The Alaska Experiment

There are family camping vacations and then there are family outdoor adventures. Real adventures, that is. Carolyn Wise’s (fs ’07) recent stint in the Alaskan wilderness would certainly qualify for the latter category.

In mid-September of last year, Wise and her sister, Jennifer Wise fs ’05, and their dad, Dennis, were flown to Icy Bay, near Prince William Sound to begin a three-month survival camp experience as part of “The Alaskan Experiment,” a Discovery Channel documentary that was broadcast this April and May.

The Wises were armed with basic supplies — akin to what a pioneer family would have — but beyond that, they were on their own. Food, drinking water, fuel for heat and protection from the elements were their responsibility.

Surrounded by bears, wailing winds and constant, drenching cold rain, this was no balmy weekend at a KOA campground with an onsite Starbucks. But Carolyn, 23, wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. “It was absolutely amazing,” she says. “It was nothing less than the chance of a lifetime to go up there and do that.”

The Wise family was one of four teams taking part in the wildlife adventure. The camera crew split its time between the teams, so about 25 percent of the Wises’ time was spent with an onsite camera crew.

The crew simply filmed the family and their activities as they happened. The Wises also discuss their situation, but viewers never hear or see the video crew. The producers set the family up at a place called Riou Point, which is a beach area along the coastline in the southeastern part of the state. They had a small shack to stay in, along with a supply of simple hand tools, such as drills and saws.

Although the temperatures weren’t of the subzero type found at the Arctic Circle, the family had to contend with an abundance of rain and rapidly changing weather conditions.

Oddly enough, while the Wise family saw lots of evidence of bears, they never saw one. “We knew they were around,” Carolyn says. The evidence included bear droppings, trails and many tracks. The Wises knew better than to take chances with wild bears in their element, so they took precautions. For example, they always traveled offsite in a group and made as much noise as possible to alert nearby bears of their presence. While the Wises didn’t have to fight off bears, they did have to fight off another foe: boredom.

Carolyn says she was surprised just how much boredom figured into the survival scenario. Once the clan had caught its salmon, gathered its edible berries and plants and stocked its supply of water, there wasn’t much else to do.

As part of the rules, participants were only allowed one book each, and the tomes were devoured many times. And forget cell phones: they were far out of range. The situation became more acute as their stay moved into November and December and daylight fell from the 12 or so hours they had in September to only five hours.

They managed to fill the spare time with card games and mind contests that could last for days. Close quarters can make for quarrelsome times, and while tensions did rise occasionally, Carolyn says they ended up getting along better than she thought they would. They had some training in that regard, too. The girls had taken numerous family canoeing and camping trips together as they grew up, preparing them well for their Alaskan sojourn.

Dennis instilled his longtime love of the outdoors in his daughters, and when the opportunity to undertake the trip arose, he chose them over taking a couple of his buddies. “It was definitely nice having those skills going into it,” Carolyn says. “I knew how to fish, and we all knew how to get firewood and use an ax and a saw."

Not all groups did as well as the Wise family. Carolyn tells of one group that was down to eating one meal daily because of their lack of food-gathering success. 

No one was keeping “score,” however, as their adventure was not a competition such as that put on by the “Survivor” series, but rather a competition against nature itself.

The journey north was the first trip to the 49th state for the two girls. Dennis had been there a month before, marking his 25th wedding anniversary with his wife, Christine. Christine stayed home during the adventure, as did Jennifer’s future husband, Adrian. Jennifer, now married, works at Oak Park Mall in Overland Park, Kan. Interestingly enough, although escaping the wrath of wild bears in Alaska, she works today to create the fuzzy, cuddly version at Build-A-Bear Workshop.

Dennis, who is retired from General Motors, now works as a specialist in the camping and canoe department of the Bass Pro Shops location in Olathe, Kan. Carolyn has a similar position in the Bass Pro Shops outlet in nearby Independence, Mo.

Carolyn has fond memories of WSU. “I loved the atmosphere,” she says. That included getting more personal attention than she had received at a larger university. Although a lack of funds forced her to head home last year, she plans to finish studies at the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Conservatory of Music and Dance.

For those with a yen for adventure, Carolyn highly recommends the Alaskan experience. She says her own taste for adventure has only been whetted — and she’s looking forward to more travel adventures: “There will be time for more trips.”