Alaskan Retreater's Notebook: One Man's Journey into the Alaskan Wilderness

“Dedicated fans of Alaska reality-television shows will enjoy this look at real life in the forty-ninth state” (Booklist). In the fall of 1978, Ray Ordorica packed everything he thought he would need into his Toyota LandCruiser and drove north to Alaska. He came to a land he had never seen, to find something he wasn’t even sure existed: a wilderness cabin he could use for a year or more to live, think, relax, read, and write. Ordorica found his cabin, fixed it up, and, although it was just an uninsulated 12-by-16-foot one-room log structure, he spent three winters in it in relative comfort. Ordorica’s life in that cabin fulfilled a dream he’d had for more than ten years. During his long winters in Alaska, it occurred to him that there must be many others who have put off an extended wilderness visit to out of uncertainty or fear. They have as many questions about Alaska as he had before he arrived: How do you cope with forty below? How do you get water? Is it totally dark in mid-winter? Alaskan Retreater’s Notebook is an epic memoir about one man’s journey into the Alaskan wilderness, filled with wisdom and insight into how to get away from the noisy modern world and experience an adventure in simplicity.