{"id":3594,"date":"2016-02-12T12:43:46","date_gmt":"2016-02-12T16:43:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/?p=3594"},"modified":"2016-02-12T12:43:46","modified_gmt":"2016-02-12T16:43:46","slug":"a-great-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/a-great-read\/","title":{"rendered":"A GREAT READ"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIn the fall of 1978 I packed everything I thought would be useful into my Toyota Land Cruiser and drove north to Alaska. I came to a land I had never seen to find something I wasn\u2019t even sure existed: a wilderness cabin to use for a year or more to live, think, relax, read, and write.\u201d<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Alaskan-Retreaters-Notebook-Journey-Wilderness\/dp\/1634502477\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1455295349&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=The+Alaskan+Retreaters+notebook\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-3593 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/AlaskanWeb-201x300.jpg\" alt=\"AlaskanWeb\" width=\"201\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/AlaskanWeb-201x300.jpg 201w, https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/AlaskanWeb-687x1024.jpg 687w, https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/AlaskanWeb.jpg 725w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 201px) 100vw, 201px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>So begins the best book I\u2019ve read so far this year, \u201cThe Alaskan Retreater\u2019s Notebook: One Man\u2019s Journey Into the Alaskan Wilderness\u201d by my old friend Ray Ordorica.\u00a0 If that name rings a bell it\u2019s because you\u2019ve read his meticulously-researched work in <em>Gun Tests, American Rifleman, Gun Digest <\/em>and many other venues.<\/p>\n<p>Ray found a tiny old cabin that had been built and then abandoned by the US Army, fixed it up, and for three years lived there on game meat, the bounty of his trapline, and the proceeds of his superb articles and photography.\u00a0 He found peace and happiness. He makes you feel his love for the wild things, like Cookie, the fox that becomes more his friend than his pet.<\/p>\n<p>The book is a treasure trove of helpful hints and \u201clife hacks\u201d for wilderness existence.\u00a0 The gun advice, of course, is worth the price of the book by itself, but it\u2019s really only a small part of this particular reading experience.<\/p>\n<p>My favorite parts were the excerpts from the journal he kept during those years.\u00a0 When he talks about surviving in deep cold (read: colder than fifty below zero Fahrenheit), you can just about <em>feel <\/em>it. Halfway through that segment I felt an urge to huddle under some blankets while I read the rest of it.<\/p>\n<p>Simply a great read.\u00a0 \u201cFive stars!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIn the fall of 1978 I packed everything I thought would be useful into my Toyota Land Cruiser and drove north to Alaska. I came to a land I had never seen to find something I wasn\u2019t even sure existed: a wilderness cabin to use for a year or more to live, think, relax, read, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3594","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reviews"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}