“Hullo, Allbrights!” Large Marge said brightly, waving her saucer-sized hand in greeting. “I brought some friends,” she said, indicating the two women she’d brought with her. One was a wood sprite, small enough to be a kid, with long gray Silly-String-like hair; the other was tall and thin. All three of them were dressed in flannel shirts and stained jeans that were tucked into brown rubber knee-high boots. Each carried a tool—a chain saw, an ax, a hatchet.

“We’ve come to offer some help getting started,” Large Marge said. “And we brought you a few things you’ll need.”

Leni saw her father frown. “You think we’re incompetent?”

“This is how we do it up here, Ernt,” Large Marge said. “Believe me, no matter how much you’ve read and studied, you can never quite prepare for your first Alaskan winter.”

The wood sprite came forward. She was thin and small, with a nose sharp enough to slice bread. Leather gloves stuck out of her shirt pocket. For as slight as she was, she exuded an air of competence. “I’m Natalie Watkins. Large Marge told me ya’all don’t know much about life up here. I was the same way ten years ago. I followed a man up here. Classic story. I lost the man and found a life. Got my own fishing boat now. So I get the dream that brings you here, but that’s not enough. You’re going to have to learn fast.” Natalie put on her yellow gloves. “I never found another man worth having. You know what they say about finding a man in Alaska—the odds are good, but the goods are odd.”

The taller woman had a beige braid that fell almost to her waist, and eyes so pale they seemed to take their color from the faded sky. “Welcome to Kaneq. I’m Geneva Walker. Gen. Genny. The Generator. I’ll answer to almost anything.” She smiled, revealing dimples. “My family is from Fairbanks, but I fell in love with my husband’s land, so here is where I’ve stayed. I’ve been here for twenty years.”

“You need a greenhouse and a cache at the very least,” Large Marge said. “Old Bo had big plans for this place when he bought it. But Bo went off to war … and he was a great one for getting a job half done.”

“A cash?” Dad said.

Large Marge nodded brusquely. “A cache is a small building on stilts. Your meat goes there, so the bears can’t get at it. This time of year, the bears are hungry.”

“Come on, Ernt,” Natalie said, reaching down for the chain saw at her feet. “I brought a portable mill. You cut down the trees and I’ll saw ’em into planks. First things first, righto?”