From the author/filmmaker of Arctic Son: Fulfilling the dream and the book on which the Arctic Daughter: A Lifetime in the Wilderness documentary is based. Set in the Arctic wilderness of Alaska in the 1970s, here is an extraordinary journey of self-discovery and a lyrical odyssey. This remarkable tale of survival and courage measures the value of dreams against the unforgiving realities of the natural world. Heading off in an overloaded canoe, a young couple journeyed down the Yukon River and walked upstream into the remote Brooks Range to build a cabin and live off the land. She was twenty-two, daughter of a famous woman adventurer. He was her childhood sweetheart. Four years later, they emerged from the Alaskan wilds. Now in her sixties, Jean Aspen updates her spellbinding tale of adventure in a harsh and beautiful land for a new generation. Arctic Daughter is at once an extraordinary journey of self-discovery and a lyrical odyssey. A Reader's Digest book selection, this remarkable tale of survival and courage measures the value of dreams against the unforgiving realities of the natural world. “This stark, philosophical work chronicles Aspen, an artist and daughter of the author-adventurer Connie Helmer¬icks, who, at the age of 22, chose to sojourn into the wil¬derness of Alaska, above the Arctic Circle, and live off the land. Aspen was accompanied by her first husband-to-be Phil; her harsh, relentlessly honest journal depicts two stoics who ate salted and dried horse meat, berries, eve¬n under miserable circumstances raw, rubbery moose that contained ‘the wriggly pearl of a maggot.’ The couple encountered no other humans for almost a year, and in that time the author sought the ‘essence of experience . . . that elusive something that makes the world sparkle.’ Aspen believed that civilization snatches away more than it gives in return: ‘I’m not certain that all our toys are worth what we pay for them.’ Rather, she endured the brutal weather and exalted when the sun returned after a 60-day absence: ‘Life isn’t safe, no matter how carefully you plan. . . . You may as well enjoy the ride.’ Aspen’s journey isn’t pretty reading, but her voice is memorable and her endurance marvelous.” ―PUBLISHERS WEEKLY "Full of fine sense details . . . fascinating reading . . . joins that scant handful of good books by women about the challenge and hard-won joy of bush life lived to its fullest.” ―THE ANCHORAGE TIMES "Very well written book of two peoples' adventure into the back woods of Alaska and truly living off of the land. Follow their story as this young couple travel the Yukon River in a dangerously overloaded canoe packed with winter supplies, food and building materials. Hunting and fishing along the way for food to survive. With the help of a old miner's cabin and cache they were able to add to their building materials to build a log cabin to survive the winter. Living off of the small supplies of food they were able to pack in the canoe and what they could kill for meat they more then once were on the verge of death from the cold, lack of food and the raging river." ―Trish Schmidt, Alaska Historian Tips from the author and husband on DIY cabin building in New Pioneer Magazine: Daughter of Arctic explorer Constance Helmericks, Jean Aspen began life in the wilderness. Throughout six decades, the natural world has remained central to her. Jean is also the author of ARCTIC SON. She and her husband, Tom Irons, live in Alaska and spend much of each year in Alaskan wilds. Finding the old gold town put us at last on the map, and we carefully marked each day’s travel with little penciled lines. It was encouraging to see the daily change in the landscape that now marked our upstream progress. The river no longer rambled freely, but was often bounded on one side or the other by a two-hundred-foot cutbank, confining it to a broad glacial cut where it swung from side to side as if seeking escape. I tried to imagine what the land had looked like ten thousand years ago when a massive ice field capped the Brooks Range and a river of ice had carved this valley. A people very much like ourselves had hunted moose and bear in the Yukon flats, and fished the rivers washing out of the glaciers. In the fall, they picked cranberries and blueberries with their children, and in the spring they saw the ice go out and watched the birds return. They nursed their babies and cared for their old people and told stories around the night fires. One day the river swung abruptly, butting into the bare bones of a mountain mass. For some time it had paralleled the range as if undecided, then turned resolutely northward, wedging open a wide valley into its secret heart. Soon we were leaving our familiar gray crags behind for another set of landmarks. As the river began its climb in earnest, we developed a different method for surmounting rapids. These were now strewn with large boulders, “boat eaters” we called them, interspersed with deep