What is the prescription for finding home in Alaska? Take one young Mennonite girl and transplant her from the flatland prairies of Kansas. Give her village potlatches, school in a Quonset hut, the fragrance of wood smoke, Native friends, a doctor for a father who creates hunting tales and medical adventures with a bush plane, a mother who makes the tastiest moose roasts and has the grit to be a homesteader, and throw in a batch of siblings. Weave into her journey the perspectives of her family members and have them face the lack of conveniences, isolation from extended family, freezing temperatures, and unknown hardships. Mix all these together with an attitude of humor, ingenuity, optimism, and you'll get a sense of adventure! 'We come to Alaska for different reasons—job, love, adventure, a new start—or because we're born here. We stay because we find what we're looking for in short: home. Home is a sense of fitting in, a feeling rather than a structure of wood and shingles. The Gaede family had many structures to live in, but it took the hard work and sweat equity of the homestead before they found home. Belonging is the theme of Naomi Gaede-Penner's book Finding Home in Alaska in her Prescription for Adventure series. This book takes a look at the Alaska adventures of the Gaede clan from the points of view of Ruby Gaede and the kids: Naomi, Ruth, Mark, and Mishal.' Fairbanks News-Miner Naomi Penner is a writer, educator, and speaker with a background in English education and a master's degree in counseling. She believes everyone has a story to tell and encourages each person to find a medium to express, preserve, and pass along that story. Not only does she write about adventure, she lives it. Check her website for information on new writing projects, promotional events, reading guides, homeschooling materials, and a glimpse of her frequent outdoor adventures: www.prescriptionforadventure.com.

Take one young Mennonite girl and transplant her from the flatland prairies of Kansas. Give her village potlatches, school in a Quonset hut, the fragrance of wood smoke, Native friends, a doctor for a father who creates hunting tales and medical adventures with a bush plane, a mother who makes the tastiest moose roasts and has the grit to be a homesteader, and throw in a batch of siblings. Weave into her journey the perspectives of her family members and have them face the lack of conveniences, isolation from extended family, freezing temperatures, and unknown hardships. Mix all these together with an attitude of humor, ingenuity, optimism, and you'll get a sense of adventure!

Just as the Alaska spawning salmon swim upstream, so did this single woman swim against the current of a society that expected her to fit the mold of wife and mother. When this rite of passage eluded Anna Bortel, she did not bemoan her singlehood. Instead, in 1954, this young school teacher drove up the Alaska-Canada Highway from Ohio to Valdez, where snow was measured in feet and an Easter Egg hunt unheard of. Her curiosity wasn't quelled. She pushed further north to an Athabascan village along the Yukon River. Drafty Quonset huts with freezing oil lines at 50 below zero added to her teaching rigors. Discouraged? Yes. Daunted? No. You'll smile, laugh, and shake your head in amazement as you read these heartwarming, inspiring, and captivating stories of teaching in the Territory of Alaska. www.prescriptionforadventure.com

The elders of the last roving bands of Nunamiuts, and the only inland Eskimos in Alaska, were determined to provide education within their settlement, rather than send their children to boarding school. The obstacles were daunting: no school building, no teacherage, no roads to transport building supplies, no airstrip, no wood for fuel except willows, no public services besides a post office, and few English-speaking adults and children. When Anna Bortel flew with a bush pilot doctor to Anaktuvuk Pass, do an educational assessment, they begged her to return and teach. As told in 'A' is for Alaska: Teacher to the Territory, Anna knew the daily living requirements would be steep, much more so than those of teaching. She deliberated. She prayed. She accepted the challenge. A year later, Ernest Gruening, U.S. Senator from Alaska, described the dilemma Alaskan educators faced and the determination of the Native people to obtain an education. He held up Anna Bortel as the ideal teacher, "one able to comprehend their problem, one kind and sympathetic, and above all one able to adjust to all conditions that might face her." Read how Anna Bortel carved a place in Alaska history and taught children that 'A' is for Anaktuvuk, Alaska, while the Anaktuvuk people taught her how to live in their world.

