I wanted to do a lot more writing this past year but our lifestyle is a demanding one. I wanted to write every moment down for my own records of this most amazing time in our lives with two beautiful souls we named Sydney and Blaze. Tyler was busy working, building a log house for someone last summer and as soon as he was relieved of that off he went to work for Charlie guiding in remote parts of Northeastern Alaska. I was alone a lot in a cabin with no running water with a two year old, an infant, a dog team to care for, the airbnb to clean next door nearly every day, a garden to tend, our small online shop to manage and getting supplied and geared up for another winter on the trapline with two babies in tow. Needless to say I was nearly in over my head but somehow I managed some sort of sanity and accomplishment at the end of every day. I was so busy we mostly ate off paper plates so writing didn’t even come near to a priority for me. Baby Blaze is almost ten months old now and Sydney nearly 3 already. Blaze is crawling all over the house and chasing after his sister all waking hours. Sydney has evolved to that lovely age where you don’t have to be watching her every minute to keep her from getting into harm or trouble. They are starting to interact with each other and I’m so happy we will have built in playmates in the family.
Our trapline cabin decorated for Christmas….with our two year old at the sink “doing dishes”.
The baby is in the center in a wooden dowel and canvas swing.
We had a lot of meaningful family time out on the trapline this past winter. Tyler and I had 13 years together before we had the kids. I became very accustomed to life without kids out on the trapline. I went anywhere I wanted to go, anytime, in any weather. Tyler and I were never separated too long out in the woods because we worked and roamed together. Having kids has changed that a lot. It’s been a big adjustment for me. I’m spending a lot more time in the cabin these days and that along with the general isolation and darkness of winter can be hard to take mentally, especially if Tyler is gone all the time trapping. That leaves me isolated in a cabin in the wilderness with little ones to care for and a husband to worry about…not always so fun. The previous winter, while I was pregnant with Blaze and Sydney was 1, I actually did a fair amount of travel on the trapline with Sydney in my dogsled and bundled up we would go to our lake line cabin and spend about 5 days there and then travel back to the river. We made the trip to our line cabin 6 times over the course of the winter. This past winter, having an infant again, I wasn’t ready to throw them both in a dogsled and go along. Tyler and I had made a deal to combat my cabin fever for living a winter in the woods with an infant and a toddler. He was not allowed to spend overnight trips anywhere. No matter what he did, he had to come home at night. We argued about it a little bit, he trying to reason, legitimately, that we couldn’t afford for him to trap less, and me arguing that I’d rather be dirt poor than go insane or be depressed. In my adult life I haven’t ever lived somewhere with running water, I have electricity for only half the year, the newest vehicle I’ve ever driven was 15 years old , poor I can handle, crazy I cannot. The winter was what we expected, not especially lucrative but very valuable in family love.
By the end of February I was ready to get back to town and start working on my projects there as well as socialize with my friends. Though I didn’t take it extremely seriously I did have a thought that maybe we should just stay out in the woods for the spring season instead of returning to town only to face what may come with the coronavirus. Out on the trapline we get very limited outside information and news. We can tune into an hour of NPR News in the morning and another of the same in the evening on the one radio station we can reliably receive. When your out in the woods away from the rest of the world sometimes it seems your better off hiding out and minding your own germs and your own business. I think there are plenty of people who will often say, I hate people, people drive me crazy, I would love to just move out to the woods. I understand that sentiment completely because it’s how I feel every fall when it’s time to go back out to live in the wilderness I have had enough of being around people and people drama and am ready to get back to peace and wilderness. What most people don’t know because they’ve never experienced it before is that at the end of a long dark and cold winter in the arctic you’ve usually had enough of the peace and solitude that you crave people and socializing in the reverse manner of when you left. If you never get a break from it you may not realize what social critters we humans really are. We were ready to come back to town but feel very fortunate to know that the minute we wanted to get out we could be back in the wilderness fully prepared in a matter of hours.
Sydney’s first set of skis. She did amazing. No complaining and did a quarter mile before her first fall.
