Audiobook8 hours
Arctic Homestead: The True Story of One Family's Survival and Courage in the Alaskan Wilds
Written by Norma Cobb and Charles W. Sasser
Narrated by Emily Beresford
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
In 1973, Norma Cobb, her husband Lester, and their five children pulled up stakes in the Lower Forty-Eight and headed north to Alaska to follow a pioneer dream of claiming land under the Homestead Act. The only land available lay north of Fairbanks near the Arctic Circle where grizzlies outnumbered humans twenty to one. In addition to fierce winters and predatory animals, the Alaskan frontier drew the more unsavory elements of society's fringes. From the beginning, the Cobbs found themselves pitted in a life or death feud with unscrupulous neighbors who would rob from new settlers, attempt to burn them out, shoot them, and jump their claim.
The Cobbs were chechakos, tenderfeet, in a lost land that consumed even toughened settlers. Everything, including their "civilized" past, conspired to defeat them. They constructed a cabin and the first snow collapsed the roof. They built too close to the creek and spring breakup threatened to flood them out. Bears prowled the nearby woods, stalking the children, and Lester Cobb would leave for months at a time in search of work.
But through it all, they survived on the strength of Norma Cobb-a woman whose love for her family knew no bounds and whose courage in the face of mortal danger is an inspiration to us all. Arctic Homestead is her story.
The Cobbs were chechakos, tenderfeet, in a lost land that consumed even toughened settlers. Everything, including their "civilized" past, conspired to defeat them. They constructed a cabin and the first snow collapsed the roof. They built too close to the creek and spring breakup threatened to flood them out. Bears prowled the nearby woods, stalking the children, and Lester Cobb would leave for months at a time in search of work.
But through it all, they survived on the strength of Norma Cobb-a woman whose love for her family knew no bounds and whose courage in the face of mortal danger is an inspiration to us all. Arctic Homestead is her story.
Author
Norma Cobb
Norma Cobb is the last woman pioneer to sign up under the U.S. Homestead Act and become a homesteader. She and her family still live in the valley they settled. Arctic Homestead is Norma Cobb’s first book.
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Reviews for Arctic Homestead
Rating: 4.392857160714286 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
56 ratings7 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This was a great book!! A page turner and really interesting.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Inspiring. Great story with good narrator; perfect combination to keep me listening.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Truly enjoyable. Very informative and entertaining. Voice was quite expressive.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5If you like pioneer books, you will enjoy this one - full of adventure and hard work in Alaska.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Loved listening to this extraordinary memoir of resilience and fortitude.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Artic Homestead. Norma Cobb and Charles W. Sasser. 2000. Norma Cobb wa the last woman to sign up under the U.S. Homestead Act and become a homesteader in Alaska. Sasser had taken the journal Norma kept and written her story. Norma and her future husband met in Kansas. She was a divorced mother of three boys and he was the divorced father of twin girls. The met fell in love and married and ended up homesteading in Alaska. They struggle with their own inexperience, the weather, wild animals, and unsavory men. It is a fascinating, suspenseful story and very readable. I really enjoyed the modern-day pioneer story!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Funny, funny book! Read it; you'll laugh. I might have to re-read it! It is written as a memoir by the last American woman homesteader.