Just when we thought the winter was finally well and truly over last week the skies opened and the snow began to tumble out with a vengeance. Not the pretty white flakes that settle for a moment and then instantly......more

I admit it was an impetuous and poorly-judged decision. I had just arrived in Anchorage for my annual teaching assignment at the University of Alaska and the temperature was twenty-plus degrees below freezing. I spent the first night at......more

The temperature hovered around minus twenty, and the roads were layered in ice. But even at two in the morning the car rental agent in the bowels of Ted Stevens international airport at Anchorage managed a pearly smile. Perhaps it......more

It came out of the blue and just as we were finally beginning to enjoy the drive. Without warning the rear wheels lost traction and shot violently to one side. Then our large, heavily-laden pick-up truck slewed onto the opposite......more

It's been a week of close calls and minor disasters here in our beautiful little corner of the universe. Just as we thought the learning curve was beginning to flatten out. Since moving to the ranch nearly two incident-strewn years......more

In the annals of our small and humble valley, it was a notable gathering of scientific minds. An accomplished skink man, a bat expert, a Chinese medicine practitioner and a clutch of bear biologists all gathered around our dinner table......more

So our second grizzly bear season since moving to the ranch is well underway. So far all our guests - and this year we have been pretty much full - have left after seeing at least a few grizzlies.......more

Buying Henry the Horse was one of the first things I did when I got to British Columbia. I simply couldn't be the owner of a ranch and a self-respecting frontiersman without my very own steed. This most noble of......more

Whoever said that living in paradise was going to be easy? The year began with an onslaught of thick, white powder snow that crept up over our sundecks to the lower reaches of the windows and then up, up and......more

It was, in the end, a notable event on the social calendar of our small, quiet valley. Journalists and cowboys, farmers and photographers, crooners, lawyers, professors, biologists, bikers, loggers, carpenters and former soldiers all came together earlier this month as......more