My trip back to town is worth talking talking about. Tyler planned on staying back for an extra week and working on cutting a good fire break around one of our cabins to make it defend able in case of wild fire. Refuge officials let us know last summer that their policy has changed and there will no longer be any efforts to defend existing cabin sites. We want to be in a position to potentially fly out with a water pump and be able to safely defend our cabins. Tyler put together his gear to go work on the fire break for our line cabin and I put together my list of stuff to take back to town with me. I had things in my load to bring back to town like the kids clothes, our calendar for our records, skulls to clean, large linens to wash in town since it’s very hard to wash large things out in the woods properly, and sadly, some of the baby things I don’t intend on using again. We had been talking to our pilot, Dan on and off for a while trying to pin down a date for him to come pick me and the kids up. It was an old fashioned winter in Alaska and hadn’t gotten above 0 degrees since the beginning of December. Most often the temperatures ranged anywhere from 20 to 40 below. I get a bit more nervous these days flying with our precious children and was hoping on a decent weather window for our flight.
Coming back to town with two babies is a lot different than going by myself. I called up some friends to do a few favors. The plow guy we use for our driveway couldn’t get to it for almost a week after I arrived so no car at first. I had a neighbor run their snowmachine down our long driveway to provide a trail through the 3 feet of snow. Another neighbor jotted down a simple grocery list to have ready for me when I got in. My father in law had tried to contact the phone company to get our landline back on since we shut it down while were gone to save money. We don’t have running water, so another friend was going to come by and drop off some drinking water. We melt snow this time of year for dishes, dogs and baths for the babies. Funny how out in the woods we have a well right in our house but when we come to town we go backward in that respect. I had another friend that had enough room in a vehicle for the kids me and all our gear ready to pick us up at the airport. The pilot, Dan, wanted to go up to the trapline north of us where he was born and raised for a night before coming back down the next day and picking us up on his way back to town. On the day he was coming North he had planned to drop of a load of fuel for us to cash before heading up to his place. I laid the kids down for their nap that day expecting to hear the airplane landing at some point to drop off the fuel. I was trying to enjoy every minute of that day, feeling very nostalgic about leaving the trapline and a place where I watched my babies grow over the winter.
Blaze’s very first solid food.
Blaze’s first few times sitting up all by himself
It was a very cold day. The temperature was obviously not going to break -30. It was cold enough that I was glad I wouldn’t be leaving till the next day, first thing in the morning. I wanted to have a whole day to get settled back into town and warm our completely frozen cabin up. When I heard the hum of the Cessna 180 in the distance, I woke Sydney up from her nap so I could show her the airplane. It had been nearly 5 months since she had seen any sign of people other than the occasional high flying jets. Tyler headed to the runway to pick up the fuel. Sydney and I heard the plane land and were waiting for it to take off again and head north. When I saw Tyler speeding down the trail, back towards the cabin I knew exactly what that meant. Dan wanted me to get the kids ready and go back to town with him, immediately. It was already 3 in the afternoon. It takes nearly 20 minutes to dress the kids up to go outside when it’s that cold out. I had to finish a bit of last minute packing, toilet the babies and be out the door as quickly as possible. Th Cylinoid, part of the starter on the plane wasn’t working right and Dan didn’t want to risk going up to his place for the very cold night.
We were quickly out the door and heading to the runway. Tyler and I had to say our quick goodbyes and wish each other luck as we went our separate ways on our own challenging journeys. Sydney has been on about 12 flights in her short 2 years so she wasn’t nervous, just kind of dazed from the sudden change of plans. I was a little worried how the baby would react since he probably didn’t have other people or loud airplanes in his active memory. Turns out he’s naturally very social, smiled right away at the pilot and didn’t even flinch when I put on his ear protection. Since plans had changed at the last minute I didn’t have a ride to pick me up and as we packed the plane I urged Tyler to get on the sat phone and find someone to meet the plane in Fairbanks. It was -32 and we were going to be arriving at Fairbanks in the dark. I wanted to get my kids in a car as soon as I could when we landed. We took flight and that was that, we would be back to civilization in a few short hours after months of isolation. It’s always so astonishing to me how a short plane ride can change life so drastically. When we landed on Fairbanks East ramp my friend Kristi was there to greet us with her minivan and car seats. It was already at the edge of darkness and as she drove us out to our cabin I worked on a plan for the night. Our cabin was locked up and frozen all winter so it was going to take a while to warm up. I was glad we had landed safely but I had a long night ahead of me keeping 2 babies happy and warming a completely frozen cabin.
