This past winter, we hosted Alec Sills-Trausch, a landscape photographer and outdoors storyteller. He made a long-form vlog of his Arctic Hive experience, including tons of gorgeous drone footage, and we’re so excited to share it with you. Click below to watch!

By Alec Sills-Trausch / @AlecOutside
November 18, 2024

As fall comes to a close in the arctic, our temps are finally dropping below freezing overnight, the ground is firming up, and the fall colors have peaked.


Leaves have long fallen, and there’s snow on the ground!

A few weeks back (before our world froze) I remember distinctly a day where we had temps in the low 50s. It was beautiful, but the feeling of the air in the shade had teeth.



I caught myself cursing under my breath because of my too-thin jacket, icy fingers and cold ears without a beanie.


Just as I thought to complain, it dawned on me: This was the exact moment I’ve been dreaming of for months!


In early August, I remember taking a group of teens on a hike the day we knew with 100% certainty would be the last day of summer. The temps were incredibly hot (for us) in the 80s... and every step I took, sweat dripping down my back, I thought to myself, “Thanks for everything, Summer! See you next year!”



It’s funny how we wish for different circumstances... and then when they arrive, we completely overlook the fact that WE’VE MADE IT.

Sean and I look forward to winter the day the snow starts melting — and I was glad to shake myself out of my haze and find gratitude for the chill.


I guess the more efficient route is simply to enjoy what is... as it is.


Our guests who attended “Harvest of the Heart” last month, our Fall Equinox hiking and yoga retreat, enjoyed so many types of weather during their 4-night stay! Cloudy skies, rain, blue skies, mud, frozen ground, fresh snow, and more.


That’s the way it goes during these transitional times… you wake up, look outside, and go about your day, whatever the weather.

Instead of recognizing the seasons by calendar dates, holiday sales, and Pumpkin Spice-everything, I much prefer noticing seasonal shifts from my experience of being outside.


… of feeling the sensations of hot and cold on my skin.
… of experiencing the wet rain and mud.
… of hearing the dry crunch of frozen ground as fall gives way to winter.




Wherever this email finds you in the world, I hope you, too can step outside, take a deep breath and welcome this new season of your life with open arms.


Sending love,
Mollie (+ Sean and all our sled dogs)

Tuesday began like any other day...


Just before coffee, I was reading an email from one of my fellow yogis, Lauren Walker. She was speaking about calming the nervous system by working with the Vagus Nerve.



The following passage really struck me. I found myself reading it over and over again:


“One of the most extraordinary things I’ve ever learned about [the Vagus Nerve] is that there are three sounds in nature that soothe it: Wind rustling through leaves, moving water, and bird song. We are literally wired to feel better when we hear those sounds, when we are in nature.”


Then, within an hour, Sean and I were jarred from our morning routine when we had to suddenly say goodbye to our sweet, old dog Glacier.


Through the whole ordeal, I noticed nature provided all three of those experiences — leaves, water and birds. The wind was especially powerful, and the leaves were falling all around us, as autumn fades in the Brooks Range.



I found myself taking deep breaths and finding peace, despite the deep sadness in my heart. Nature truly is incredible medicine — and dogs are the greatest joy in our lives. However hard it was to say goodbye, we are forever grateful for the decade of life we got to share with Glacier.

A little tribute:


In 2014, we adopted Glacier from a shelter after she’d been passed around for many months across the west — including a brief stint at a kill shelter in Idaho. We took her home for a trial weekend, and when she showed some agitation with our Weimaraner, Daisy, we decided she wouldn’t work out.



But, as fate would have it, the shelter was closed all weekend and so we had a little more time with Glacier. By Sunday, she’d won our hearts. We knew she’d need quality time and lots of love, but Glacier was staying with us for good.

Big Luggie (named so for her massively furry Border Collie/Aussie/Great Pyrenees winter coat) came into our lives just as we began building a yurt— which was our first experience living off-grid, and our first experience building our own home, or... building anything, for that matter!

When our first wood stove had a leak and unbeknownst to us, we had faulty CO2 detectors that had been recalled by the manufacturer, it was Glacier who barked loud enough to wake Sean up before carbon monoxide poisoning claimed his life. He spent most of that day in the hospital on oxygen — and he lived to tell the tale, thanks to Big Luggie.  


