The Winter of ’79: Journals of a Wilderness Wife

The Winter of ’79 is the true story of one particular winter season that spanned the gap from 1979 to 1980 with a lot of nasty weather in between. We know about it because Kate, alone on a mountain top with no phone and no one over the age of one to talk to, wrote letters to her mamasan in Hawaii. Her mom kept the letters. Kate also penned a journal. Between the two written sources and more than one hundred original photographs, a person can get a pretty good feel for what an Alaskan winter in an isolated and remote setting can be like.

On top of their remote mountain, Kate and baby Atwood are holding down the fort and keeping the home fires burning, while Tim is commuting to a job in Kenai. His daily trips through woods on an antique snow-machine are inherently dangerous, and he is battling constant sickness. With luck, he will make it home each night.

Suddenly, living in a winter wilderness is not as fun as they had imagined it would be. Will this winter of ’79 be the deal breaker to their Jack London and Ralph Waldo Emerson-inspired Transcendental hybrid odyssey?