Sydney and I back in October making roll out Halloween sugar cookies together.
When Kristi pulled up to our property we decided she would entertain the kids in the van while I ran up to the cabin and got a fire going in the woodstove. The trail up to our house is long enough that I was a bit winded from the jog up. I had to dig through some snow a bit to get to the place where we hide a spare house key. When I went to unlock the door the entire knob was covered in a thick rhyme of frost and I had a lot of trouble getting the key in the hole and turning. The door was so frosted shut it took quite a bit of pushing before I finally entered the house. I got the fire going and fished out a key to our shed so I could get an electric space heater out to help warm up the house. I waded through the deep snow to the shed and grabbed the space heater, When I got into the house, without thinking I stupidly yanked the cord toward the outlet to plug it in when I realized I had snapped the cord in 3 different places. Plastic doesn’t like -32 very much. No space heater for me that night. I piled a bunch of wood into the stove and headed back out to the road with a couple of sleds from the shed. As I walked away from the cabin I looked back to make sure smoke was clearing the deep snow on the roof around the stack.
When I got back out to the van I tried to see if I could get our cheap cell phone to turn back on, no luck. The house phone hadn’t been turned back on yet either. I used Kristi’s phone to call the neighbor that was getting us some groceries. I asked her if she would run them by for us but being a single lady without kids she didn’t quite understand the pain in the ass situation I was in and asked me to please come get them since it was too cold to start her car up. I gave my friend Kristi directions to her house, asking my good friend for yet another favor and headed up to the house with the kids and essentials in one of the sleds. I had dumped all of our other gear into the snowbank beside the road for the night. I left the other sled behind at the road for Kristi to haul the groceries up in. I carried the babies into the house and made big blanket nests for them near the wood stove and began the long wait for the cabin to warm up enough for me to go to bed. It takes a long time to truly warm up a frozen home it’s like thawing out a giant ice cube. Kristi came back with the groceries and some water and gave me a look that said she felt bad to leave us. I assured her that we would be fine but had to ask one more favor of her. I gave her my cell phone to take into town the next day to have a new sim card installed so I could have a phone to use while I was snowed in for the week till the plow came.
A picture Kristi took of us on her phone before she left the night we got back to town. The fridge door is open because that is how we leave it when we go go for the winter as it doesn’t ever let mold grow.
The house warmed up very slowly. It was midnight before I bothered to undress Blaze enough to change his diaper and take our coats off. It was 2am before I quite worrying about keeping the fire on full throttle enough to crawl into bed, a baby on each side of me, under a bunch of blankets, honestly just glad everyone was safe and alive. I’ve learned to appreciate the important basics in this life.
The week went fast, the driveway got plowed just in time for me to get some serious groceries and pick Tyler up at the airport when Charlie brought him in. Our work table is already full of garden starts for the summer growing season. In the face of the Corona-virus I feel fortunate that our family is living a lifestyle that keeps us “working from home” most of the time. Like I said before, we could just check out and be back in the woods at the drop of the hat. We are fortunate to have some good friends with airplanes who would be willing to truly look out for us. Here, near town, we are doing good too. Finances aren’t what we expected. Every spring, there is a local fur and antler auction that we participate in where we look forward to receiving our first spring paycheck. The local auction was cancelled as well as all international auctions and now we have to move on to the next thing. Tyler’s busy cleaning skulls and sending things to the tannery as well as compiling some of our old journals and setting them to type. I’m sewing with the fur making baby booties, ruffs, mittens, making jewelry, as well as nursing Blaze and we are trying to teach Sydney some new tricks. Come what may, I hope to be writing more often this coming summer season. I plan on sharing a few recipes that I just couldn’t live without given the lifestyle and the need to use bulk and dry goods. In times of economic crisis I understand the need to tighten the belt,… because we are having to as well, but I have to add a shameless plug for our store on this website. If you know anybody interested please direct them our way, as after all, this is how we make our living. I’ve got some new handmade items this year, like ruffs, mittens and baby booties. We’ve also done some price reduction in the hopes of more sales.
