8 hours / 370 miles

I have a story. A story from an Alaskan family living on the edge of the Yukon River in Eagle.

I was hitch-hiking Highway 5, well-known as the Top of the World Highway; I got picked up by Helen.

She was making her way to Fairbanks to get supplies. Looking closer on a map, you will notice that Eagle and Fairbanks are separated by 8 hours, 370 miles, and some breathtaking landscapes known as the Alaskan bush.

8 hours / 370 miles to get what you need for a living.

At this latitude, you don’t live; you subsist. For most of us, subsisting is closer to surviving. Here it’s not. 

In the mist of the fall season, when you meet someone in those communities, they will likely ask you: “did you get one?” or “did you see one?”. They talk about a moose, a giant animal living in large open meadows, hunts in August and September. One leg of a moose is 14 dinners for a family of 4. Getting your moose is a guarantee to bring food to subsist during the critical Alaskan winter. Not getting a moose it’s a promise to put your family in peril.

For most of them, living far away from an easy-to-get supply city is a choice, not a choice to get isolated from modern society or laidback living; it’s a choice to stay closer to your tribe, family and the wilderness.

From that, you learn to subsist, meaning being able to live from your environment and local resources.

You need to adapt your lifestyle to nature, to the changing climate. In the summer, you go down to the river or the sea to fish salmon (at least 40 to make your family well-fed until the next run). In the fall, you track the moose, and you maintain and develop your local resources year-round.

Here the keywords are abundance and nutrition.

Through our discussion, she told me she was nervous because the hunting season was already half gone, and they weren’t ready for winter: they hadn’t seen the shadow of a moose for a month, and the salmon run was not as prolific as it should be.

She was on her way to add supplies to the local resources, the unavoidable 30% that she needed to complete her lifestyle. But subsistence-living has a moral aspect, a philosophy, an attitude, a way to recognize the kinship with your environment that nothing can discourage.

This lifestyle was part of the stories of my grandparents, where living from the land was the only option. Then I moved to North America, and I discovered that subsisting from the land also has deep cultural roots, a part of the indigenous culture: the hunter-gather.

I’m passionate about remote communities and learning to “live local.” I believe that subsistence-living is a way to make our change.

Here the keywords are subsisting and sustained.