In 1973, Norma Cobb, her husband Lester, and the their five children, the oldest of whom was nine-years-old and the youngest, twins, barely one, pulled up stakes in the Lower Forty-eight and headed north to Alaska to follow a pioneer dream of claiming land under the Homestead Act. The only land available lay north of Fairbanks near the Arctic Circle where grizzlies outnumbered humans twenty to one. In addition to fierce winters and predatory animals, the Alaskan frontier drew the more unsavory elements of society's fringes. From the beginning, the Cobbs found themselves pitted in a life or death feud with unscrupulous neighbors who would rob from new settlers, attempt to burn them out, shoot them, and jump their claim. The Cobbs were chechakos, tenderfeet, in a lost land that consumed even toughened settlers. Everything, including their "civilized" past, conspired to defeat them. They constructed a cabin and the first snow collapsed the roof. They built too close to the creek and spring breakup threatened to flood them out. Bears prowled the nearby woods, stalking the children, and Lester Cobb would leave for months at a time in search of work. But through it all, they survived on the strength of Norma Cobb---a woman whose love for her family knew no bounds and whose courage in the face of mortal danger is an inspiration to us all. Arctic Homestead is her story. “Turn off the TV, throw a log on the fire, unpack your dreams. This is the real thing: a farewell account of our greatest myth about ourselves, the frontier myth. Norma Cobb writes with a skinning knife and gun stock, with bear grease and shards of river ice---a memoir as wild, engaging, stubborn, and authentic as that distant valley where her family staked out the last plot in America.” ― John Balzar, author of Yukon Alone “Cobb's voice combines the ruggedness of the frontier with the tenderness of a caring mother, resulting in an appealing, and enjoyably quick read.” ― Publishers Weekly “Her story exhibits her strength and sheer willpower to make it work.” ― Oregonian Norma Cobb is the last woman pioneer to sign up under the U.S. Homestead Act and become a homesteader. She and her family still live in the valley they settled. Arctic Homestead is Norma Cobb’s first book. Charles W. Sasser served in the U.S. Army Special Forces, the Green Berets, for thirteen years, and has spent time in Vietnam and Central America as a war correspondent. He has been a full-time freelance writer/journalist since 1979 and has over 30 published books to his name, including None Left Behind and Raider . He lives in Oklahoma. Arctic Homestead The True Story of One Family's Survival and Courage in the Alaskan Wilds By Norma Cobb, Charles W. Sasser St. Martin's Press Copyright © 2000 Norma Cobb and Charles W. Sasser All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-312-28379-7 CHAPTER 1 Being isolated and lonely is different from being in town and lonely. Few people can take it. They fall apart each in his own way just as I began to fall apart the moment Les pushed back his plate and looked at me across what remained of supper's black bear roast. "Norma ...?" I slowly laid down my fork and, before he could continue, warded him off with both palms. I didn't want to hear it. Even the children stopped eating. Early October's first snowfall murmured in the darkness against the spruce log cabin. Silence fell around the table, so that the fire in the wood-burning oil drum roared like a grizzly coming down the stovepipe and the whisper of snow on the black windows became as ominous as gossip at a funeral wake. The way Les looked at me, half apologetically, half triumphantly ... Panic leered from shadows resurrected to life by the uncertain flicker of the oil lamp. Tears blurred my vision. It wasn't as though I hadn't known tonight or a night like tonight eventually had to come. Sometimes I blocked from my mind things I didn't want to happen. I didn't trust myself to speak. I knew I might say things I surely would come to regret in hindsight. The hush built. Lester Cobb was one stubborn man. I knew it when I married him, but I married him anyhow. He had dark hair and a magnificent beard. At six feet two, he towered over me by nearly a foot. He made me feel protected and diminished at the same time. It was his attitude as much as his size. He thought he could conquer the world, and if he couldn't conquer it he would bluster his way through. I could never win an argument with him. He would have his way tonight, as he had his way in most things. Anger, resentment, loneliness, flared deep inside my soul, fueled by emotion with which I was well acquainted after nearly three years homesteading the Alaskan wilderness — raw fear. My husband was going to abandon me and our five small ones in the middle of the northern wilds with wolves literally at the cabin door and snow bringing the long darkness of the Arctic winter. Suddenly, I let it all out from a bitter deep sprin