The Final Frontiersman: Heimo Korth and His Family, Alo… (2024)

A fascinating look at an impossibly alien lifestyle!

Heimo Korth has lived in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for nearly thirty years, eking out a subsistence living some 250 miles from the nearest road. He moved to Alaska at twenty, eager to escape an abusive father and unwilling to submit to the yoke of a nine-to-five job. For six years Heimo ("HI-mow") lived alone, trapping and hunting and flying out occasionally with bush pilots to sell his furs. But in 1982 Heimo married Edna, whom he met while walrus hunting on St. Lawrence Island, and she followed her husband to the wilderness. They have lived together since in this desolate place where the sun dips below the horizon in November and isn't seen again until January, where temperatures range from a balmy 80 degrees to 50 below. They and their daughters live a semi-nomadic life, moving each spring from one of their three cabins to another so as not to deplete the animal populations in any one area. Every summer they spend six weeks in Fort Yukon, population 750, stocking up on supplies and getting a small taste of civilization.

James Campbell, who happens to be Heimo's cousin, visited the Korths several times beginning in 2002. In telling Heimo's story Campbell juxtaposes descriptions of life in the Arctic--the logistics of carving up a dead moose, the efficient reuse of toilet paper as a firestarter--with stories of Heimo's boyhood in Wisconsin and discussion of the politics of land apportionment in Alaska. The result is a fascinating look at a lifestyle that is impossibly alien yet unexpectedly familiar: Heimo's teenagers tack Britney Spears posters to the walls of their cabin.

One begins reading Campbell's account with incredulity, wondering why anyone would choose to live in such an extreme environment and whether the Korths were wise to raise their children there. But reading the fascinating, sometimes heartrending story of Heimo and Edna's life one comes to respect them and their decisions. We are left hoping that Heimo manages to live out his days as he wishes, growing old in a wilderness few men before him have experienced.

Heimo Korth is a true Alaskan Artic Bush frontiersman. An Alaskan pioneer.

My husband and I enjoy watching the TV show, “The Last Alaskans,” of which Heimo and his wife, Edna and now his one daughter, Krin, returns with her husband and their toddler son, to try their hand at living a nomadic, off the grid life in the Alaskan Artic wilderness.

This book tells of Heimo’s turbulent childhood and teen age years growing up with a father who drank and hit. Heimo also drank as a teen and was not happy with his life at all or where it was going. His mother was always a loving and supportive parent to Heimo and to the rest of the family. Alas, we all know how some people can be like oil and water, and this was Heimo and his father; they were at their worst when together and when booze fueled their tempers. Heimo’s father had different expectations of Heimo than Heimo did. It was their turbulent relationship that finally had Heimo fleeing to the north and to the wild. I truly think Heimo always had the urge, the yearning, for a different kind of life. When he made the decision to leave Wisconsin and go to Alaska, he had the love, determination and inner drive to do so. However, as this book cites throughout its pages, it’s an extremely hard life. And he would vacillate in hard times, back and forth about returning to Wisconsin, or to town, or back to Alaska. Always coming back to Alaska.

Heimo, is determined, kind, and tough; a fast learner. His saving grace was his deep love for the freedom, the beauty of nature and fresh, unspoiled air and resources. However, through the book, nothing is to be taken for granted or guaranteed. There are mishaps along the way as he learns his lessons, both on his own and with various people who took a liking to him and his lifestyle and determination and helped him, guided him, trained him how to hunt and how to survive. It’s extremely hard work; to work for your water, food, every single day; to build and maintain a cabin or cabin(s), to travel your traplines sometimes being successful, other times not. To go fishing and be lucky, or not. To find a caribou to provide days of meat, or not. There were times he worked at odd jobs in town or with other trappers, just to sustain himself. But his home and his life was in the wilderness and he always went back.

What is blatantly evident is that this is a very solitary life. The quiet and the freedom can be a blessing or a curse, and after a while, it’s so damn lonely by yourself. Only you are responsible for your own existence. And that’s where Edna comes in. She and Heimo are a perfect match, and what we see on TV is that they continue to be, as they grow older. They both want to live and work together on the land they love to the day they die.

