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ACL co-founder Niki Raapana mushing sled dogs on December 8, 2006.
The ACL Administration Office: A Wall Tent in Alaska
by Niki Raapana, November 5, 2006
Updated December 6, 2006
The camping excursion ended. The ACL has a new location! I'm moving into a wooden cabin (on the left).
I know my tent expedition seemed a bit extreme to many people, but I worked on designs for building a winter tent for several years prior. I needed to experience my own design first hand. I'm happy to say I've proven (to myself) that a plain wall tent can be made comfortable and livable up to 45 below zero, using the tried and true designs passed down from ancient peoples.
It's been a great experience. I'm much stronger physically, my writing matured, and I gained a lot of insight into my own personal motivations for building the ACL website. Of course I am an American, I do still have a few choices left, so I'm going to relish partaking in the availability of every modern convience in my abundant, rich country. (My family can quit worrying now too.)
Much more modern than the tent, my new accomodation features a solid door, glass windows, propane stove, an inside toilet, and hot and cold running water (whoo hoo!). It has a phone line and electric too. Lovely, finished interior walls will allow me to actually hang pictures.
Does this move to a wooden structure upgrade my status quo?
Our Six Month Camping Excursion in the Copper River Basin lasted from May to December 2006
The tent on the right was the "official" ACL field administration office. The ACL is a traveling research institute on a budget. Our "mobile home" is an 10x12' Girl Scout wall tent (and since I was a Girl Scout we know how to put it up). It's made of sturdy canvass duck and came with a waterproof roof cover and a smoke hole. She's a good tent, she's weathered more than a few harsh storms over the years, and she appears to be up to the challenge of an Interior Alaskan winter. We'll see.
I got both my laptop and this tent in Wyoming in 2003, right after we put up the first version of the ACL website. Our work began as a 4th Amendment lawsuit against the City of Seattle's Local Agenda 21 Plan. It was intensive, hands-on research that required my attendence at a whole bunch of meetings with yukky people, and I eventually housed and fed four of the nine Dawson clients. I became the personal "documentarian" to numerous people, a couple of whom were so rude and obnoxious they were often unbearable. When Nordica turned 18 in the spring of 2003, we moved far away from Seattle and took jobs at the Big Horn Mountain Resort, nearest town: Ten Sleep.
How excited I was to be able to write with a laptop inside a tent at my 2003 summer camp, 8500 ft up in the mountains. We did a lot of fun things too; it was the first vacation I'd taken in four years. In 2004 I left Wyoming, took the ferry to Valdez, Alaska, and put our "Girly" tent in sister FishTaxis' backyard. (But I didn't stay, ended up taking a position as a lone caretaker at the Denali Wilderness Lodge on the Wood River.) I love being in the woods and mountains. Since 2003 I have made camping my recreation, my retreat, my solitude, and my inspiration. The low maintenance costs also gives me the freedom to study and write full time about anticommunitarianism.
The whole thing started back in January 2002 after I hastily moved into a 12x12 very thin walled tent on the Olympic Penninsula in Washington State. I camped on a lovely private pond in a small 15 acre "forest" until April. I needed to organize my research documents for the Dawson lawsuit (and I thought I needed to write a book about it). It rained a lot, snowed a few times, and there was a lot of wind (the trees above my tent were called "widowmakers") but it never got down below 28 above. So even without a good way to heat it and having to cook outside, I lost a lot of weight, but I finished the work and I survived. (I typed the first draft of Big Mother with gloves on.) Over those months I dreamed of a better winter tent, and I've spent the past four years (when I wasn't working on the ACL website) studying ancient migrant's dwellings and building cute little huts. (Our ACL: GerTee page has become quite popular with the French minimalists.) I've really got to remember to be careful what I wish for.
Today my mobile "office" is located in an RV Park about 250 miles from Anchorage, Alaska, in the foothills leading into the Wrangell Mountains. My RV Park host asked me if I would stay until mid December and help care for his 33 dogs (he's a musher). I decided this was the perfect opportunity to see if it's possible to winterize a tent with interior beams and draping layers of materials over the walls and ceiling. I've got a 53 lb. Droplet Hunter's woodstove, and with the damper and some green spruce it holds a warm fire for about four hours, with coals up to six or seven. Feeding the fire is changing my sleeping habits back to how it was when I had hungry newborn babies.
The thermometer on my porch at 1 am, Sunday, November 5, 2006.
With a roaring fire going, the thermometer on my bed at 1 am, Sunday, November 5, 2006.
Looking at my bed/office through my new arctic entryway.
