With twenty-two years of Alaskan homesteading and adventures behind them, Pamela and Jeff Haskin have become part of a different landscape and range of temperatures in Delta County, Texas.
Pamela, an author, has the love of the outdoors, the lithe figure, and the sharp wit that reminds her friends of Sarah Palin without political baggage.
Jeff Haskin, who relishes wilderness life, continues to work in the oil fields on the North Slope of Alaska. His job requires a 5,000-mile airplane commute for two weeks in the arctic field interspersed by two weeks at their home in Cooper.
Because the Haskins are routinely questioned about their association with Sarah Palin, they have ready answers.
Yes, they did live for two years in Wasilla, Alaska, Palin’s hometown.
Yes, they resided in her neighborhood, and Palin knocked on their door when she was campaigning for her first elected office, mayor of Wasilla.
No, they are not close friends of Palin.
The Haskins left a promising business in Arizona when they decided that every person is free to make choices in life and that to reject wished-for experiences is a mistake. Alaska became their destination.
Pamela, a native of Sunray in the Texas Panhandle, and Jeff, a native of Rockford, Illinois, had met as students at Lubbock Christian College. Together they chose to leave Arizona to homestead in Alaska on a forty-acre tract of land 130 miles north of Fairbanks.
The homestead was awarded to them by the Alaskan government after five years.
During the more than two decades they lived in Alaska, Jeff commuted by air from Fairbanks 600 miles to his employment in the North Slope Oil Field. Pamela stayed behind in their twelve- by twenty-foot cabin to experience sixty below zero temperatures and an invigorating life without electricity and running water. What she survived with exuberant enthusiasm is reported in her dynamic book entitled A Deliberate Life.
The nearest village store was in Central, five miles away on a gravel road; the nearest supermarket was in Fairbanks, 130 miles and three mountain passes away on a gravel road. The nearest neighbor lived five miles away. The Haskins bought no meat. Jeff provided meat by hunting in the neighborhood.
“A 1,400-pound moose goes a long way with two people,” Pamela reports.
They also fished for salmon in the Yukon River during spawning season.
Both Pamela and Jeff preferred Alaska’s sunless winter to the short but pleasant summers. Their endurances, challenges, and delights as homesteaders are written with lively detail by Pamela, giving residents of the lower states an insider’s view of Alaskan life. Some of Pamela’s most engaging stories involve her search for a manual typewriter in Alaska and her ingenuity in accomplishing chores in sub-zero temperatures.
When doctors discovered that Pamela had a health problem requiring her to be near specialized physicians, the Haskins reluctantly began searching for a small town near an appropriate medical center and an air hub that could jet Jeff to Anchorage and then to Fairbanks, where his oil company would fly him to his work on the North Slope, where he continued working. Their new home in Cooper fits all the requirements.
In Cooper, Pamela continues to write and promote her ideas about the prudent seizing of life’s choices. She is a regular contributor of inspirational essays to Guideposts, and she accepts engagements as a motivation speaker for various groups. She is completing a course on “Transforming Non-Fiction into Fiction” at Texas A&M University-Commerce.
Upon returning to Cooper after two weeks of working long hours in Alaska, Jeff relaxes for a time and then plunges into his many interests as a carpenter, electrician, and handyman. The next life choice awaiting the Haskins is selecting a parcel of land large enough for a grass airstrip.