The book also touches upon their meeting and courtship, both Edna and Heimo’s family members and then, their own family. I can’t imagine living in a small dark cabin in the wilderness without the most basic modern conveniences. The children are “home schooled” with materials and homework sent in and picked up by plane. There is no face to face teacher:pupil interaction. There is no class interaction. A student won’t know how they fared on their homework until the plane comes to drop off supplies, their mail, their graded school papers. I can’t even imagine.

The Korths may not see another person for six months. Their main source of communication is the town’s radio “trap line” - a crudely hung signal wire run from a radio in the cabin through the trees that sometimes works, sometimes not. It is their only other source to the outside world. It provides some music, weather reports, and is a messaging system to any and all who are listening. It is a lifeline of sorts. 

Heimo and Edna live in the isolated Alaskan Artic Refuge. Cabins are strictly permitted per family, allowing only family members to continue living on that land til the death of their last original family’s child. After that, there will be no one living within the refuge. Currently there are 7 permitted cabins. Visitors are allowed in, but there are very strict restrictions. Special consideration is given to trapper cabins, but these are also highly restricted. There are no roads in or out. Entry and exit are by plane. Emergencies? You’d better hope and pray that there’s time for the plane to come, that is, if you can make contact. And Heimo and Edna have had some very close scrapes in their lifetime in the bush. 

This land is volatile, both politically and environmentally. There is a push to drill for oil and gas reserves and for mining. This would be an absolute threat to the land, its plants, its animals and to the remaining Native tribes. This refuge is the first place that will be severely affected by climate change and signs of this happening are already showing. This pristine, untouched refuge is the largest national wildlife refuge in the country. Drilling for oil and gas inside the refuge has been a running controversy for years. The refuge is /was governed by the US fish and wildlife service, yet overseen by many other politically run committees and policy makers. Many bills and laws have passed with regard to the refuge, yet this area remains a political and highly charged subject - to drill or not to drill and I don’t really know where we stand on this decision currently under the Trump administration. 

I am so very honored to make the acquaintance of this unique mountain man, Heimo Korth, his Eskimo mountain woman and wife, Edna, and their own little family. While the TV show brought them up close and personal into viewers’ living rooms, there was more background in the book of their personal lives, successes, hardships and friendships.

Heimo Korth, mountain man, frontiersman, Alaskan bush trapper, wilderness scout/guide, packer, Artic ice pack man, seal, walrus and whale hunter, substinence hunter and forager, cabin builder, survivalist, fisherman, hunter, husband, father, son and brother, and a friend to basically everyone he met. Heimo, this is where you were meant to be. This is the life that you have chosen and it has fully embraced you. It has also taught you many hard lessons and helped you discover yourself and your inner soul. It has allowed you to leave behind the discomforts of your previous life in Wisconsin. It has opened your eyes to the delicate beauty and the fierceness of nature and the land. It has allowed you to find your one true love, who shares the same hopes and dreams as you do. You have found your true North Star. It has not all been easy, but Heimo, what you’ve found and what you’ve accomplished is something that eventually, no one else will ever know or experience because as you state, “We are the last.”

In time, the Artic Refuge will no longer have anyone living there. The existing cabins will crumble and fall and be totally absorbed by the land. Will this wilderness default to its original state, or will there be pipelines running across it? Will there be deep gouges in the the earth from mining and the pristine waters polluted with chemicals? Will the fish and wildlife survive? What will the future bring?

I read this book fifteen years ago. Highly recommended.

Though there is a lot of animal trapping in this book that is not so humane, I don’t think one could live a subsistence life without this hunting aid.

Personally I would not raise a family that far into the wilderness especially in an age where modern medicine is likely to save the average person’s life several times over, modern dentistry means you can keep your teeth into your seventies and an era where education means more than it used to.

It is notable that in the current reality TV show, that stars the Korth family featured in this book, there are a lot of medical interventions that take place. They are no longer living the complete wilderness life of twenty years ago but it is pretty hardcore. In their defense the Korth’s have never said that they would do without modern conveniences and the life they live is as far off the grid as one could possibly experience in North America.

5 stars.

I've had a hard time convincing people to read this book. My mom pestered me to read this for almost a year, and I reluctantly picked it up from the library. It is now one of my favorite books.

If you think rugged individualism, environmental stewardship, integrity, and, old-school family values are dead, read this book. It is truly inspiring to see a man and his family build a fulfilling, simple, happy life in one of the most inhospitable places on earth.

