw change coming Ray Bane sat quietly on the bank of the Koyukuk River, a winding ribbon of blue so clear that the slant of sun on its pebble-strewn floor bounced back a million shards of light. The river meandered down and along the […]