NORTHERN LIGHTS AND SHADOWS: Sixteen Years in the Alaska Bush [Paperback]

Lee Basnar (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 5, 2005

Depicting encounters with bears and wolves, recounting the beauty of skiing under the northern lights, and describing his experiences while flying across trackless wilderness, the author vividly portrays his and his wife's adventures while living in the Alaska bush.

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

Life in the Alaska bush is changing rapidly. Many bush dwellers can now communicate using cell phones, a growing population rambles hell-bent across wilderness while seeking new forms of recreation, and the numbers of Alaskans who live subsistence lifestyles are dwindling.

Wilderness, assaulted from all sides, must be protected to ensure that wildlife has room to roam and procreate, thereby providing healthy populations for consumptive and non-consumptive uses.

Having subsisted on Alaska’s bounty, I owe a huge debt to wilderness and to the birds and animals that depend on wilderness for their survival. By writing a book that describes many of our experiences in the Alaska bush, I have recorded a way of life that will eventually disappear.

We must be wise stewards of our natural resources or they will disappear, causing future generations to wonder why we didn’t act before it was too late.

About the Author

Lee Basnar grew up in northern Vermont, but he always wanted to live in Alaska. The army officer was assigned to that state after completing his second tour in Vietnam. Upon retiring from the army, he and his wife built a cabin in the Alaska bush.

His book, Northern Lights & Shadows: Sixteen Years in the Alaska Bush, describes their many experiences while meeting the demands of a subsistence lifestyle. Living off the grid, observing the daily activities of wildlife, and piloting his tiny airplane across hundreds of miles of wilderness, the author depicts a lifestyle that is rapidly disappearing.

His book, Vietnam Vignettes: Tales of an Infantryman, which describes his two tours of duty as an infantryman in Vietnam, was published in 2004. The book has received rave reviews from soldiers who fought in Vietnam and from readers who never served in the military.

His articles have appeared in Alaska Magazine and Alaska Outdoors magazine, among others, and in several newsletters.

When they left the Alaska bush in 1996, he and his wife moved to Sierra Vista, Arizona, where he is a columnist for the Sierra Vista Herald and the Bisbee Daily Review.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Booklocker.com, Inc. (August 5, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591137780
• ISBN-13: 978-1591137788
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,560,630 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Childhood Dream, October 16, 2005

By 

Elizabeth A. Kunzer "Sandy Kunzer" (Cochise County, AZ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: NORTHERN LIGHTS AND SHADOWS: Sixteen Years in the Alaska Bush (Paperback)

Few of us are lucky enough to be able to live out a childhood dream as an adult. Fewer still have the literary talent to bring others along to share their experience and joy. In "Norhtern Lights and Shadows" Lee Basnar has done both. This compelling and lyrically composed story of life in Alaska followsMr. Basnar and his wife Joan on their personal journey of discovery of their landscape and themselves. Introducing us to a life that may no longer exist but which many might feel would have had too many problems for us, Lee describes meeting these as "challenges" to be enjoyed. This is not a "how-to" manual of excruciating detail but akin to a impressionistic canvas to be savored for the mental pictures that it conjurs.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Engaging ..., October 14, 2005

By 

Pat Call - See all my reviews

This review is from: NORTHERN LIGHTS AND SHADOWS: Sixteen Years in the Alaska Bush (Paperback)

Like telephone poles along a back country road on a Sunday drive, the pages of this book slip effortlessly by .... and you quickly find yourself anticipating what lies beyond the next hill or around the next curve of the story. We're lucky to be along for the ride as the author takes us on the journey of his life.

Mr. Basnar creates vivid word pictures that blend into flowing murals for our mind's eye to watch. Each page is fast moving, full of texture and adventure and fun. This book is so engaging that in the end we, too, wish the story could go on and on.

If you buy this book, prepare to be intrigued - and delighted.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Uncompromising Life in the Bush, Pioneers in the Vanishing Frontier, May 12, 2006

By 

John Stevens "J.T. Stevens" (Charlotte, N.C. USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: NORTHERN LIGHTS AND SHADOWS: Sixteen Years in the Alaska Bush (Paperback)

Wow! Captivating from the beginning digging your way out of the cabin. Excellent imagery. Made me want to go there before it is all gone, to breath the air, to see the landscape, to feel the rush of the wind, the chill of the frozen tundra, to taste food that is fresh and wild, free from man's processing. To hear the sounds that nature sings.
This descriptive account of life in Alaska is an eye opener of the fortitude it takes to make it in the Last Frontier. The extreme conditions and the extreme rewards.
This book opens your eyes to the hardships and the little things a tenderfoot wouldn't think of in your survival in the Alaskan wilds. Dotted with humor, sprinkled with love and support of a life mate, along with the daily challenges of self-sufficiency. Here you will find many helpful hints if your dream is to live in the wilds of Alaska. And if it has been your dream it will open your eye to the reality of such a challenge. A marvelous read and an excellent way to experience the wilds vicariously in the comfort and safety of your own armchair, from wildlife survival, to the Elmer's, natures Christening, the antics of the wilds, this books is fascinating, one to read and re-read.
I can only say thank you Lee for writing your experience out in such vivid details.