We've received enough support over the years to convince me the ACL has some value. Sometimes just emails of encouragement, like when Charlotte Iserbyt wrote I was doing a great service to our country. Lately I've had many great responses to my articles at newswithviews (one email simply said, "you've got some serious balls"). Others have donated space, art, books, and study materials: Hansville John shared his "park," J.R. in Seattle provided lots of interesting reading, Daniel New of UNFree Zones sent me a copy of Time Bomb, Nancy Rising sent Rule By Secrecy, Paul Walter sent The Coming Battle, Briant Olsen gave me The Naked Communist, Belgian artist Jan Theunink donated his The Third Way is No Way (which immediately became our logo art), and even the Communitarian Network sent me an Etzioni book back in 2000.
Others have actually sent cash. Chris Gerner at AmerikanExpose sent money (twice) for our phone bills last winter. Pete Remington sent grizzly hugs, food money, and study materials. Darren Weeks, Nancy Levant, and Sam and Trish promoted a radio and internet "ACL fund raiser" back in May 2006. Michael Shaw of Freedom21, SantaCruz sent a generous check in July (which kept me eating for two months while I wrote four new articles), and now I just got another generous check from a reader in Missouri, which paid for the sheets on my walls and means I'll eat and write for another few weeks if I can stay warm enough. I have to be ready for fourty or fifty below.
All reader responses have inspired us to continue our work, and we're extremely grateful for every kind gesture, no matter how small.
This is the second layer of material draped from the roof beams. I still need at least 30 warm blankets.
I had to build a little "arctic entryway" because the cat I'm babysitting makes holes in the door cover. A hide or fur "door" would be awesome
The temperatures are reaching 45 below zero, Farenheit (it got so cold it broke my round thermometer on the porch). There will be no shame in my accepting a better living and working situation. I'm already looking at my options for December. I just hope I can continue to find ways to keep writing for the ACL full time. I may have to give up my "quest for freedom" and find a real job again, but I don't want to tend bar or wait tables anymore. I'm looking at camp cook jobs or helping build winter camps for mountain and wilderness expeditions. I figure even if I can't afford to keep the ACL going, we've already published the main topic pages that explain communitarian "thinking." This website will remain online as long as Jess Blank at twu.net continues to host us for free or we come up with the money to pay her (we're all very fortunate for her generosity). If there is enough support forthcoming, Nordica will redesign the website and I have several ideas for new articles, including ones on the coming presidential election and the alien theory. I'd also love to research this "internationally protected park" I live on the edge of.
View of the foothills from the ACL's busy downtown driveway, looking across main street.
Up and ready for winter, October 2006
Using ropes to secure the porch roof (a U.S. Army pup tent)
The first layer of materials
First layer on the roof
Outside wall in October 2006
The first snowfall
Fun in the sun
Inside second layer
More inside second layer
Using snow for added insulation
Closet area
More layers
Kitchen
The number of ACL houseguests multiplied on November 13, 2006
http://nord.twu.net/acl/headquarters.html
The camping excursion ended. The ACL has a new location! I'm moving into a wooden cabin (on the left). 
The tent on the right was the "official" ACL field administration office. The ACL is a traveling research institute on a budget. Our "mobile home" is an 10x12' Girl Scout wall tent (and since I was a Girl Scout we know how to put it up). It's made of sturdy canvass duck and came with a waterproof roof cover and a smoke hole. She's a good tent, she's weathered more than a few harsh storms over the years, and she appears to be up to the challenge of an Interior Alaskan winter. We'll see. 
We've received enough support over the years to convince me the ACL has some value. Sometimes just emails of encouragement, like when Charlotte Iserbyt wrote I was doing a great service to our country. Lately I've had many great responses to my articles at newswithviews (one email simply said, "you've got some serious balls"). Others have donated space, art, books, and study materials: Hansville John shared his "park," J.R. in Seattle provided lots of interesting reading, Daniel New of UNFree Zones sent me a copy of Time Bomb, Nancy Rising sent Rule By Secrecy, Paul Walter sent The Coming Battle, Briant Olsen gave me The Naked Communist, Belgian artist Jan Theunink donated his The Third Way is No Way (which immediately became our logo art), and even the Communitarian Network sent me an Etzioni book back in 2000. 
The temperatures are reaching 45 below zero, Farenheit (it got so cold it broke my round thermometer on the porch). There will be no shame in my accepting a better living and working situation. I'm already looking at my options for December. I just hope I can continue to find ways to keep writing for the ACL full time. I may have to give up my "quest for freedom" and find a real job again, but I don't want to tend bar or wait tables anymore. I'm looking at camp cook jobs or helping build winter camps for mountain and wilderness expeditions. I figure even if I can't afford to keep the ACL going, we've already published the main topic pages that explain communitarian "thinking." This website will remain online as long as Jess Blank at twu.net continues to host us for free or we come up with the money to pay her (we're all very fortunate for her generosity). If there is enough support forthcoming, Nordica will redesign the website and I have several ideas for new articles, including ones on the coming presidential election and the alien theory. I'd also love to research this "internationally protected park" I live on the edge of. 