She’s been with us ever since, including our journey moving to Alaska, on the Kenai Peninsula, and eventually to the Arctic.

Glacier has been a big sister to our entire team as we added them one by one. She took her role in stride, never tolerating too much puppy bullshit, putting everyone (gently) in their place.


She could smell wild animals like bears a mile away, barking incessantly at the window so we knew. Whenever we’d go hiking, and yell “Hey Bear!” to make noise, she would bark on command... just in case :-)

In her later years, Big Luggie battled epilepsy — which is what ultimately claimed her life. The disease was just another hurdle she handled, always bouncing back, ready for the next adventure.

Glacier took us for our first dogsled ride back in Montana, eager to pull and run — as she did for many years. (Above, with Powder as a puppy)​


She was never a superstar because her coat was prone to the biggest snowballs you’d ever see! But we always said she had the spirit of a sled dog, no doubt.

When she stopped mushing a few years ago, she assumed the role of trail dog, leading hikes with all our guests.

And then on a whim this past February, Sean and I loaded her into one of our sleds and took Big Luggie for what we didn’t realize at the time, would be her final dogsled ride of her life.

She took us for our first ride — and we took her for her last.


Dogs are with us for a chapter of life. They provide love, adventure and levity for a while, during which time we humans stumble and grow. When it’s time to start a new chapter, they leave us only when their job is done… because we’re ready to stand on our own two feet.


Rest easy, Big Luggie. And thank you. We’ve got this…


Sending love,
Mollie (+ Sean and all our sled dogs)

It was the hottest day of our arctic summer... 86°F! 



After wading and splashing in the chilly water of the Koyukuk, I was lounging at the river’s edge, watching a group of teenagers play in the mud. 



Yep, you read that right. Teenagers were not scrolling, Snap Chatting, or rolling their eyes.



They were using their imagination to “build” a mud spa, inventing an entire experience for their future clientele. Laughter rang through the air as they played in mud, water and dirt — with absolutely no regard for reality. 



It was glorious.

Sean and I were in the midst of our annual Basecamp retreat where we donate the entire Arctic Hive facility to Riding On Insulin (ROI), a nonprofit that hosts one-of-a-kind action sports camps for kids and teens with type 1 diabetes (T1D).




Each summer, teens with T1D fundraise directly for ROI to spend a week exploring the arctic with us — learning how to push beyond what they thought possible with an autoimmune disease in tow. ROI raises over $20,000 annually with this event, which helps fund its ski/snowboard camps that serve 300+ kids across the USA each year.




Watching teens in imagination-land transported me to my own childhood…




I used to play “Mermaids” on the lake I grew up on... my friends and I would invent entire worlds by speaking them into existence. That floating dock was a palace, this dock was the grocery store, the shoreline was something else — you get the idea.

I realized that day at the river it’d been a while since I daydreamed for no higher purpose, without any boundaries, with no regard for time.




I know, I know… I live here! How can I get caught in the day-to-day grind of chores, projects and to-do lists? I guess it’s easy when you have 24 hours of daylight with the midnight sun.




There is so much power in having space to simply be.




With darkness returning to the arctic, we see more stars and planets every night. Soon, we’ll see the dancing aurora once again. We like to think that Northern Lights season returns just in time for Sean’s birthday on August 21st!  


Below: Aurora from the Igloo looking toward Poss Mountain on September 4th, 2022.

I miss darkness after going so long without it — and carving out space to be is somehow easier as summer gives way to fall. I feel like the increasing contrast in light helps me create contrast in my life. Before long, I’ll be back on the runners, with only the sound of dog paws on the trail and the whoosh of my dogsled underfoot. THAT’S where the magic happens.



Stokes of genius and ah-ha moments are mostly likely to strike when I least expect it… while on a walk, watching the aurora, or on the trail with the dogs. Those teenagers reminded me that carving out time to play in the proverbial mud is so important.



I need time to simply exist without trying to accomplish anything. I think we all do.


