It’s getting hot up here…

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.

​We got nearly all our materials up via snowmachine back in April… but there are always stragglers that need to be hiked in — like two 62-lb rolls of Grace Ice & Water Shield.

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.

We also think she’s growing some blonde-ish eyebrows like some of her relatives… wouldn’t that be adorable?

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)