Grab Instantly Winds Of Skilak: A Tale Of True Grit, True Love And Survival In The Alaskan Wilderness Crafted By Bonnie Rose Ward Published As Interactive EBook

so I probably got off on the wrong foot with this one, On the very first page, where the author's husband springs it on her that he's put the house on the market without asking her first, and decided that they're both going to quit their jobs and move to Alaska, and she's OK with this, I should have noped out of there.
I mean I guess they had talked about it a year before and stuff, but, . . no. Whatever your marriage dynamics are, you DON'T spring this crap on your spouse,

This is really a book by someone who has a fascinating story to tell but actually isn't all that great a writer.
The OTT conservative Christian submissiveness towards her husband which sees her simpering in adoration towards him while he talks to her like she's a child, also grates.
But really it's the fact that she's just not that great at putting an engaging paragraph together, Also her husband, frankly, seems like an overlymacho idiot, Multiple Alaskans say "don't try to live on Caribou Island all year round because it's a miserable place outside of summer and you'll probably die crossing the lake because of an unexpected storm or falling through the ice " "My great swinging gonads say I'll be fine!" Yeah.
This book filled a niche for me, I love a good liveofftheland, survivalist story and I have a special place in my hard for memoirs about this, especially when set in Alaska!

That being said, the husband in this book is an ass.
A sexist ass. I found myself rooting for the Alaskan wilderness against his stupid, egotistical antics, I wished for him to be eaten by a bear, or crashed through thin ice on the mighty Skilak River,

Sam puts down his awesome wife regularly, Telling her such gems as "put down that axe before you gash open your leg and bleed to death", Or, "we are going to town, NOW", Or, "shut up, Bonnie". He's a keeper alright!

My view of him kind of ruined sweet Bonnie for me, I can't imagine being isolated in a tiny offgrid cabin in the middle of nowhere with a man who thinks he can order women around and is such an egotistical and selfabsorbed idiot that he refuses to treat a BROKEN BACK.
"I am MAN!!! No one will tell ME what to do!! Not my wife, the wild Alaskan frontier, and certainly not a dozen or more broken bones! I shall heal myself!!! "

I wonder what became of this couple.
I hope she left him for someone who has a little respect for women, especially women who have hewn out logs for their own dwellings! You don't need him, Bonnie! Gnaw your foot outta that bear trap! Not what I expected.
This book received high ratings but it should be shelved under 'romance', not homesteading, After reading Proenneke I was expecting a similar wilderness account, but from a female perspective, The story feels heavily scripted, the author is awfully weepy for a "wilderness woman", and the fact that the couple received so much outside help, relied on a car, motorized boats, and wellpaying seasonal jobs on the Slope is reflective of the lifestyle of many Alaskans, then and today.
Entertaining. Definitely gave a view into what living in the wilderness in Alaska would be like, Author did a little too much praying and being subservient to her husband for my likening but certainly didn't detract too much from my enjoyment of the story.
This was a chance lost! What couldve been a great, true adventure memoir ended up as a YA romance in the woods.
The writing is mediocre and

stumbles often with trite phrasing and grammatical errors, This author should not have attempted quite so much dialogue, It is impossible to accurately quote so many conversations fromyears ago! But if youre going to “recall” conversations with help from your journal, you should take care to write dialogue that is not so stilted and pedantic.


I realize time covered in this memoir is the earlys, when the author was in hers, however it was written/published in appx.
Certainly much of the heroworship, giggly, school girl tone could have been left out without losing the sense of the couples youth, their new marriage, and the “growth” dynamic of their adventure.


I was so disappointed that their friend Bill was basically just written out of the book once he went back to lower.
He helped them so much and made their start in Alaska possible, Seems ungrateful and disloyal as hell that there was not one photo of him, no dedication page and no continued contact with him is mentioned!
He worked his butt off for these peoplehr days, ate rice and beans for months, risked his life, lived in a tent even after he helped build their cabin, drove his own car and used it to help haul for them.
and hes just poof, gone, with one generic paragraph,

I was deeply appalled at the goat/neighbor issue near the end of the book, If it was to be so easily glossed over and left largely unexplained, why even include it It felt a little manipulative was she trying for easy tears and/or a way to bring prayer/God into the “wrap up” of the book If Bonnie and Sam loved those goats as much as theyd have us believe, there was a LOT left unsaid about the neighbor who, by the way, was portrayed all through the book as a supportive, generous, helpfully, wonderful friend! Bonnie Ward knew nothing of living in the bush.
She accompanied her husband to an island in Skilak Lake, Alaska, as an act of keeping faith with his dream, The book describes building a cabin and their life in it for the first two years, She collected berries for canningmore than once coming facetoface with a grizzlyfished for salmon, helped run trap lines, and slowly became a wilderness woman.
Everything you would expect. What you don't expect and what you find in this book are charming humility and honesty, Her writing is straight from the heart, making a very enjoyable read, I just couldnt do it,

I adore a good survival story but Bonnies childlike relationship to her older husband was too much for me to swallow.
So, this book was recommended by a friend and has numerousstar ratings, but I really had to force myself to keep plugging away.
The homesteading and making your way in the wilderness was interesting for a while, but the writing is on the simple side and could have used some editing in my opinion.
Also, the author's subservience to her husband, and what seemed like her constant "crying or on the verge of tears," got really tiresome.
Maybe its just that I've read some truly great, very well written, Alaskan books recently, like Raven's Gift, Dead Reckoning, and Jimmy Bluefeather.
. . or that my expectations for this one were just too high, .