Chautauqua – The captivating female voice beckons: “Alaska, beyond your dreams – within your reach” as scenes of the state’s majestic beauty play across the screen. It’s done so well you hardly recognize it as a commercial for the Alaska tourism industry. I figure it’s pretty effective because I was living there twenty years ago, and every time I see it I want to pack my bags.

Without a doubt my urge to return is also fueled by the rapid descent into madness we see all around us; much as it was when I originally moved there in 1975. Back then – still reeling from my Vietnam experience, the last place I wanted to be was in some big city; so I migrated north to seek my future in the remote wilderness of Alaska.

My life has been sprinkled with adventure: sometimes it was something I sought out, other times just the opposite. Living in the remote Alaskan wilderness was the former kind. Having wolves living with me as equals, not so much.

Every good story begins somewhere; and this one goes all the way back to the summer of 1963, just after my 14th birthday. For a month every summer my family traveled back home to northern Wisconsin for vacation. Near the small town of Laona there is a sizable puddle of water known as Birch Lake nestled like a jewel amid the lush forest. The family owned a lodge size cabin on the north shore, and this was where I spent those summer vacations, the place my parents grew up. Every year my grandfather, dad & uncle would take off into the woods to go trout fishing at a place known only as secret lake. Every year I’d beg them to let me tag along…every year they said no.

From years of paying close attention whenever they spoke of secret lake, I’d acquired a rough sense of what direction to travel in to find it. It wasn’t on any maps to be found, I suppose that was why it was a secret, but I was determined to find it on my own. I had more time and experience in the forest than most boy scouts, and every summer I made a point to explore deeper and deeper into the woods surrounding the cabin. After so many summers of being denied…I was determined to see secret lake this year, and prove something to my dad. Continue reading →