The day-to-day challenges of living in such an environment (snow machine troubles, very limited contact with the world, "ice bears") and the myriad close calls that Heimo and his family have (hypothermia, accidents, fires) don't prepare you for the description of most heartbreaking incident I've ever seen put to paper. I cried for pages as I read it and am still haunted, 3 years after first reading it.

Although this book is inspiring and uplifting at times, the tone is often melancholy. From the aforementioned tragedy to the eventual creep of civilization into the lives of the Korth's, the ending is bittersweet.

Still, this is the most memorable book I've ever read and dare anyone to walk away feeling untouched by the amazing life of Heimo Korth.

I’ve read a series of books lately starting with “On Trails” and continuing with “Last Frontiersman” that have really made me question my definition of wilderness. Wilderness is other than human, the second humans move into it, it becomes frontier, at least that seems to be its definition to most people. This idea is not modern, always in religious texts the wilderness was away from civilization, in fairytales it’s the dark and dangerous background to the safety of civilization, and today its legally defined so that once the Korths and a few similar families finish their time on God’s green Earth (or God’s frozen tundra in their case) the Colleen Basin frontier will return to wilderness- there will be no more permits for homesteaders there and it will become the wildlife refuge it was made designated to be in the 1970s.

The problem with this, I’m realizing, is that those ideas of wilderness are simply untrue. People are inherent to wilderness. In almost every environment there were indigenous peoples that were an important part of the ecosystem- they worked within that system, managed it, and participated in its life and deaths cycles, even unto their own person. To say something is wilderness, and therefore cannot have people in it, is not reverting it back to what it was, it is making it something new that modern people and law has decided should exist. Maybe that’s not wrong in itself but it would be wrong to say that is “the natural state.” The natural state would have a small percentage of people in it, people that like the indigenous animals, would be a part of the land from start to finish. They would take and they would return.

And I think we all lose something by dictating to the “wild” what wild is. We lose knowledge, culture, history. We lose life lessons. We lose the opportunities to actually be one with nature. We continue to remove nature from modern society. In protecting it, we may be killing it, because we risk too many people forgetting the myth and grandeur and importance of natural-states, of frontier, of wilderness. By all means, regulate the fur trade etc., but allow people to engage in subsistence. We need them. We need them to be humans in wilderness, to be wild people, to be a voice for nature and a way of life that we are literally legislating out of existence. Especially in America, we are losing part of our ideal and folklore, and that hardiness and frugality that we cherish.

Read this book and come to your own conclusions. But I think living each day in the respectful and honest manner that the Korth’s do in Alaska’s tundra is truly heroic. It is timeless. We all could learn from their rugged choices and we should.

I found this book oddly not compelling. It felt like the author didn't have enough material to make an entire book, so he padded it out with other examples and anecdotes. The focus on one man and his family was a promising subject, but truthfully this felt like a long magazine article rather than a fully actualized book. There was no real analysis of Why Heimo and his family live the way they live, and there was not any pressing reason for the reader to care about the success or failure of any given moment of their (voluntarily difficult) lifestyle.
On the positive side, it makes an interesting companion piece to "Into the Wild," demonstrating just how poorly prepared Chris McCandless was in his own Alaskan expedition.

I'm not into shows like Survivorman or Man Versus Wild, so maybe I'm not the target audience for this book, the true story of a man from Appleton who lives above the Artic Circle in the interior of Alaska. I learned a lot about Alaska and about trapping, which was interesting, but I felt the book was really poorly written. The author is Heimo's cousin, also from Appleton, and he seems unwilling to probe Heimo too much about the emotional impact of living as he does and the events of his life. It felt like a very on-the-surface biography, when it could have been so much more.

There has always been something so utterly romantic about the "back to the nature" notion. Living one's life as in a Jack London novel and such. Heimo Korth knows the romantics won't last in Alaska. He has been living in the bush - in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - for 40 years by now (30 when the book was published) and as the book cover states - his family probably faces more adventures in a typical week than most of us do in a lifetime. It is a hard life, constant work, constantly being aware of your surrounding, planning and taking million things into consideration - a mistake can easily cost a life. But despite all that Heimo Korth must be the most at ease person I have ever seen - he is so sincere, there is no filter, nothing hidden at all. I have also watched the series - "The last Alaskans" - that was inspired by this book. He certainly is a man who knew what he wanted from life and didn't listen to anybody and made his dreams come true. There is nil cynicism, bitterness or any negativity at all in him . He is a happy healthy person down to his bones.