I also wanted to mention…. amidst all of this social isolating we are having to do right now, Nancy, Bob’s Harts ex wife will be launching a book very soon called Trapline Chatter, about her life with Bob on the trapline.
Thanks for the update.
We miss The Last Alaskans so very much and have sent letters to Animal Planet requesting that the series be renewed next year. Certainly pray others are doing the same.
Please provide a link to your shop. I’m certain the fans of the show would like to support your enterprise.
Thanks once again for the update. Stay safe, and may God Bless you and the family.
https://alaskaseldens.com/shop-the-last-alaskans/
Thank you for the words of encouragement. Our shop is on the exact same site as my blog it appears as an option on the menu bar at the top of the page.
I miss watching the show. Just found your blog. So happy to read all is well and you have another baby. Such cuties. Now I can keep up with all that is happening to all the Last Alaskans.
The day before you posted this I thought to myself, It’s close to spring and one of the things on my spring to do list is to check your blog for updates. I love your stories and feel inspired by so much of what you share. I hope things are going well for you and your family and I am looking forward to more from you soon.
Thanks for thinking of me. Please subscribe to my blog and you will never miss one of my random posts, haha. I don’t plan on sending people junk mail, adds or any of that crap….only notifications when I submit a story. There isn’t much risk subscribing to my blog, I’m a straight shooter.-Sincerely Ashley Selden
Hi to you & your beautiful family. I so enjoy learning about your life & all the hard work you & Tyler both exert so you can live the lifestyle you both wish for your whole family. I’m always amazed at how you can find anytime time for all the things you do. I wonder if you ever get to exhale…lol The items you craft are all so beautiful & unique. I especially love all the booties you make. I was wondering if you ever or have ever made booties in adult size? They look so comfy & warm. If not I understand totally. I’m sure it would take alot of materials & time but know they would he beautiful warm & of great quality. I look forward to finding out & reading more of your post. Hope you all Stay safe & healthy!!
I will always consider making special orders for folks, however, I must tell you the adult booties have been done before. I thought the same way as you. Oh, that looks so cute and comfy. I have to make myself a pair! but I have to warn, they make an adult look like they are playing dressup as some sort of arctic elf or something. Email me if you want to talk more. tyseldenfur@gmail.com
Thanks for your information.
I was delighted to read this latest blog entry. Thank you for continuing to share your life with us. Your babies are adorable and so blessed to have wonderful parents.
During this very unfamiliar time for the majority of us, of social distancing, self quarantine, etc…. I hope you have a moment or two to share some of your coping ideas to help us “city folks” (lol) get through.
I ask anyone who can to please visit the online store and support this wonderful lady and her family.
Have a great Spring and Summer Ashley 💜
I am so happy to see some recent posts. I know it was a rough winter there, coldest in over a decade. Sounds like it had many challenges for your family. Reading your posts is so inspiring and motivating. Makes me feel so humble knowing that you are able to live that lifestyle. I have the utmost respect for you and am pleased to know that you are keeping that lifestyle alive and passing its lessons to another generation.
Hi Ashley. Love your stories about your life. Your babies are lovely and growing! I was just fascinated with learning about your isolated lifestyles on The Last Alaskans. I was perplexed by my interest frankly since it felt so unlikely to me I could ever live such a life and didn’t understand my intense interest in your lives. Now that we’re facing this pandemic I finally get it! Learning from you has been preparation. Preparation to live differently. I don’t know… maybe some of us could sense it coming. So I feel even more grateful to hear about the details of your very self-sufficient lifestyle so connected to the cycles of nature. Thank you for continuing to share on your blog. All my best to you and your family.
