The Last Homesteaders: Resilience and Risk at the Edge of Alaska

For many, by 1968, the idealism of the Sixties had died, crashed rather, and now it was time to drop out, live on the margins, find meaning away from it all in frontiers like Alaska. John and Ginger Davidson struggled to build a small farm 25 sea miles from Seward on the stern and rockbound Gulf of Alaska coast. To the surprise and admiration of many, they succeeded when so many homesteaders had failed. By 1974, when their little boy Jesse came along, they had a well-crafted cabin, a huge garden, goats, chickens and other stock, a two-story barn and the beginning of a large workshop. All they needed now to buy their leased land from the state was a survey. Then August 2, 1977, arrived, and the edge, a force they fought every day, visited them with all its might.