Northern Lights and Shadows: Sixteen Years in the Alaska Bush

A great read! I read books about wide variety of topics, but seldom have I been as captivated by a book as I was when I read Northern Lights & Shadows: Sixteen Years in the Alaska Bush. The book took me into the Alaska wilderness where the author and his wife lived for sixteen years. His descriptions of encounters with bears, wolves, and other wildlife made me feel as if I was there. His stories about flying his airplane across hundreds of miles of wilderness, and his tales of the severe weather he ran into on several occasions grabbed my attention and wouldn't let me go. His images of the Alaska wilderness, his tales about the birds and animals that were their neighbors, and his casual mention of the challenges that he and his wife met and overcame kept me reading long after my normal bedtime. This exceptional book appealed to me not only because I was stationed in Alaska as an army aviator and am somewhat familiar with the area where they built their cabin, but because it describes real people living a lifestyle that few folks can imagine. This is the finest book I've read about life in remote Alaska.

Lots of folks have yearned to move to the wilderness and leave the worries of the city behind, living off the land in a beautiful environment. That is What Lee Basnar and his wife did after he retired from the Army when they fullfilled his dream of life in the backcountry of Alaska. In his new book, 'Northern Lights and Shadows,' Lee paints a literal picture of life in the beautiful but harsh environment of Alaska's wilderness where he lived for 16 years. He tells of flying in his little taylorcraft through rugged mountains, fishing for huge trout and hunting moose. He also paints a picture of a changing Alaska as more people find it. The book is a great read for any outdoorsman or woman who longs for what they may think is a less complicated life. But Lee has a few lessons for anyone who might try what he has done. His life in Alaska was not always an easy one. However, it was the life he had sought and understood since growing up in Vermont. The story of his 16 year adventure in Alaska is one that will paint vivid pitures in your mind of wildlife and snow capped mountains tempered with images of 50 degree below zero winter weather and all the problems that need to be solved when living in the bush. There is also a bit of hunmor from time to time that keeps the story light. If you love to read about the outdoors this book is a must. It will bring Lee's experience to life for you. I couldn't wait to get a little time each day to read a chapter and I was sorry there wasn't more when I finished it.

Have you ever been to Alaska? Have you ever wanted to go? Read this book and you will be instantly transported to that magical place. You will be there. You will share life with Lee and his wife Joan, from the compelling reasons why they chose to move to a place where no road goes, to their poignant departure seventeen years later. The book is written in chapters, each chapter focusing on a segment of living unique to the Alaskan bush. The story flows easily and often humorously, as they integrate their life to become one with the environment, the wildlife, the unrelenting sub-zero cold and mountains of snow, the solitude, and the majesty and beauty of Alaska. It's all done from the perspective of the challenges of daily life for two very real people. Lee takes the reader with him on spectacular, often harrowing, flights as he explores the region in his floatplane. You will learn how Joan hangs clothes out to dry when the clothesline is buried under several feet of snow. He chronicles their daughter's wedding at the cabin in the bush, when the guests had to be transported in by snowmachine. You will become as closely acquainted with Alaskan wildlife as if you were there; a family of loons on their pond, elusive wolf packs in the wilds, moose as their source of food, small animals providing entertainment. Then there are, of course, the bears; black bears and frightening grizzly bears, and how Lee and Joan balanced safety of life and limb with respect for the animal in its own habitat. I have read numerous books on Alaska, but this is, by far, the best. It invites the reader into the wilds and in picturesque detail shares a glimpse of life that most of us will never experience,. It is, like Alaska itself, awesome!

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.

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.