In the summer of 1981, 64-year-old Helen Broomell, mother of six and grandmother of ten, set off with an old aluminum canoe that had been shortened by cutting and riveting. She had found a ride on a ride board from her home in Wisconsin to Dawson, British Columbia, and the Yukon River. After three weeks paddling 600 miles by herself, she spent the next four months exploring Alaska by plane, train, Alaska Ferry, hitchhiking, river rafting, and dogsledding. Two years later, Helen returned and picked up her canoe at the gas station by the pipeline bridge where she had left it, and paddled another 750 miles by herself. When the weather got bad before she reached her destination (about 100 miles from the Bering Sea), she traded her canoe for a boat ride, and again spent several months traveling all over Alaska by any means available. This book combines her journals from both trips into one volume, and includes unforgettable anecdotes about bears, native villages, making friends, and being self-reliant.