I received a copy of Braving It through the Giveaways on Goodreads. Anyway loved this little glimpse into a different slice of life, armchair traveling is not the same but the closest I will get. Made the book more visual, hearing he and his wife describe raising their family in the wilderness, seeing them talk. So I saw what he looked like, his wife, daughter and grandchild too. Was watching PBS Sunday night, ran into a show called The Last Alaskans and their was Heimo, on TV, stripping the bark off the trees to make his new cabin. A place where your nearest neighbor is over four hundred miles away.Īn interesting thing happened when I was reading this, an amazing coincidence. I often wonder when reading a book like this about the personalities of the people, families, that make this place their home. Can you imagine? Loved all these facts and figures, bits of history that went along with the story. Though I can't get over the fact that Alaska has over forty types of mosquitoes. Loved how Aidan and her father bonded, everything she learned, how she grew to love this wild place. Alaska with its wilderness, the dangers, animals, hunting, fishing, a whole different mindset. Reading about a way of life, a place, that I know will never be mine is so wonderfully interesting. They would return two other times, though their last trip would be the most difficult. There Aidan will learn new skills, grow in confidence and experience something most never experience. James decided to take his daughter Sudan, fifteen, with him to Alaska to help his cousin Heimo build a new cabin. Have been reading this off and on throughout the past week and I have enjoyed everything about this amazing adventure story.

The journey would test them, and their relationship, in one of the planet's most remote places: a land of wolves, musk oxen, Dall sheep, golden eagles, and polar bears. It would be their third and most ambitious trip. So he decided to take Aidan back to Alaska one final time before she left home. Campbell knew that in traditional Eskimo cultures, some daughters earned a rite of passage usually reserved for young men. Despite windchills of 50 degrees below zero, father and daughter ventured out daily to track, hunt, and trap. She even agreed to return a few months later to help the Korths work their traplines and hunt for caribou and moose. So when James Campbell's cousin Heimo Korth asked him to spend a summer building a cabin in the rugged Interior, Campbell hesitated about inviting his fifteen-year-old daughter, Aidan, to join him: Would she be able to withstand clouds of mosquitoes, the threat of grizzlies, bathing in an ice-cold river, and hours of grueling labor peeling and hauling logs? But once there, Aidan embraced the wild. Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, home to only a handful of people, is a harsh and lonely place.

Braving It by James Campbell