Your comment was really touching. It’s no new thing for people to be wondering when shit will hit the fan so to speak, haha. Our lifestyle has definitely given me more confidence to face a catastrophe if need be.
I noticed you didn’t mention coffee or tea. What do you and Tyler drink? Do you have to boil your water for it to be safe to drink?
I did mention coffee in the caption to the picture of my coffee pot on my burner. We bring a whole bunch of chamomile and fruit teas as well. We have always drank our water straight from the river, and now straight from our picture pump well. Probably a lot better for you than city water and no risk of giardia from the well. When we drink from the river we just make sure there isn’t any beaver sign anywhere near where we drink. We love the water there so much we miss it during the summer.
Dear Ashley and Tyler , Iam very grateful to you for continuing to let us know how you are doing! Please don’t stop!! I also sent emails to discovery in hopes of changing their minds and bringing you back. I believe that TLA was the best show I have ever seen. That’s saying a lot because I’m old (over 70)!! I pray for you and your family and all who made TLA so spread! Aggie
Glad to hear you’re all safe! I was wondering how you were going to handle the pandemic. I’m sure you’re far more prepared, skills and mindset wise, than majority of the country. Keep us updated! Love you all of you!
Oh, do you ever make jewelry with claws or teeth? I think that’d be really interesting! I don’t have pierced ears, but I love necklaces, and was wondering if that was something you ever considered adding. Even if it was just making items into charms. Heck, even little furry poofs would make for fun jewelry 🙂
Hi Leslie,
Not sure if it will be in your style or not but we have answered your request and added a few necklaces with claws and teeth onto the site! Let us know what you think!
https://alaskaseldens.com/product-category/earrings-claws-teeth-bones-alaska-arctic-last-alaskans-tyler-ashley-selden/
I thourgholy enjoy reading about your adventures on the trapline and the details of your remote and “simple lifestyle.” Which for the record, does not sound very simple. I process and eat what I hunt, but to grow, freeze-dry, process, pack and store all the food we are going to eat for winter is beyond my comprehension. The organization and planning it takes to move your young family back and forth is mindboggling! Well done, I admire you and Tyler! On a side note, I was in Fairbanks last summer, after a hunt, I sought out a small shop in Pioneer Park in search of your jewelry. I am now proud to report I am fairly certain I am the only woman in Flagstaff, AZ sporting a pair of Marten Pecker earrings!!! I love them…
Can I get your mailing address to send a check to purchase items from your store
Thank you
Oh my Goodness! I had absolutely no idea that something was wrong with my paypal link last weekend! I’ve fixed the problem and paypal is up and running again. If you still need it our mailing address is 2511 Goldstream Rd Fairbanks AK 99709. Thank you Jeff!!!!
Ashley! Ever since the TV show I have loved you and Tyler! I admire the life you have chosen to lead. How wonderful that you have the two beautiful children that you homeschool. Your family has been so supportive coming to help build homes. You both are such hardworking people and I respect what you do. Appreciate your writing and look forward to catching up on your adventures. Praying you continue to thrive living the life you chose. It’s great that you can spend time together. You certainly possess great values and I am grateful to live your adventures with you. What a fun family! Even though I may be commenting here on old information, I do keep up with your stories. You are fantastic to make this journaling of your life, and to share it. I would love to buy something from your shop but I am retired and live in Texas—no need for the fur. Tyler is a great helper and I love the way you two stand up for what you believe. I love that Tyler worked with Charlie as I admire him as well. Love his RN sister, too. Can’t wait until Charlie gets a life partner for his adventures! Hugs!
Thanks for the awesome blog glad u’r doing well..fondly thinking of you
Would u ever consider filming yourselves??somehow get it on line 2 make $$$.. just a idea good luck to a family i edmire u’r Perseverance..
