Homer Alaska - Arts -

Picture a pregnant Thompson leaving the remote and tiny population 300 Alaska community of Nondalton by dogsled for an even more remote site. The sled carried Thompson, her then-husband Steve and their belongings as they pursued the adventures that are part and parcel of a dream to live off the land.

"If any of these women find we're leaving, they'll surely come right down here to the beach and tell me pregnant women shouldn't travel by dog team in winter," Thompson recalled telling her husband. Even she recognized that most of bush Alaska's hearty female residents would balk at the challenges she embraces.

In those pre-dawn hours, Thompson stuffed one last essential toilet paper into their gear, grabbed pliers to disconnect each dog from its tie-down stake and the couple took off into a new day, sliding into a future which has very few easy moments.

The details of daily life availability of drinking water, variety of foods and maintaining clean clothes to name but a few might be taken for granted in Thompson's home state of California, but definitely not on the shores of Lake Clark.

There's the couple's cabin with its uneven floor, eight inches lower in the center than at the walls as it sags toward the basement. There's the laundry that is washed by hand and rinsed in near-freezing water accessed by a hole cut in lake ice. There's the salmon, salmon and more salmon that comprise meal after meal for human and dog.

While some writers paint a remote Alaska lifestyle in romantic or humorous hues, Thompson's unflinching prose describe the harsh demands of living so close to nature. As the demands increased such as the day she tried to feed her dogs but ended up drenched in blood and grease or when an axe slipped and she seriously injured herself Thompson repeatedly turned to her faith for strength and a reminder of what was good in life.

"I cried as I looked up into the clear sky filled with millions of bright twinkling stars and the undulating streaks of red, gold and green northern lights," she writes.

This also is the backdrop against which readers come to know Thompson, how she sustains her strength and how she rallies in order to survive. It was perhaps in these situations that Thompson came to know herself, as well.

And rally, she did. When her first child was born with Down's Syndrome. When her second pregnancy resulted in joy and grief. When state politics turned her husband's head and heart away from his family. When the medical profession, family, friends and even strangers intruded into her personal life with harsh, unsettling advice.

Thompson's book is a powerful story of survival. "It's Okay Mom" is the prequel to "Erik's Story Finding His Gifts Against All Odds In Rural Alaska," the story of her artistically talented son, Erik, published in 2007. After what she already endured, it is a story that undoubtedly continues with each new challenge Thompson faces.

"It's Okay Mom" is being published this summer by Publication Consultants of Anchorage, www.publicationconsultants.com.

McKibben Jackinsky can be reached at mckibben.jackinsky@homernews.com.