Below: Aurora right out the front door, August 24th, 2021

As fall starts to flow down from the arctic to wherever you are this season, I hope you, too, can tap into the darker skies and a slower pace — and savor the opportunity to just be!



Sending love,
Mollie (+ Sean and all our sled dogs)


PS — I think this is implied, but if you’re craving the ultimate disconnection to reconnect with your creativity and imagination, we’d love to host you for a retreat this winter! Scroll to see all the options… spaces are filling up :-)


Below: Using unlimited daylight hours to hike-in the door to our arctic entry… puppy Eclipse is “helping” :-)

As temps reached 84.6°F last week, summer at Arctic Hive is reaching a fiery crescendo... hopefully not literally.


Fires are raging a few hours south of here, and every day brings thunderstorms with potential for lightning and ... inevitably, forest fires in the Brooks Range.


No one likes a forest fire in their backyard ... but it’s a totally different ballgame when you’re 7 hours from the nearest fire station, in a village that sits outside any Alaskan borough jurisdiction. If fires start here, it could be a loooooooong time before help arrives, if we needed it. 


Nothing to be sorry for, or scared about — remember, we choose to live here. This is just one of the many trade-offs we make living in an incredible part of the world. Fire is a natural part of any forest ecosystem... and we’re just living in it. You’re welcome to send good vibes though — we’ll take all we can get!


Other than “what if” fire-evacuation plans and the logistics of getting 18 dogs and 2 humans off the property in an emergency… what else have we been up to?


We’ve been building an addition to our home/lodge: Phase 1 is a 14x16 expansion to the north, which will include an arctic entry, spare bedroom, and storage space.

The metal roof went on this past week (after these photos were taken) and now we’ve got plenty of interior buttoning up to do before the snow falls.


An interesting complication of this project has been the strategy involved. We planned on building our lodge in phases, but there are so many things to think through — one being the slope of the terrain. A guest said to me this season, “I’ve seen your photos a million times but I didn’t realize you literally built everything on a mountainside!”


Yep, we did. Views like these don’t happen on flat ground.


And this simple truth made building this addition UPHILL from our house a “fun” adventure. It’s a good thing I love math, because there was a lot involved!


Phase 2 will be a 24 x 24 dining and lounge space, attached on the east side of the lodge. Imagine big windows, Brooks Range vistas, and tons of space to spread out, enjoy a meal, snuggle a sleddog, and play games with fellow guests. We hope to start construction on this phase soon, but a lot depends on weather. Stay tuned!


*You’ll see in the photo below there’s no roof overhang on this side of the addition… this is because the roofline of Phase 2 will butt-up to the edge, so it’s one long continuous wall.

Mother nature is hard at work around here, too.


Below is a photo Sean snapped at the beaver pond at midnight the other night. Two beavers were busy at work building a dam.

As our dog team expands to accommodate the exciting new learn-to-mush retreats we launched for 2025, we’ve got lots of updates to the dog yard happening this summer, too.




Eclipse (Yara’s singleton puppy) is growing fast and nearly 12 weeks old. She sticks close to us on walks just like her loyal momma and Auntie Sansa. Her favorite game is roaming the dog yard and giving kisses to all her furry family members.

When we’re not building or dodging thunder and lightning, you can find us romping on all the public lands behind Arctic Hive with the dogs. They love bounding over the tundra and finding water holes between the tussocks — there are endless things to sniff, and plenty of mud, creeks and rivers to roll in. ​

Summer for a sleddog is a more relaxing time where we’re focusing on bonding with the team and giving everyone daily opportunities to free run.


Below, lucky girls Darla (left) and her niece Gilly enjoying some chill time on the couch.

The last exciting thing is a community garden!



Some of you might have seen our raised garden boxes at Arctic Hive — perfect for planting with permafrost underfoot.



For root veggies, we are reviving a garden plot in the village next the Wiseman sign, about a mile from our house. This plot hasn’t been used in years and sits on great soil, sans permafrost. Sean, myself and Steve (our neighbor, friend and fellow dog musher) decided to tackle it together and plant with carrots, beets and turnips.


There has been A LOT of weeding to manage, so we’ll see how things go this first summer as we attempt to regain control.

