Ken Ilgunas

Whenever I’d tell one of my Coldfoot coworkers that I was heading up to Deadhorse for a couple of weeks, their first response was...

(Deadhorse Camp is the yellow building on the right) Tomorrow, I’m heading up to Deadhorse, a greasy, steely working camp near the oil...

It’s starting to get cold up here. Summer is turning to fall, green to red, rain to snow. Because I don’t have any source of heat in my...

(Photo Credit: Megan Morr / Duke Magazine) A few months ago, I wrote an article about Duke’s new campus farm. It just printed in Duke...

The conservative online magazine, The Daily Caller, has recently printed two more “exposés” on Senator Tom Harkin (Democrat/Iowa) and my...

Hiking in the Brooks is one of the few places on earth where one can still get a sense of what it was like to explore country as humans...

I’m excited to report that my best friend, Josh Pruyn (who’s been mentioned a dozen or so times on this blog), is at the center of a...

For a little over a month, I’ve been Coldfoot’s writer-in-residence—a title I use reluctantly because I’ve actually done very little...

I recently went on a two-day hike with my friend Sarah on the North Slope of the Brooks Range, about 30 miles north of the northernmost...

Recently, I set off on a two-day, 24-mile hike down the Slate Creek Trail–the only trail anywhere near Coldfoot. Nothing dramatic...

I’ve recently been trading emails with a young man who is thinking about hitchhiking up to Alaska. Inspired by those emails, I’ve decided...

God… Student debt pisses me off like nothing else. That millions of young students have to go into massive debt so that they may become...

Last week, with friend and photographer Josh Spice, I hiked to Bus 142 on the Stampede Trail outside Healy, Alaska. This is the site of...

On a drive up the Dalton Highway, just above tree line, near Chandalar Shelf, I came across five very curious and unafraid fox pups who...

I arrived in Fairbanks earlier this week. My old park ranger friend, Josh–not to be confused with my other good friend named Josh–and I...

I went on a mini backcountry adventure this past weekend with my friend Josh Spice–a Fairbanks resident. Since we were close by, we took...

I got off the plane, walked outside, and smelled the musty fragrance of an unchecked forest fire off yonder. It was 12:15 a.m. yet still...

This true people took the stranger And warm hearted housed the ranger They received their roving guest And have fed him with the best....

(Coldfoot is where the red thingy is) As I mentioned in my concluding post, I am moving out of North Carolina and heading up to Alaska to...

David—a boomer who lived through the 60’s—recently posted an entry noting the curious absence of revolutionary discourse among today’s...