Shelley Gill's Life In Alaska
I celebrated 52 years in Alaska in 2024. Like so many people who have made the 49th state their home, I read Jack London when I was a kid. I was inspired by his stories of life in the north--the dogs, the adventure and most of all the wilderness. I was born in New Mexico but my parents bought a resort in Florida when I was nine years old. So that's really where I feel like I grew up. And I did not like it.
Don't get me wrong. When I was a kid south Florida was a beautiful place. I spent all my time in the ocean surfing, swimming, diving but you could see how fast it was changing. A thousand people a day moved into that state and it's been that way the whole time I've been gone. It wasn't long before they tore down the beautiful old Spanish houses and built sky high condos and you had to pay to go to the beach. So I went as far away from Florida as I could. From one end of the road to the other. And I lived in the wilderness. I have been all over Alaska as a writer. First I worked for newspapers, then magazines, then I began writing my own books.
Before the influx of people who came north to take the oil, trees, minerals, fish etc. folks were sensible and they depended on each other and even though fiercely independent they took care of each other. I met old timers who had incredible stories. Joe Redington Sr., Howard Rock, Carl Clarke, Bella Hammond, the folks who wrote the Alaska Constitution, the folks who decided the D2 Lands bill and the Alaska Native Claims Settlement. It wasn't long before I had sled dogs. And then I was off on my own adventures exploring trails all around the state. Sleeping in snow caves under the Northern Lights, camping on the tundra with 1000 caribou, working on boats doing whale research, salmon seining, building walls and fireplaces with stone my dogs hauled out of the mountains, training horses for a guide, riding through the Alaska Range, the Talkeetnas, the Chugach, the Kenai.
Those early years in Alaska were all about fun. Climbing, exploring, learning about the land. By the time I was 50 I had pretty much seen all the wilderness there was left around the world except Africa. Alaska is really the end of it and every year people want more, more, more. More roads, more pipelines, more cruise ships, more mines...pushing the few animals left out of their habitat toward extinction. I have watched as the crab, herring, halibut and salmon stocks have been overfished, stellar sea lions and killer whales shot at by selfish fishermen, the moose and caribou over-hunted until there is little left for the traditional subsistence way of life.
Attitudes have changed. We used to say the salmon prayer, grateful for each fish or animal we caught. Now people call it "my moose" as if they own these wild animals and they use words like 'harvest' instead of kill...like they had something to do with growing the moose. I love Alaska, and the way we treat it breaks my heart. It is the same old greed that ruined Florida that made me an environmental warrior. Those sentiments drive the choices of how I conduct my life and of course why I write what I write.
If you'd like your students to get a taste of what it's like to have an adventurous spirit while they learn about the environment at the same time, contact us about scheduling a visit from Shelley.