Between filing for our homestead on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land in 1957 and the government granting of the patent in 1962, we spent five years on the homestead on Point MacKenzie in Southcentral Alaska. This point is across four and a half miles of water from Anchorage, yet the area is still remote and without road access. A boat made getting back and forth a possible commute.... We walked everywhere. We tied our kids to a packboard because...