TUe day, February 26, 1974

THE MICHIGAN DAILY

THE MICHIGAN DAILY Tue3cioy, February 26, 1974

F,

I

Home
means

in

Alaska

new

life
man

for

Kansas

IN THE BROOKS RANGE, Alaska -
- Spencer Linderman likes "being
warm, dry, and having a full belly."
But the life he has chosen does not
always provide these amenities. Linder-
man, who grew up in Kansas, has aban-
doned the hubub of the "lower 48" for
the wilds of Alaska.
He lives in a cabin near Fairbanks
with his wife, a former schoolteacher
from Georgia. They have electricity, but
no running water or indoor plumbing.
Linderman holds a degree in wild-

life biology from Kansas State Univer-
sity and says he would like to move even
farther back into the wilderness of nor-
thern Alaska, away from the few mo-
dern conveniences he has in his life.
In a recent letter he wrote:
"To be close to nature is sometimes
to be ecstatic at scenes of overpowering
grandeur. But more often, to me, it's to
be quietly reflective on the scheme of
daily life and death which seems to ,orm
the warp and woof of real life and fill
out its flesh too.

"Sometimes the closeness to nature is
being half-frozen, hungry, wet, with the
agony of time that stretches and en-
dures," he wrote, adding:
To know the great delicious joy of
being dry, warm, and having a full belly:
The joy of these last three things has
been continually impressed on me, till
my appreciation of them has become a
simple code of life."
Linderman moved to Alatika seven
years ago and recently has worked for
the Alaska Fish and Game Department
and is involved in real estate dealings.

AP photography by
Jim Richardson,
Topeka
Capital-Journal

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