Contributed by Jeff Ramsyer
“CABIN: An Alaska Wilderness Dream” by Eric Wade, Moonshine Cove Publishing, November 2019
No Owner’s Manual for Wilderness Users: It’s better to do something wrong than do nothing.
Eric Wade, author of “CABIN: An Alaska Wilderness Dream”, published by Moonshine Cove Publishing, received that advice working as a logger in Oregon many years ago. He acknowledges that might not be the best advice, but it stuck with him. Right or wrong, things do tend to get done if you just do something. Wade’s account of fulfilling his dream to build a cabin in Alaska’s wilderness is a heartfelt, educational and fascinating story about doing. He had a wilderness dream since boyhood, fostered by reading about backwoods icons like Daniel Boone, Davie Crocket, Jim Bridger and watching television westerns, so when he got the chance to move to Alaska, he took it. That was forty years ago.
The wilderness cabin is part of Alaska’s lore. Alaska and cabins go together like… well, you know… sourdough and pancakes or black bears and honey, so his dream included a cabin, a log cabin. The cabin was so important, in fact, that it was the focal point of Wade’s experiences in the wilds.
This book is much more than a story about a cabin, though. Wade’s personable and descriptive writing takes you along on his quest and leaves you wishing for more stories. In this memoir, the author literally and figuratively covers a lot of ground, traipsing thousands of miles of road and river to remote Alaska over more than thirty years. He teaches what he has learned and shares his love for fish, trees, animals and family. Besides writing a how-to guide on cabin building, river travel, and just getting by in the wilds, Wade teaches us about the inhabitants in his piece of the Alaskan forest, the personalities of rivers, outboard engines, his firsthand experience with climate change, and much more.
Wade makes it clear there is no owners-manual for wilderness users. Even though he spends all the time he can planning, studying and discussing his small one-room log castle in the wild, no amount of organization or forethought could have prepared him for the many obstacles he would have to overcome. Along the way he learns and teaches, all with good humor and a can-do attitude. With the help of friends, family, strangers, and his patient and thoughtful wife, he realizes his dream—well most of it. There is a lesson to be learned too. What he doesn’t achieve, after years of planning and dreaming, is perhaps what’s most important in this story. I love this book.
This book is now available Amazon and Barnes & Noble online and will be in local book stores soon.
You can visit Eric Wade’s author page at www.ericnolanwade.com. He also writes a biweekly newsletter titled “Notes from Alaska’s Woods”. Subscribe to the newsletter at the “Notes from Alaska’s Woods” Facebook page.
