Date of Award

12-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Degree Statement

Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and Literature

Department

English Department

Granting Institution

University of Alaska Fairbanks

Committee Chair

Johnson, Sara Eliza

Committee Chair

Coffman, Chris

Committee Member

Farmer, Daryl

Committee Member

Heyne, Eric

Table of Contents

A marvelous living side-by-side

What women have always done

The cotton wool of daily life

Abstract

In this memoir-in-essays, the author charts her path from Alaska wilderness guide in her 20s— living in remote cabins in the Arctic, mushing sled dogs, skiing 250 miles across the Brooks Range—to stay-at-home mom in her 30s, a shift that required her to negotiate the widening psychological and emotional space between her younger and older selves and to question why her younger self valued traditionally masculine work more than traditionally feminine work. The collection explores questions about gendered expectations when navigating roles of wife and mother. The author weaves in literary analysis, adventure narratives, and food writing to trace the threads of domesticity and wildness in her life, looking for a way to see them not as mutually exclusive but as two channels of one river, weaving in and out of tundra and kitchen, risk and shelter, solitude and family.

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