Reggie and Annie Solitude in the Alaska Wilderness

Young Reggie Riordon was fifteen years old when his parents decided to leave Seattle, Washington and move to Alaska. The year was 1910. There was the four in their family, the parents Tom and Rosella, Reggie, 15 and his younger sister Addie, 11. They had been planning this move for over a year and Tom had found people who had lived in Alaska and had moved back to the lower states. He tried to learn all that he could about the summers, and winters. As Tom's interest was towards building a cabin on a gold claim and then learning to pan gold. It wasn't his interest of getting what one would call rich, their interest was living in the wilderness, and enjoy the peace and solitude that it would offer.

They were aware of the hard times that they would have to endure to have the peace that living in the wilderness would bring. Reggie with his father was one hundred percent in favor of what this life would bring. Rosella was agreeable and Addie was excited. They had saved their money to be able to make this move.

They arrived in the small town of Talkeetna the first part of May. This town was about eighty miles north of Anchorage, on the edge of the wilderness. They were able to find a small three bedroom home which they bought, it was to be their base home, and Tom was interested in a mining claim, located about ten miles out into the wilderness. This is where this interesting story begins.