Alaska Woodsmoke: Family Stories and Recipes

A collection of family stories, photos, and recipes while raising her family on a homestead in Alaska. Author Merilee Watts began writing this book at the request of her sons and their wives. They wanted favorite recipes to be written down and shared, but they also wanted a record of some of the adventures had while living out in the woods on a farm in Sunshine, Alaska. What started out as a cookbook with a story or two became a history of the Calvin family and what took them to Alaska from Galveston, Texas. It gives an insight to the family dynamics of living with indifferent parents, life on the homestead, and the return to the woods with her own family. Over forty-five years in Alaska with blizzards, bears, cold, cold, and more cold, an coping with light deprivation, lack of running water and consistent electricity, and the ever present fear of another “big” earthquake gives a different perspective of Merilee’s life now – retired to the outer regions of Atlanta, Georgia. The future brings a bit of Watts history with more recipes and adventures.