The book documents his earlier life before going to Alaska and his life and raising a family, once there. The book is very realistic - all the hardships and downsides are well documented but through it all shines a disappearing way of life. In accordance with the surrounding nature, deep and pure values and most of all a serene peace and simple happiness. Even through tragedy the author keeps away from melodrama and the glimpses you get of the Korth family are so intimate tender and sometimes melancholy, that one cannot help but to be touched deeply. A very informative book, recommended to anyone who feels that he/she is living the life that is "right" not the life one dreamed of. And of course obligatory to all outdoorsy life lovers.

I fell in love with the Korth family after watching them on The Last Alaskans. Edna is a witty, strong woman, and Heimo always has a smile on his face on the show, no matter what trial he was facing out in the Alaskan Wilderness. I was curious to go deeper into their story, to find out what brought Heimo out to Alaska, what brought Heimo and Edna together, the details of the sudden death of the daughter Colleen, and what it was like to raise two children out in the bush. The book delved into all these topics and more, and gives great details about their lives, both before and during their time in the Alaskan bush. The only issue I had with the book, intermixed between the tales of Korth family's adventures, was detailed history about Alaska itself, which while adding context to the story, these details felt long winded and very in-depth, and I at times found myself becoming bored and losing focus while reading. I did consume this via audiobook, which may have been why it did not hold my attention at these points. Another thing to mention, this book was published in 2004, and fans of the show met the Korth's in 2015, so there is a 10 year gap in time between the 2, and i'm still curious what happened during this time frame. All in all, if you are a fan of the show The Last Alaskans, and are curious for more history about the Korth family, this is quite the interesting read, and you'll leave with the understanding as to why Heimo left the comfort of Wisconsin to fulfill his dream of a subsistence lifestyle on one of the harshest climates on Earth.

Want to live off the grid? Better read this first.

The author is brought out via chartered plane to visit Heimo Korth and his family on the Coleen River in Northwestern Alaska, hundreds of miles from the nearest road and seemingly centuries away from the hustle of Fort Yokun and Fairbanks. You learn of their daily hardships, and too the pleasures of being that far out in country. The Korth’s are trappers, and spend much of their time and energy adapting to the harsh cold and shifting weather of the tundra. The author backtracks to tell the story of what brought Heimo from to Alaska from Wisconsin as a young man, and what enabled him to stay. There is great tragedy and disappointment here too.

The pursuit of the West has always loomed large in the minds of Americans. The West is an ideal, largely unattainable because it exists more in the mind rather than on any map. It is the greener grass on the other side of the fence, the wilderness that so many have left civilization to seek.

Heimo Korth, the titular "Final Frontiersman", is a man not so different from other men in that he sought some kind of meaning beyond the nine-to-five, cubicle life that so many American men lose their dreams in. Unlike most other men though, Heimo actually gave it all up to venture into the wild. And unlike those men who also sought life beyond the nine-to-five routine and gave everything up in pursuit of it, Heimo largely succeeded, remaining in the wild for decades until, in this book's final pages, he too is drawn back to "civilization".

I found myself drawing comparisons to Chris McCandless, the young man whose life story was immortalized in Jon Krakauer's "Into the Wild" and the later film of the same name. McCandless also ventured to Alaska in his attempt to escape modern life but, unlike Heimo, went in unprepared and ended up paying with his life.

If "succeeding" in the wild just constitutes staying alive, then Heimo has done it, but it's a type of success that most people hearing his story would balk at. As James Campbell's gripping account makes clear, every day in Alaska's arctic wilderness is a fight to survive. Heimo, who makes most of his living as a trapper, is constantly worrying about whether he'll be able to trap enough.

Beyond that, Campbell, who spent several weeks for a number of years with Heimo and his family, makes clear just how aware anyone who chooses a life like Heimo's has to be. A downed tree in a river? That's a "sweeper" and could prove fatal. Simply walking - or, more to the point, not knowing exactly where to walk - could get you killed.