Mennonites are often associated with food, both by outsiders and by Mennonites themselves. Eating in abundance, eating together, preserving food, and preparing so-called traditional foods are just some of the connections mentioned in cookbooks, food advertising, memoirs, and everyday food talk. Yet since Mennonites are found around the world – from Europe to Canada to Mexico, from Paraguay to India to the Democratic Republic of the Congo – what can it mean to eat like one? In Eating Like a Mennonite Marlene Epp finds that the answer depends on the eater: on their ancestral history, current home, gender, socio-economic position, family traditions, and personal tastes. Originating in central Europe in the sixteenth century, Mennonites migrated around the world even as their religious teachings historically emphasized their separateness from others. The idea of Mennonite food became a way of maintaining community identity, even as unfamiliar environments obliged Mennonites to borrow and learn from their neighbours. Looking at Mennonites past and present, Epp shows that foodstuffs (cuisine) and foodways (practices) depend on historical and cultural context. She explores how diets have evolved as a result of migration, settlement, and mission; how food and gender identities relate to both power and fear; how cookbooks and recipes are full of social meaning; how experiences and memories of food scarcity shape identity; and how food is an expression of religious beliefs – as a symbol, in ritual, and in acts of charity. From zwieback to tamales and from sauerkraut to spring rolls, Eating Like a Mennonite reveals food as a complex ingredient in ethnic, religious, and personal identities, with the ability to create both bonds and boundaries between people.

Ruby Gaede expected to be a Kansas farmer's wife, snuggled safely into a Mennonite community with her relatives, milking cows and gathering eggs. What happens when her husband climbs off his tractor, goes to medical school, and becomes a bush pilot doctor in the middle of Alaska? She makes a home, cranks homemade ice cream on the frozen Yukon River, sings Christmas carols at 40 below, serves moose roasts, and seeks tips from the Native women on how to keep her four young children warm in the winter. * * * "Gaede-Penner is an authentic and gifted Alaska writer. I identified with her stories and the village culture she portrays. She gives voice to indigenous people, missionaries, and schoolteachers, all of whom need to be heard." --Margaret DeMers, Bible Translator for People of the North "Gaede-Penner's books are the best Alaska biographies I have read. She incorporates local history without losing her story's focus. Her accounts are unpretentious and present forceful and appealing characters." --Larry Hibpshman, retired Senior Archivist at the Alaska State Archives "Reading Gaede-Penner's book, I was amazed how Ruby persevered through each exasperating episode with her children, initiated classy social activities in a village with only a general store, and without hesitation opened her home to local and long-term guests alike. I couldn't put down the book." --Melissa Fogle, ESL Teacher * * * NAOMI GAEDE-PENNER is a writer and speaker who believes prescriptions for adventure come in all walks of life. Along with story telling, capturing Alaska history is her passion. This is her fifth Alaska book. Learn more at www. prescriptionforadventure.com.

He was more comfortable on a tractor than in a tiny airplane, yet he found himself in the Last Frontier with fly-in housecalls, hunting mishaps, and emergency landings. Dr. Elmer Gaede expected to follow in the footsteps of his Mennonite farming family. He never imagined that during the 1950s and 60s he'd fly with other legendary bush pilots, such as Babe Alsworth, Andy Anderson, Fred and John Chambers, Don Sheldon, Don Stickman, and Sig and Noel Wien. Or that he'd be counted among the early Alaska physicians in Interior Alaska. Fasten your seatbelt for Bush flying crack-ups, fly-in house calls in 50-below temperatures, hunting adventures, and a psychotic woman climbing out of his small Piper aircraft 2,000 feet above the Yukon River. Pack your sense of humor for a monkey in Doc's clinic waiting room, misjudged bush landings, delivering a baby during the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake, and more. Hang on for the thrills and the rigors of life in the Last Frontier. *** "Take it from one who has experienced the silence of an engine out-of-fuel at 2,500 feet, Doc really had courage! Flying a tube and fabric two-seat Piper J-3 without radio in the ever-changing weather of Alaska brings up the hair on the back of any pilot's neck. The stories were real and accurate down to the details. Being a daddy, doctor, dentist, and vet, not to mention a fierce big game hunter, added to the drama." --Steve Kriss, Colonel, USAF (Ret), Aircraft Owner - Instrument Pilot - A&P Mechanic in Plano, TX