When Justin & I purchased our cabin in Healy in August 2019, we had no idea what we were in for. We thought we would still be living and working on the road for awhile, and our cabin would be an occasional respite. We all know what happened in 2020, which cancelled our road job and forced us to plant our roots in one place—a place to call our own for the first time in a decade.
Justin and I have moved around a lot, collectively calling 14 different states “home,” with some stints lasting only 2 months. We’ve lived in our fair share of tiny towns (population 10) and big cities (population 1.6 million). So we can speak with authority about what it’s like to forge new friendships as adults. However, making new friends in a small, remote community in the middle of a pandemic when social circles were naturally shrinking—that was something new.
We don’t have counties here, so we are Denali Borough, which stretches 100 miles along the George Parks Highway. Denali Borough is roughly the size of Maryland with a year-round population of a whopping 2500 people, with the biggest percentage (1000 people) in Healy. The borough also includes McKinley Village, Cantwell and Anderson.
Our small community gets smaller in the winter. With tourists gone, each fresh face becomes a possible neighbor and friend! At the same time, tiny towns are not the easiest place to penetrate with the typical divides present in our country these days. Also old-timers (called sourdoughs in Alaska) have heard the idealism a million times: I’m hoping to buy some land, live off the grid, away from modern society … blah blah blah.
With all that being said, we’ve never felt more at home! We have more like-minded friends than we’ve had in any other locale. And we also hit the jackpot with our neighborhood on Hilltop.
In celebration of our 3-year Healy Home anniversary, I thought it would be fun to interview a few people in our neighborhood circle!
KATHY
Summary: Kathy is basically the reason we bought our cabin on Hilltop! The full story lives here, but the abridged version is we rented Kathy’s cabin on Hilltop in 2019 for 6 weeks. She introduced us to her niece, also a Healyite, and that niece gave us the intel on a cabin going up for sale … which we purchased within 48 hours! Kathy is a tour guide for Collette, so she comes and goes to her cabin in Healy all summer long, and in fact, she has 3 other homes around the US that she bounces around. She is pragmatic and extremely thoughtful (she keeps the post office in business with the number of cards/postcards she sends to all her friends and family). Our conversation always flows from one subject to the next like a waterfall bubbling over as her brain is an overpacked suitcase of knowledge from all her travels and she is brimming with questions. Did I mention she loves hiking and yard sales almost as much as we do?!
Living situation details: Dry cabin and an outhouse.
What does Healy have that your other homes don’t have? There’s spectacular scenery in every direction (Patrice’s note: Kathy’s cabin is like a treehouse with 360-degree windows on the second floor). There’s often a moose in my yard, but then it disappears just as quickly as it showed up. I also love my neighbors & the friendly people that live here!
DONNA
Summary: Donna lives about a mile from us and was one of the first friends we made in October 2019. She needed a place to store her camper for the winter and put a note up on our Healy Facebook group, and we responded that we had a big driveway! 2019-2020 was her first winter in Alaska, so we bonded over being winter neophytes. I tease Donna because she is 70 and I often tell her she shouldn’t be doing the things she does “at her age,” like trying XC skiing and kayaking for the first time ever. But she always proves me wrong. She has been our go-to, always-ready, type 2 adventure buddy, year-round. The 3 of us have certainly tested our limits, trudging through waist-deep snow on a “spring hike” and discovering what temperature might be too cold to play outside in the winter (-10). We also cherish indoor time together and play games together with another friend pretty much weekly during the winter.
Living situation details: 300 square-foot cabin on Otto Lake WITH plumbing, including a washer and dryer! (Which I’ve used many times)
Favorite pieces of gear to survive the winter? My XC skis and Toyo heater.
SARAH
Summary: Sarah is one part girl next door, two parts bad ass. I call her Justin’s 3rd sister because they are SO alike. Neither one of them can ever sit still, they are always scheming the next great PROJECT, competing in the battle of the thrift for the the goods on our Healy Yard Sale Facebook group and will travel for concerts. And there I am with my skepticism in the background. But seriously, this chic is uber-determined and skilled in the DIY area, an amazing artist, as well as an ornithological naturalist, so really the right person to have as a neighbor. Doesn’t hurt that she is extremely empathetic, witty and can throw down her Boston accent at any given moment.
Living situation details: 420 square-foot cabin with an outhouse. She typically finds a place WITH plumbing in McKinley Village to live in the winter.