Despite his and his family's ordeals - which tragically include the death of Heimo and his wife's young daughter - Heimo's story appeals to us on a primitive level because it's about a man who wouldn't settle for a life working the nine-to-five and actually did something about it.

This is an interesting book about a family living in Alaska—500 square miles from anyone else. They trap and hunt and live off the land, but also have to learn how to bridge that and the modern world as their two daughters grow up.

It was fairly entertaining to listen to (on audiobook) and I enjoyed hearing about such a different lifestyle, but I had a hard time connecting with their outlook and choices. The author includes information here and there about the changes in Alaska regarding land and wildlife management that was also interesting, but less so than the narrative about the Korth's.

I appreciated learning about their way of life and learning about Alaska, but choosing to live remotely when you don't have to seems pointless to me. I'm not sure what good it contributes to the world or other people. I also felt that it was weird that, as remote as they were, they still let their kids listen to rap (even though they, the parents, didn't like it). Why on earth would you allow such a small sliver of contact with society to be tainted by such bad media? It didn't make sense to me that they were as sheltered as they were, but then also exposed to some of the least beneficial social influences.

All I can really say is that the book is interesting. I didn't love it, but it was interesting.

This is not a summer beach quick read but an excellent history of our 49th state of Alaska. The writing is stunning and the story is told partly as a first person experience. There is still popular romance around living off the grid and off the land but after reading Heimo Korth’s story of doing just that for three decades most would change their minds. Between tales of hunting, trapping, chopping wood and building cabins are chapters of the area’s history. Enlightening, fascinating and sobering this is well worth the time it takes to read.

If you're familiar with the later TV series, its very interesting to read of the early life of Heimo and many more details about his family and adventures. It's a very entertaining book whether you've seen the series or not.

Fantastic Account of a Frontiersman

I absolutely loved this nonfiction account of a man and his family living in the arctic refuge. I recently learned that they are featured in a series of episodes called the last Alaskans and can’t wait to watch. If you yearn for the woods, I can’t recommend this book enough.

I really enjoyed this easy read. Good to see how some people choose to move from a crazy life to one completely off grid. Thrive vs just survive. Not an easy life and very tough tragedies, but fully integrated into nature. It doesn’t hurt that it is based in my favorite place on earth ... Alaska. If you like the book, watch the few seasons of The Last Alaskans on Discovery Channel.

I enjoy Alaska books and I liked this one. It was a little slow in places, but it was an enjoyable read.

Completely enjoyable to me as an Alaskan book lover. I loved it.

Some interesting parts but not very well written and quite a bit of mundane background about Heimo’s life growing up.

The Final Frontiersman, written by James Campbell, published by Atria Books in 2004 is a biographical adventure selling for $25.00 in hardback, ISBN 0-7434-5313-1.

Mr. Campbell takes us into the wilderness of Arctic Alaska, to learn as his main character, Heimo Korth, learns a harsh, rich, new life which most of us wouldn’t have imagined. For me, the book illuminated both the struggle of survival in the wilderness and the heroic odyssey of a man who finds himself.

I honestly enjoyed this book without much analysis. In retrospect though, the story and the challenges are sorted by chapters named after seasons, settings or landmark events. Logically, in each we see progressively more detail about the harsh conditions, then the beauty of the land, and finally of his life. The origin and development of character and context made sense to me. The story and writing hooked me early and held my interest to the end.

Using historical narrative and the second person perspective to bring the early Heimo to life, Campbell describes the impulsiveness and toughness of a young Heimo, but also a life without much purpose or direction. Campbell writes skillfully, telling the story, adding details which add depth and perspective transparently; not distracting the reader with phrases or details that confuse or distract. The story seemed to me to flow naturally as a result.

I think this book will appeal to anyone who appreciates biographies of people who conquer overwhelming odds, or by some who want to know more about Alaska or life in the Arctic. Mr. Campbell succeeds in telling a story worth learning in many ways, and about a person whose friendship I’d value.

