Your Hosts

Your hosts (us), Luke and Kaydee Scarola, and our three kids, Simm (16), Sabin (13), and Shaphin (11), are lifelong Alaskans from Beluga, Alaska, a fly-in only bush community of about 20 people on the west side of Cook Inlet, hours of travel time away from Sheep Mountain. The abundance of those Beluga lowlands, with her rivers brimming with salmon, forests filled with moose, and skies speckled with ducks and geese, have provided sustenance since Kaydee was a small child herself growing up there. Simm, Sabin, and Shaphin have likewise grown up in our hand-built log cabin, running a trapline, living the subsistence lifestyle.

But in 2015, we began to travel more extensively, starting with a winter in Hawaii, followed by three (seasonal) years of seeing the Lower 48 in a travel trailer and traveling overseas. As the kids got older, perhaps Beluga was too small, we thought. Perhaps we would stumble upon a place we were meant to move to. The line between homeschool and life blurred as we explored. But as we returned to Alaska with the trailer, feeling a little lost in not having found a place “better” than Beluga, we camped one last time near the Matanuska Glacier; it was this very last camp spot that would change the course of everything. To us, it was the single most impressive place we had camped in our travels. We never needed to look outside Alaska in the first place. The energy of jagged peaks 360 degrees around us, silty white water, and ancient, cracking blue ice sang a song that charged our life essence. We breathed differently there. 

We moved as fast as we could. Now, we invite you to feel the energy for yourself.