Linda Nijlunsing

After the early death of her mother, Linda becomes restless and no longer feels at home in the Netherlands. She travels around the world, doing odd jobs wherever there is an opportunity. Her journey leads her to Alaska, where she falls in love with John, a trapper who has lived alone in his cabin on the Yukon River for twenty years. 
John is very clear about his priorities: “I am looking for a woman to make my life easier.”

Linda adapts herself completely to John’s subsistence lifestyle. In summer she works in the garden, growing vegetables and preparing them for winter storage. John teaches her to catch and smoke salmon, to shoot and skin porcupines, and to set traps to catch wolves, marten, and lynx—and also how to deal with bears. 

When Linda unexpectedly becomes pregnant, John’s behavior changes radically. Linda realizes that she should have believed him, when he said he wanted a woman to make his life easier. She now has to make an important decision about her future.

Wilderness Years: Life with an Alaskan trapper is a powerful and honest account of a woman who followed her heart into the last frontier.