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Alaska didn’t quite have the same ring for my mom.

“We’ll try it for a year,” my dad promised. “If we don’t like it, we can always move back.”

Reluctantly, and much to the disapproval of her family and friends, she agreed. Southeast Alaska seemed as far away as Russia, and between the bears, bugs, weather, and the price of a plane ticket, a trip north wasn’t high on their circle’s list of vacation destinations.

They loaded their tiny AMC Gremlin with a giant malamute and a high-strung Norwegian elkhound and drove out of the suburbs. Following the Alaska Highway, they slowly motored through forests and mountains that seemed to stretch forever. In Fort John, British Columbia, the dogs rolled in something dead, making the final push to the Alaskan port of Haines a bit fragrant. Aboard the state ferry, they motored south down Lynn Canal, an expansive, storm-ridden fjord, with mountains towering up to seven thousand feet on both sides. Clouds clung to Admiralty Island’s rainforest mountains as the ferry made a hard turn toward the small city of Juneau.