​If growing weeds was a spot, we'd be pros...

That’s a full update on life in the arctic. Thanks for reading along — happy 4th of July, everyone!


Mollie (and Sean)

We hand-built Arctic Hive Wilderness Lodge on 15 acres of boreal forest with sweeping views of the Brooks Range in all directions. The property backs up to hundreds of miles of public lands.


Our retreat facility is a 1-mile hike outside the historic mining village of Wiseman, population 12 -- which includes us! When it comes to the dogsled trails in the area, you’re getting an authentic bush experience on trails that aren’t made by machines; they’re made by dogs and the humans that love them.
​

For 4 nights at Arctic Hive, and 3 full days on the trail, you become one of us.

I knelt down to get a better look, and — ope! She was protectively curled around a small black lump… and the lump was moving. It took me a few seconds to process...



It’s a puppy.


OMG. YARA HAD A PUPPY. ​



According to Sean, this is the part where I “scream-cried” for him to get to the dog yard, quick!

We had no idea Yara was pregnant, but Sean and I held that little lump-of-a-puppy with massive grins and tears in our eyes — like we’d just given birth ourselves. I guess she truly is our “first-born” because neither of us had ever experienced newborn puppies before!



Funny enough, I had commented to Sean a few days earlier that Yara looked chubby — we chalked it up to muscle from all her training. I laughed and joked, “Maybe she’s pregnant!”  I didn’t give it a second thought until I found the puppy. Call it a woman’s intuition, I guess!​



Yara didn’t have any more pups after the first — so we named her Eclipse, in honor of the cosmic timing of her arrival.

We got our first rain shower of 2024 this week. 


Me and Rain? We have an interesting relationship... 


Funny enough, I didn’t know how deeply troubling my feelings were for rain until I spent a month in the midwest recovering from surgery this fall.


One night, it rained in Wisconsin — like really rained, with thunder and lightning for many hours. And I remember thinking when I got out of bed the next morning, It’s going to be a mess outside!


To my surprise, the "damage" was inconsequential. Sure, the concrete was wet. There were puddles and worms, but lawns and soil were damp at best.  Everything dried up with a few hours, and I could walk in the yard that afternoon without shoes on. I didn’t hear one single squish underfoot.


There was NO MUD.


It dawned on me. Living off the beaten path with no concrete, especially living on permafrost, we exist with one single truth:


Rain ALWAYS brings mud. 

Mud has been our nemesis. Mud in the arctic means the tundra has been disturbed, the permafrost exposed, and then the ice melts over time. It’s like a microcosm for what happens with the changing climate.


Our lives revolve around permafrost preservation, and every time it rains, the ground turns into a poorly draining, extremely fragile sponge. We tread as lightly and mindfully as possible.


Layer the fact that it’s May, and the ground is still frozen, so the snow, ice melt, and running creeks have nowhere to go, and you have a recipe for... well... squish, squish, squish. 


We’re not talking sweet little puddles here and there. We’re talking about a LAKE. Where there used to NOT BE A LAKE.


One thing is for sure: The dogs never seem to mind...

I don’t have some mind-blowing life lesson that I’ve learned from this yet. I’m just noticing how I feel, and recognizing one simple fact: I don’t want to despise rain anymore, just because of the impending mud. ​

​When I signed up for a 200-hr yoga training years ago, I thought I’d be making shapes and memorizing anatomy.


I was wrong.


I mean, it *was* that... and so much more I never saw coming. I learned yoga isn’t a work out — it’s a work IN. It’s a well-documented, time tested, ancient lifestyle of living in harmony with nature. 


It’s not just for young people or flexible people, or people in yoga pants. 


Yoga is for each and every one of us… for real.


Whether we call ourselves a spiritual person (or not), an outdoorsey person (or not), a motivated person (or not), a great public speaker (or not), a person who wants to teach others someday (or not) ... an [insert anything] person... or not. 

If you missed Part 1, about finding Arctic Hive, click here.
If you missed Part 2, about how my cousin Jamie inspires me, click here.
​

It was always part of the deal marrying Sean that we’d need to live in the mountains. 