Hello Ashley and Tyler.
My name is Jhon and I write here from Brazil for you.
I would like to say that I love the program you participated in,
Here in Brazil it’s winter now, and at that time I always like to review the episodes of the series
I heard about the cancellation of the series, and I’ve already sent some emails to discovery requesting the return.
As here in Brazil we have no snow, this style of program is the closest we have to see it.
A friend who is fan of the series said you had a blog and sent me the link
I’d like to congratulate you and Tyler on the new baby.
The life you lead is an example for me and my wife
I hope the program comes back one day so we can learn more
A big hug for you, Tyler and kids. I’ll be following your blog.
Are you still blogging?
HI Crystal, I am planning on doing one more post before I leave for the winter next Thursday, the 17th. I apologize. Once August hit, the garden harvest took precedent over all else as well as keeping up orders and stock in our store. Thank you everyone who purchased something from us this summer. It was a huge deal to have the support. We are super grateful that people are interested in buying products made from our woods lifestyle. You’ll hear from me soon but after that We will be beyond the reaches of internet for 6 months. Tyler took off for the woods with all the dogs in the boat 2 days ago and I am buttoning up all town business. -Ashley
I’m glad to hear you will keep up the writing I plan to read all your blogs! Do you ever do recipes for the food you have made on the show? My husband and I absolutely love the show and we love that your family get to live the life you do (we are truly happy for you) and are glad there are shows to watch that have real people doing life their way. My husband was born in Alaska so he loves seeing life up there and how it is simpler but harder.. Ok I really don’t want to fan girl and monopolize your time I know you’re very busy but I will keep up on your blog and I will be ordering some thing from your site soon. I think my husband might buy trapline chatter by Bob’s ex-wife.. anyways I hope you have a good and safe flight and like I said I’ll keep looking on your blog I know you’ll be gone for six months I hope you guys enjoy Happy Halloween, Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas and A happy new year!!
Ashley,
Just wondering why you don’t hook up more dogs when you ask them to tow Tyler and a sled and supplies (a lot of weight already) and then you and a sled and supplies more weight. I e seen you typically do that with only 6 dogs. You might consider hooking up at least 2 if not 4 more dogs.
This comes from a guy who I know that runs the Iditarod.
Though this comment comes with the sound of judgement, I’m glad you asked. It’s not fair to compare our working team to a speed sport. We do two entirely different things with our dogs. Our dogs are nothing like the dogs that are run in the modern Iditarod. Our dogs have full coats and good feet. They don’t need coats or booties. Our dogs were meant to live in Alaska with its conditions. Our largest male, a wheel dog right now, is named whiskey and he weighs in at 120 lbs. He is roughly 3x the weight of the average Iditarod dog. Our females average around 85 lbs. We ask them to run 1500 miles…….a season not in 10 days. Most of the shots you see from the show are highly edited. They are always capturing us in moments of full gusto when the dogs are all leaving the cabin and blowing off their steam or at the end of the run when they are full throttle ready to go home and get their snack and dinner. Generally Tyler and I do a lot of jogging and helping and the dogs average about 6-8 miles an hour. Nothing like and Iditarod team. We often make stops about every 10 to twenty minutes to work on trapline where they get a nice 10 minute break. To compare what we do with our dogs to what an iditarod musher does is like comparing Nascar to a tractor pull. Don’t believe everything you see on TV at face value. You’ve only got a tenth of the picture at best. We need to keep our dog numbers down to make our lifestyle sustainable. Our dogs are large enough we can only fit 4 per airplane in the spring when we leave the trapline, because of this we have never kept more than 8 dogs. Now we also have 2 kids taking up space in the plane to add to the bulk. We can only afford so much airplane time. We can only afford to care for so many. Another great thing about our working team versus Ititarod type mushing is that we don’t end up having a bunch of uncalled for litters to weed out the ”slow ones”. There is not nearly as many cuts in the team!
Please keep up your writing I love hearing about your family’s life. Godspeed