HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TEMPTED to kiss the busy world goodbye and go build a cabin in the woods? That’s what Peter and Ginny Stanley did with their two-year-old son Christopher and Digit, their German shepherd. They set off for Alaska in June 1972 and staked ten acres of land north of Talkeetna, on a hill overlooking the Alaska Railway and the Susitna River, and beyond that an ever-changing view of Mount McKinley.

They cleared the land, brought in supplies and in September they had the walls of the cabin going up. By mid-October, the center pole was in and the doorway was finished. While they worked on the cabin, Peter, Ginny, Christopher and Digit lived in a double-walled army tent. The temperatures in the winter got down to 20 and 30 below—once to minus 53—and Peter remembers huddling around the cooking stove in the tent and listening to a song on the radio that went “I was sitting in Miami, pouring blended whisky down.”

Ginny now admits she went with the idea that Peter would get it out of his system by August, but then she fell in love with Alaska. Building the cabin was hard work, but she really enjoyed working with Peter on the same project, discovering Peter and Christopher, who peeled logs even though he was only two. “It’s the sort of thing that either broke or made a marriage.

She loved the freedom, being away from the constraints of social life, and being valued just for who you are. “You really needed neighbors, and there were no walls. Everyone was very different, socially and politically, but you came to depend on each other. You became very close friends. It was a lot of fun.” When the Mercer’s cabin burned, everyone came from miles around and built a new cabin in three weeks. When Judy Harvey had a baby, Peter was called to assist in the birthing on the kitchen table.

Ginny loved the challenge. “You find out who you are and what you can do. You learned how to care for yourself. There were no second chances. Everyone battled the same elements. You had to be careful with stoves. You had to know what to do when snow came.”

Even after the cabin was finished, just living was an all-consuming, heart-and-soul-and-body endeavor. It was morning-to-evening work. Hauling water. Cooking. Washing. Chopping wood. Ginny didn’t like the cold. “Winters were beautiful with the northern lights, but it was dark all the time, and it was hard.”

George was born in the spring of their first year in Alaska, and Ginny said it was a real joy with no visitors, and no one to dress up for. Jimmy was born in February 1975, but they never went back to the cabin. Three years was enough, and they decided to come back. Three children in a cabin with no running water required too much effort, and Peter and Ginny didn’t want to raise Christopher, George and Jimmy away from their family.

In April 1975, Peter and Ginny moved back to Virginia, but the cabin on the hill in Talkeetna is still there, and over the years many friends have used it for the summer, mended a roof and cared for it. Ginny and Peter have been back four times, the boys are devoted to it, and they find reasons to do things in Alaska so they can return to the cabin.—Alfred Scott