Growing up in the Midwest, my only concept of “mountains” was from a few memorable ski trips with extended family in the 90s. If you know, you know — my family wore matching crew-neck sweatshirts screen-printed with the year to commemorate our trip “out west”.


I had very little idea of what lay beyond the Rocky Mountains.

Alternately, Sean grew up out west — all he knew was mountains. In his mind, everywhere has been a stepping stone in the direction of the 49th state. 

I think I wrote it off and laughed, “We could never do that!” so many times that I’d blocked it out as a possibility all together. 


When I told an intuitive friend that we’d found our forever home in Montana, she told me: “I don’t see you staying there. I feel like you’ll go further north.”


“Further north” in my limited mind meant somewhere between Whitefish, Montana and the Canadian border, 1 hour drive north... that didn’t leave a ton of options!

But by 2016, everything started to become clear...


Sean had experienced a number of strange, seemingly unrelated medical issues. We were building a life off-grid at the time, and while the hard, outdoor labor likely flared his symptoms, it also fueled his drive to become incredibly in tune with his body and with the earth. I remember so many healing days we spent in our straw-bale garden, herding our 40+ chickens, ducks and turkey’s, and building our first off-grid cabin. 


It was hard work — and we loved it. 

Sean did what he does best — research, and advocate for himself to get the care and the diagnosis he knew was within reach. He suspected Lupus before he ever heard a doctor say it. By the time they officially diagnosed him, his research had reached a fevered pitch. Unbeknownst to me — or anyone that doesn’t live with a chronic disease — Sean was carefully calculating the reality of life as a professional snowboarder with Lupus and deciding how to heal himself from the inside, out.


What Sean did next amazes me, to this day.  He told me with complete conviction: I’m moving to Alaska.


After years of hearing this phrase, I knew this time he meant it. It was the epitome of Warren Miller’s sentiment: “If you don’t do it this year, you’ll be one year older when you do.”  Mountains are his healing place — and after years living in Montana in close proximity to Glacier National Park where we were always the “odd ones” living off grid, that place had served its purpose... and he knew it. 


Like the thousands of species of birds, caribou and other creatures that set their course to migrate to the arctic tundra, Sean intuitively set his own inner compass to find healing in Alaska. 

(Below: Sean with our sweet senior Weimaraner, Daisy on that first journey north! Below that, our “starter”  mounted to the roof with smiling Glacier and Powder.)

Despite years of telling myself (and everyone around me) that we would never leave Whitefish, I finally realized that wherever Sean was is my home. All the yoga studios and quaint resort towns in the world would never fill my heart the way Sean could. 


So I followed my best friend north.


It took us a few years, and it took a lot of imagination (as I explained in part 1!), but we landed at the (literal) end of the road here in the Brooks Range. As life would have it, Sean wasn’t the only one who found healing in these mountains. The personal growth and life wisdom I’ve earned creating our life in the arctic was something I never anticipated as a part of this journey. 


Turns out, the path was calling me just as much as it called to Sean.

And so, we arrive back at the idea of “I could never do that...”

If I’d clung to that statement, I’d still be in the place I thought I wanted to live without the one person I wanted to live there with. “I could never” was a a self-imposed limitation keeping me from all the possibilities on the other side. 

The truth is: If we keep saying “I could never,” we keep believing it. 


And I’m here to tell you (as is Sean) that on the other side of “I could never,” there is self-confidence, wild adventures, and inevitable healing to be had.

Sean now lives his best, healthiest life, despite T1D, epilepsy, Rheumatoid Arthritis, and Lupus. Instead of allowing these autoimmune diseases to keep him from living life, he has learned to find harmony with his body and peace in his mind — which I’ve been fortunate enough to learn through him. ​

There are days he has to take it easy, just like there are days I have to do the same! Our partnership has become stronger through the mountain of challenge we’ve overcome.

All the while, the Brooks Range peaks sit here — as they’ve always done... quietly observing life unfold. 


If you’re telling yourself  you could never do this, or that... it’s time to stop and consider — if even for a moment — what if you could? No pressure. Just see what happens next.

​

Sending lots of love. Thanks for following along on our journey.


In light,
Mollie