"A memoir as wild, engaging, stubborn, and authentic as that distant valley where [Cobb's] family staked out the last plot in America." —John Balzar, author of Yukon AloneIn 1973, Norma Cobb, her husband Lester and their five children—the oldest of whom was nine years old and the youngest, twins, barely one—pulled up stakes in the lower 48 and headed north to Alaska to follow a pioneer dream of claiming land under the Homestead Act. The only land available ...

In 1973, Norma Cobb, her husband Lester, and their five children 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 themselv...