I have read another of Campbell's books and enjoy him as an author and I have read his other book that involved the Knouth family. I have also enjoyed reading about the wilderness life in Alaska this summer. The Final Frontiersman is a good book. I probably would have given it a 2.5 star if they had that option. My two complaints about this book was the interruption of the story line with historical background information. In a book of this type when the author starts that kind of thing I usually assume he didn't have enough to write the book so he puts this filler to make up for it. Then the other problem was this book was a little more about the journey of the family interactions rather than the wilderness experience. I understand those are part of the life, but I wanted more of the outside nature challenges. Not a bad read, but there are better for what I wanted. One would be Campbell's other book "Breaking It:" and "Winds of Skilak Lake".

This book is an exportation of the concept of "wilderness" and those who strive to find themselves in the American concept of wilderness. The book does a great job at contrasting the native cultural concept of wilderness as home and the need for community and the unique American concept of "finding oneself alone in the wilderness." I also appreciate how the book explores the female and family outlook on life on the frontier and how to cope with the loneliness. It is a great anthropological look on modern day subsistence hunters and gatherers.

This book was gifted to me by my fishing buddy Powers. He figured I'd like it and he was right.

Heimo is an unforgettable character whose grit and determination would put most men to shame.

Increible story set in the Alaskan bush. Heimo wanted to live as a nomad and did. Dancing with death on more than one occasion, he persevered. He married, raised two daughters, and lost one daughter to the river.

Great story and history lesson on Alaska. Well written.

Would be a great book if the author, James Campbell, hadn't written himself into the story. I'm not at all interested in him or his perspective. Heimo Korth is an interesting guy and it's a shame a better writer didn't handle his story.

interesting way of life, would have given it four stars but too much about government, I liked it though a lot

Guess I am a sucker for the real thing. Much better than fiction!

This was a great read. I have been looking for more separation from the influence of modern culture and this book hit the mark. This book draws on the independence theme from the TV show “Port Protection” and the survival theme from the show “Alone”, but was written 20 years before either show was filmed. It didn’t provide a romantic view of life in the bush, but rather a pretty realistic depiction of the costs and efforts required to sustain a family in the wilderness. From hauling water, to running a trapline for food, to carrying a gun everywhere for protection against the grizzlies, to even having lost his 2 year old daughter in a canoeing accident, it’s not an easy life by any stretch. There was also the recognition that this is a way of life that is no longer available to those with an adventurous spirit, which seems a bit sad. But Heimo was able to carve out a life on his own terms and ultimately realize his backcountry dream.

From the AI:
"The Final Frontiersman: Heimo Korth and His Family" by James Campbell offers a fascinating glimpse into the life of Heimo Korth and his family as they navigate the challenges of living in the remote Alaskan wilderness. The book paints a vivid picture of their struggles and triumphs, showcasing the resilience and resourcefulness required to survive in such harsh conditions.

One of the book's strengths lies in its detailed and immersive storytelling. Campbell skillfully captures the raw beauty of the Alaskan wilderness and the daily challenges faced by Heimo and his family. The narrative provides a deep sense of respect for their way of life, highlighting their connection to nature and the self-sufficiency that defines their existence.

However, the book occasionally suffers from pacing issues and a lack of in-depth exploration of certain aspects of Heimo's life. Some readers might find themselves craving more detailed insights into the family's emotional experiences and the broader context of their lifestyle choice.

Despite these limitations, "The Final Frontiersman" offers a compelling narrative that sheds light on a way of life that is both inspiring and daunting. Heimo Korth's story serves as a testament to human resilience and the enduring spirit of adventure. If you enjoy tales of survival and the allure of the wilderness, this book provides a captivating window into a world few have the courage to embrace fully.

When Heimo Korth set out from Wisconsin to Alaska in 1974, he knew life in the Arctic would be hard, but he was tough. In his twenties, he loved the wilderness and didn’t mind being alone.

James Campbell captures the heart and soul of Alaska’s twentieth century mountainmen in The Final Frontiersman. Spending his early years alone, Heimo Korth carves out a life as a trapper, hunter and fisherman, sometimes barely eeking out a living. As the seasons change, Heimo moves from one hard-scrabble place to another, building a rough cabin for mere survival, then adapting to his surroundings in whatever way the land allows. Vast distances are hard to imagine, but there are years when Heimo’s nearest neighbor is 100 miles downriver with no road between them.

