This autobiography, written from Catherine Katies point of view, is about the survival skills of a wife and husband who defied the hostile elements, wild animals, and deprivations they encountered while homesteading in the wilderness along the Kenai River in Alaska in 19491962. Jack Coppock was a former member of the Tenth Mountain Infantry Ski Patrol and served in the Italian Alps during WWII, emerging with the reputation If you want to survive, stick with Jack; whereas Katie was at first a timid housewife who honed her own survival skills as she encountered the challenges she faced.