Why did Alaska feel like home after all you’re moving around? I’ve lived in 6 other states, but Alaska always felt like home, especially now that I’ve lived here for roughly 15 years. The mountains are truly like mirrors, and I learn more about myself the longer I live here. Doesn’t hurt that living here is like living inside a painting!
What pleasures do you miss from the lower 48? Boys. The odds are good, but the goods are odd. (There are way more men than women in Alaska). I also miss In and Out Burger.
How do you amuse yourself when everything closes for the winter? I spend a lot of time with my best friend, #kittymcmeow.
SARAH & RYNO
A huge part of life in Alaska is taking care of one another. You have to be self-sufficient to live in remote areas, and we are certainly still in that learning curve. Case in point: we met Sarah before Ryno, when we flagged her down on a 20 below day in December 2019 to try to jump our car. She was extremely helpful to 2 strangers, not only trying a few times to give us a jump, but driving us all around to pick up a battery and run another errand. She literally did not leave us in the cold to die out there! Sarah’s busy season is in the summer like us, so we joke that we’ll see each other in the winter! She is out XC skiing pretty much every day with her dog and has showed us all around the good spots to go skiing out our door. Ryno works year-round at our wind farm, and Justin sees him more than I do, either on the golf course or for the weekly poker game with some other folks in Healy. Because of their ~20 years in Alaska, they have been great resources for every Alaska question!
Living situation details: Two floor cabin totaling 672 sq ft with an outhouse, but big plans for expanding AND adding water!!
How long have you lived in Alaska? We’ve been here close to 20 years (Ryno since 2003 and Sarah since 2006). Fun fact: we actually grew up 30 miles apart in the Detroit area, but first met here in Alaska—meant to be! Married 12 years last week!
What’s your favorite season in AK & why? Sarah:My favorite season is kinda split—I really love the fall with the tundra colors and the fresh snow on the mountains…and mostly all the people leaving and getting our town back! But I also love March when the sun comes back but there’s still lots of snow to play in.
Nancy & Tim
Tim & Nancy have a neat—and surprisingly common—Alaskan story. Nancy came to Denali for a summer job in 1978, intending to only stay for the four-month season. That first season turned into a lifetime in Alaska. Her parents were not at all happy she chose Alaska over home, or some warmer place like Hawaii. Fast forward to 1982, when Tim moved to the Denali area. They met while Nancy was bartending & Tim was working in construction, and now they’ve been married for 37 years. They even built their cabin on Hilltop (it took three summers to complete). Although they leave Alaska in the winter, they always return. Nancy has had a coveted Denali National Park bus driver job since 1995, and is having a hard time letting it go for full retirement.
Living situation details: About 1000 square feet of living space on top of 1000 square feet of garage/shop WITH plumbing (a holding tank and a septic). While they have spent many winters in Alaska, they no longer winter here (and in fact purchased our camper van and lived in it while gallivanting around the US this past winter).
What do you get most excited about when you return to Alaska summer after summer? Nancy: Seeing the wildlife. Tim: Being away from people.
What’s your favorite part of this community? The people, lifelong friends.
What do you miss the most from the lower 48 when you are up here? Tim: Being able to get vehicles worked on conveniently (we don’t have any car repair businesses in Healy). Nancy: I really don’t miss anything from the lower 48 when I am here. If the winters weren’t so brutal, I wouldn’t ever leave here.
I hope you enjoyed a taste of the peeps in our hood. There are MANY others beyond Hilltop. I have my hiking buddies, like Mandi, Sammie & Nicole, and Justin has his poker and golf buddies, like Lloyd, Jeremiah and Ric. Like I said, most folks up here live that non-traditional seasonal life that resonates with us, so friendships have come easy. The tradeoffs of Alaska life facilitate a closeness that doesn’t seem to be replicated in more urban locales. And the more Alaskans we meet, the more we realize how well we blend among this bizarre mishmash of adventurous spirits and oddballs (this is a compliment).
This was such a fun blogpost to read! You asked great questions and posted lots of photos. I can’t get over how awesome the picture is of Nancy and Tim! What nice people you surround yourself with.
This was such a fun post! A little peak into your life up there! I’m so glad y’all are settling in and making friends. All of the weird intricacies of living in Alaska. I really love that your friend takes her cat hiking! So cool!
Loved this post! I’ve met Donna but no one else. After reading your post, I feel like I know them a bit! Please ask Sarah where she got her cat back pack. My cat Sophie would love to get around the neighborhood in style.