Lopez Island does not have the reputation for being fast paced. That does not mean, however, that Lopezians are unaffected by adventure.

Deborah Rhoades is a Lopezian like any other. Resident since the 1990s, she has a family, ran her own cleaning company “Details by Deb” and generally enjoyed the island culture. What is special however, is that the last two years of her life have been based not in the temperate climates of Lopez, but in the extremes of Homer and Anchor Point.

Rhoades’ adventure in Alaska is a tale of many chapters. But it started with one simple desire, “I wanted to learn to mush,” she says. This solitary thought led her through snow, ice, personal hardship and fear. From 2007 to 2009, Rhoades defied all expectations by carving out a life for herself in the northern state.

This was not her first taste of the last frontier. Rhoades had previously lost her heart to Kodiak Island when her family were based there with the Coast Guard. She left in 1991 to move south. It was an affection that stayed with her throughout her life on Lopez. “Every time I’d see a gravel beach, it would remind me of Kodiak,” she says. This nostalgia, mingled with a yearning for “adventure” became too great a pull by the fall of 2007. She began her northward migration, but as she admits, what unfolded was “way different from my first experience.”

Far from the comfort of Kodiak, and the “bubble” of Lopez, Rhoades found herself on a sled dog homestead near Homer. This initial chapter did not go entirely to plan, and with the onset of winter, every aspect of life became a challenge. Ensured that she would be able to find work at the elementary school, Rhoades accepted the unpaid dog handling position. It quickly became apparent that jobs were not available, and with funds dwindling low, Rhoades had to practice tight economies to scrape by. “I basically lived on canned beans and peanuts,” she says. With pipes frozen, “every drop of water had to be hauled in,” she says, describing the hour drive to Homer to fill seven gallon containers of water. “It was a big deal. I had to learn to use a ‘bucket bath.” Additionally, all items had to be sledded in. There was no driving the heavy cartons to the door.

She describes this time as “a hardship on every level, emotional, spiritual, financial,” but it was not without its rewards. Although her stay at the homestead was too short to learn to mush, she fell in love with the dogs. “They just gave me so much love” she says. Taking care of 19 dogs, four hours a day for seven days a week was a grueling process, but Rhoades has only happy things to say of the animals, “I loved giving them straw” she smiles, “it was like christmas every time.”

It was the love of the dogs that made the departure from the homestead so difficult. “It was a really heartbreaking decision” she says. However with no employment available she had no choice but to move somewhere else to find an income. The weeks of “learning things the hard way” had taught Rhoades a lot about her ability to survive. “I learned I was a lot more capable than I thought. People in Alaska are really tough, they are kind and helpful, but you cant shock an Alaskan. It wasn’t that they didn’t care, but they felt ‘we’ve all been there, you’ll figure it out and you’ll move on’.”

And so move on she did. More than once. “I moved eight times in two years” she explains. She succeeded though, in forging a life for herself. She found a steady job in a post office, started a dog shelter, and only returned to Lopez to visit family. She had successfully relocated to the land of “bears, wild animals, and severe storms.”

But there was one thing that the adventure excluded: Family. On her 2009 trip to Lopez, something happened to her that she had not experienced in two years, “I spent time with my family and felt an overwhelming sense of peace”, she says, “I put my life in danger a lot over the last two years.” The safety provided by the “special little bubble” of Lopez had regained its appeal. It would seem you can take a girl out of Lopez but you can’t take Lopez out of a girl. The adventure was valuable, and showed that Rhoades’ love of Alaska was strong enough to carry her through anything. She also says she is “not done with Alaska” and hopes to take her grandchildren there for a visit. But for now, the traveler has returned. Lopez may not be the place to find wilderness adventure, but it is the place to find a home.