Alaska is a vast land filled with adventure and opportunity, but it’s also a state of mind, a symbol of freedom, and a home for some of the more adventurous characters out there. Jim Rearden was a unique and special Alaskan. He not only experienced the state and its outdoor paradise in its infancy, he also met many of the legends and crazy characters that make the place so unique. Through a series of seemingly crazy life choices, Jim was able to share Alaska and its people with folks from the outside, and helped tell stories that otherwise would never have a chance of reaching most of us.
Jim Rearden first went to Alaska in the 1940’s, working as a stream guard on some of the state’s coastal salmon rivers. He trained in fish and wildlife management, earned a Masters Degree in wildlife at the University of Maine at Orono. In 1950, he moved his young family to Fairbanks to take on a huge challenge: start up a brand new wildlife management degree program at the University of Alaska. It was a huge task for a young man fresh out of school, but such challenges were common in the frontier land of the north.
It took several years for Rearden to realize what many of us outdoors folk find. Standing in front of a blackboard in a classroom is enough to drive a person crazy! Though he was molding young minds and shaping future fish and wildlife management in the state, and building towards a nice comfortable retirement, Jim couldn’t take it anymore. He needed the freedom to spend more time outdoors.
By the time Rearden quit his University job he’d been writing magazine articles about the Alaska outdoors for some time. He came to realize that his true passion lie in sharing the outdoors with fellow Alaskans through his writing, and jobs as a freelance writer and magazine editor helped him work toward that end. Rearden admitted he may have been a bit crazy to leave such a good career: “Looking back, it wasn’t a prudent move; in fact, it was probably foolish, but I was following a dream. Alaska is a land that encourages dreamers and adventurers, and I happily took the plunge.”
In addition to writing, Rearden practiced photography, guided hunters, and did carpentry work and other odd jobs. It wasn’t easy, but he scraped by, and spent the next several decades carving out a legacy in the Alaska outdoors. He even worked as a fisheries biologist for a decade and later served on the Alaska Board of Fish and Game. Perhaps most notably, though, Jim Rearden left his mark through the stories he told about the unique characters that called Alaska home. He wrote hundreds of articles and more than two dozen books. Most notable are his books on Alaska’s wolf man Frank Glaser, legendary Koyukuk native Sidney Huntington, and bush pilot Andy Anderson.
Rearden passed away in 2017, but his writing lives on. To get a taste of it, I’d recommend “Jim Rearden’s Alaska”, a collection of his stories published in 2001 and 2005. You’ll get an education on wildlife, meet some colorful folks, and share in more than a handful of laughs. We won’t all make it to Alaska, but reading Jim Rearden’s stories is close to the next best thing.
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