Nancy Conklin is one of the few people who can say she built her life entirely from scratch on the side of a river.
It’s just an entirely different rhythm to the life out here.
Conklin was born in Illinois and grew up in Indiana, where her dad was a physics professor at a small college. After she graduated in 1973, she decided to hitch-hike around the country instead of going to graduate school. She says it was one of the best decisions she’s made, because it brought her to Alaska.
When I got up here, it’s like the whole world was a big campground, kind of. It sounds crazy, but.
Her partner Eddie was in construction, so she went into the carpet-laying business. She was the first female union carpet-layer in Alaska.
In 1986, the economy crashed and she and Eddie bought a 16 by 16 foot cabin at the mouth of the Alexander.
And the next thing you know we were building cabins for people to stay in, and then they turned into a small lodge. And, I’ve lived here ever since then. We ran the lodge for 15 years.
After Eddie passed away, Nancy met Mike Mason. They had known each other for many years and gravitated towards each other naturally because of their mutual love for the river lifestyle. They’ve been together for 13 years.
Though Mason was raised in Sutton, Alaska and graduated from Palmer High, he only moved out to the river in 1999. Mason loves his life on the Alexander.
I like that I’m my own boss. It’s nice because living here year-round we also hunt and gather. We get our moose. Nancy has four gardens. We do our salmon. Everything is based right here and we have our own little economy here.
There are more people along the river than you might think, explains Mason.
The river means a lot to a lot of people that either live here or work here, or have cabins here. And it’s quite a few people. There’s probably close to 10,000 property owners out there.
Conklin says the river has changed a lot over the years. She explains that at the height of king salmon runs, there were forty or fifty people living along the river in her area—families, lodges, and even a school.
Fish and game was allowing too many fish to be caught and it’s not that big a river, so the king salmon population declined and the lodges closed. And at this point, there’s very few of us that actually live here year-round.
Nancy Conklin attends monthly Zoom meetings for the Recreation Rivers Advisory Board.
She’s been involved there since 1991, and is committed to doing what she can to protect the wilderness that compelled her to stay here years ago.
We can walk out our front door and go fishing, we can go on the back trail usually and get a moose not too far from home. Everything is… It’s a lifestyle that once you get used to it, you don’t want to go to town.
For Conklin, the allure of Alaska comes from drilling your own well, running generators, fishing, and harvesting plants. She says she lives by the season, rather than by the clock, and she doesn’t want that to change anytime soon.
For KTNA, I’m Nell Salzman.