The Final Frontiersman begins with the author’s visit with Heimo Korth’s family–his wife, Edna, an Alaska native, and their two daughters, Rhonda, fifteen, and Krin, twelve. The book goes back in time occasionally to capture Heimo’s early years in the Arctic, but steadily traverses the nearly three decades of the family’s existence in this harsh wilderness. Over the years, the author visits the family from time to time, blending in with the Korth’s activities. Heimo is a good story teller and his stories are substantiated by others: natives, wilderness men like him, or even government men who have known him.

I was taken by the graphic details of mere survival in Alaska’s harsh wilderness. The toughness and survival skills of these people are impressive—whether it be sledding at 44 degrees below zero, navigating breaking ice, or constantly being on the lookout for grizzlies. Not only did Heimo manage traplines, his fifteen year-old daughter worked her own traplines! Even children carry knives and matches when they travel, and in one scene, Heimo’s youngest child saves his life by her ability to start a fire in the wilderness to warm her father after their canoe overturns and he’s rescued its contents.

This book is a classic story of survival and human endurance in a vanishing way of life. It redefines the idea of wilderness itself. I highly recommend The Final Frontiersman.

In the mid-1970s, young Heimo Korth left his native Wisconsin for the Alaskan wilderness, pursuing a childhood dream of living in nature and surviving by trapping animals. By the early 2000s, he had made a reputation as one of the most hardcore mountain men of Alaska, remaining just as committed to living in the wild (and even raising a family there), even as other trappers were giving up and moving to towns, and changing legislation made it harder for people to settle on public land.

Outdoors journalist James Campbell, who happened to be Korth’s cousin, wrote this biography of the man in 2004, as he neared three decades of surviving in Alaska. He made multiple trips to Korth’s cabins in northeast Alaska over a year to observe the Korth family’s seasonal rhythm. He describes in depth how they manage to survive in this unforgiving part of the world where temperatures drop vastly below freezing for most of the year. But he also paints a picture of the vaster community of which the Korths are a part: the other trappers who came up in decades past, as Heimo Korth did; the settled inhabitants of Fort Yukon and St. Lawrence Island, where Korth has stayed seasonally to make some money; and the government officials who are sympathetic of respected trappers like Korth, but nevertheless must enforce new laws that leave little room for new dreamers to arrive in the region.

Korth himself remains something of an enigma, which shouldn’t be much of a surprise, because the stereotype of the mountain man is that of a gruff and taciturn outsider. But what we do learn about Korth makes him a nuanced person with surprising depths. Though he has little patience for animal-rights activists who want to ban trapping and bureaucrats who would forbid any human habitation in Alaska’s nature reserves, he gets emotional as some points and even shows a fondness for Enya. Who would have thought?

This isn’t the greatest of books on the outdoors, and towards the end Campbell gets a bit longwinded and repetitive. Still, I enjoyed reading this. The inclusion of a bibliography at the end may spur readers onto other works about Alaskan history.

I usually don't like books with the title "The Last/Final [Insert Bogus Last/Final Thing Here], because inevitably they are NOT the last whatever. This book, which follows the life of Heimo Korth, who went up to Alaska as a twenty-year old, really does qualify to be titled "The Final Frontiersman," because he really is the last of a breed. He is a subsistence trapper in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and he and six other trappers are permitted to trap there because they had been living there before it became a wildlife refuge. Now by law, Heimo and his immediate descendants can trap there until his children die out, and then no one else can trap there any more.

Subsistence trapping is not for the faint of heart, or for those who don't like to work since the work is ceaseless, and certainly not for those who don't like cold, or don't like to chip through ice to get their water every day, or chop their own firewood, or [insert miserable work here]. In short, it isn't for most of the people in the universe. The description of every day life in the middle of winter as a trapper is enough to drive off everyone except the stupidest of us.

Aside from the difficulties of daily life, there are the inevitable brushes with death, Heimo's snow machine conks out in one incident and he almost freezes to death while walking for home, he and an Inuit get caught out on the ice as leads being to form because of a south wind and he gets dunked into the water before barely making shore. There are many other brushes with death, and one really tragic incident when he, his wife, and his two daughters canoe is overturned in a rapid river. Heimo is able to grab one of his daughters, but his two-year old, Colleen is swept away and her body is never found, an incident that haunts both he and his wife to this day, twenty years later.

The book gets a little boring when the author--Heimo's cousin--discusses the politics of the National Wildlife Refuge and the background to Alaska, still, I enjoyed reading the book.