The Frozen Toe Guide to Real Alaskan Livin': Learn How to Survive Moose Attacks, Endless Winters, and Life Without Indoor Plumbing [Paperback]

Brookelyn Bellinger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 20, 2007

This pithy guide offers advice on everything necessary to be a true Alaskan, or to at least look the part. Designed in a friendly handbook format, the book blends important facts with anecdotes about the author’s own experiences surviving in Alaska's frozen expanses. Writing in a down-to-earth, droll style, author Brookelyn Bellinger covers such topics as winter survival skills, regional fashion, extreme sports, and dating tips, and answers those pressing questions like how to start that long-delayed career in dog mushing.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Brookelyn’s "View from the Cabin" columns appear bimonthly in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. A link to her most recent column (scroll down): http://www.brookelynbellinger.com/aboutme.html

About the Author

Brookelyn Bellinger writes regularly on Alaska life for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. She lives in Fairbanks, AK.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Sasquatch Books (February 20, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1570614849
• ISBN-13: 978-1570614842
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.4 x 8.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #483,288 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Spring/Summer Reading, May 17, 2007

By 

Arctic Voice Earl (Wisconsin) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Frozen Toe Guide to Real Alaskan Livin': Learn How to Survive Moose Attacks, Endless Winters, and Life Without Indoor Plumbing (Paperback)

There are plenty of coffee table and rather bland tourist kind of books about Alaska. An ample supply of glacier cruises, salmon bakes and float planes flying in front of mountains .

But as an Arctic Alaskan I know that many "Outsiders" would like more. Well here it is! Author Brookelyn Bellinger knows the real Alaska. She lives without running water and well beyond our "big city" of Anchorage.

To become the Alaska woman, she advises, "Being able to butcher a moose is a skill that will be able to get you a date."

And to become the Alaska man, "Once in a while you should make your dog team sleep on the floor."

With two Greenland Huskies in our household, I don't know if I could go that far!

Bellinger understands that Alaskan men rarely consider washing their Carhartts bib top overalls. And that all the cake and ice cream in the world won't make the winters any shorter.

Read this book and learn the importance of duct tape, outhouses/honey buckets and (where I live) lots of dog hair,ice/mud and gravel all over the house and car or truck!

Enjoy!

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's Fun Being An Alaskan, August 29, 2007

By 

E. Martin "The Armchair Adventurer" (fairbanks, alaska United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Frozen Toe Guide to Real Alaskan Livin': Learn How to Survive Moose Attacks, Endless Winters, and Life Without Indoor Plumbing (Paperback)

Boy, Brookelyn Bellinger makes being an Alaskan sound like lots of fun.
She also makes Alaskans sound like lots of drunks, but ...
Bellinger's book, "The Frozen Toe Guide to Real Alaska Livin'," is a compendium of anecdotes, how-to information, advice and snarky commentary on living in the 49th State. From its do-it-yourself acknowledgement, which I found quite amusing, to the off-the-cuff introduction ("I figured most people would skip over the introduction - I usually do ...") and beyond, Bellinger throws zingers right and left on subjects as diverse as working in Alaska, dressing in Alaska and not going insane in Alaska.
Bellinger came to Alaska as a 19-year-old Minnesotan dreaming of adventure. She'd long thought she belonged here, she tells us, because it is "... a place where all kinds of oddballs fit in."
But seriously, she actually longed for the independence, adventure, wide-open spaces and "plethora of espresso stands.
Landing here with $200 and a backpack, she managed to find two jobs right off - working at a B&B in exchange for food and a piece of ground on which to pitch a tent, and selling fishing tackle and other "fish-killing" accoutrements.
Bellinger has had quite the gamut of Alaskan experiences, and she's not shy about telling us about them - successes and failures alike. She talks about the time she and her husband took on a homestead caretaking job on Unimak Island for the winter. Sharing excerpts from her diary (with added "If I knew then what I know now" comments), Bellinger carries us through a winter of too much fish, too much wind and not enough beer. She also shares the life lessons learned - if you're going to go for seven months of isolation, choose someplace with trees (for firewood) and "large animals to kill for meat." Her husband, however, would never do it again. "Seven months is a long time to be isolated."
Bellinger picks up a lot of what attracts most of us to this place. The outdoor life, of course - hunting, fishing, dog mushing, road trips to extremely civilization-challenged places - but she also mentions the intangibles as well. The lack of concern over fashion and following trends and keeping warm versus looking good are my favorite part of being Alaskan, although I've yet to go for the extreme (read "formal") Carhartt look Bellinger advocates.
I definitely enjoyed the "Twelve Simple Ways to Look the Part." These rules should be read to all newcomers as they deplane or deboat or de-car, because, frankly, it would make their lives much simpler. Bellinger tells us to lose all our suits, unless we want them for Halloween, and to keep the swimsuit for the PFD vacations to Hawaii. "Showers and clean clothes are overrated;" fur is the best way to stay warm and immediately buy stock in Carhartts.
But Bellinger also celebrates the spirit of Alaska: the ability to fend for oneself in any situation, the breathtaking beauty of the natural surroundings and the challenge of facing (and sometimes) beating Mother Nature at her worst - and her "children." I particularly enjoyed reading about wild animal attacks - especially the killer porcupine. Oh, yeah, she talks about mean moose and biting bears as well.
Inevitably, the "dry cabin" comes up, because, I suppose, most Outsiders think we all live in log cabins with no plumbing. There's advice on that as well, and some prophecy - eventually, you get used to biting cold on your bare cheeks as you dash out to the john in minus-40 weather.
Bellinger's guide to life here in the Frozen North has a bit of a magazine look to it - lots of sidebars and fact boxes, lists of "resources" and recipes tucked here and there. In a couple of places, she throws in a Q&A session with a noted Alaskan. (Conflict of Interest note: I really don't like the Q&A format - seems rather lazy to me. But I digress.)
"The Frozen Toe Guide" is fun to read, an enjoyable way to spend a rainy afternoon in the armchair. Bellinger's style is sarcastic and smart-aleky, with a class-clown tone of voice that makes fun of herself as much as anything else. She writes well, and obviously knows of what she writes.
If I have a complaint, it's that she's not sure what this book is supposed to be - a how-to guide, a tongue-in-cheek memoir or what. The book starts out so jokingly (I mean, really, fill-in-the-blanks acknowledgements, while hilarious, aren't meant to be taken seriously. Are they?), it's hard to pull back into serious mode. And when Bellinger does throw in cautions ("Just have a good time and be safe out there."), inevitably, she tacks on a smart remark ("Always carry a gun."). It's jarring, this juxtaposition of sarcasm and seriousness.
Don't get me wrong - I loved this book. It's also probably something I'll send off to the relatives at Christmas so they see how much fun I'm having. And how much we drink up here, but you'll have to read the book to see what I mean.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for anyone going to Alaska, September 11, 2007

By 

Amy R. Christopher (OKC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Frozen Toe Guide to Real Alaskan Livin': Learn How to Survive Moose Attacks, Endless Winters, and Life Without Indoor Plumbing (Paperback)

Either for vacation or to live permanently, this book is an insight into the great state of Alaska. Brookelyn did a great job combining humor, wit and truth to some serious subjects that are overlooked from the lowerfortyeightians. Enjoy the book..