Our only child had arrived late, after I had almost given up hope. Luke glanced from one to the other. We have lots of information about Jean: religious views are listed as Christian, ethnicity is Hispanic American, and political affiliation is unknown. So technically its challenging, our equipment is heavy and were old, Aspen said. Within a few years, my grandparents gave up farming and moved to Colorado, where Clarence opened a gun shop. In 1992 Jean Aspen and her husband, Tom, left Arizona and took their young son to live in Alaska's interior wilderness, building a cabin out of logs, hunting for food, and letting the vast, harsh beauty of the Arctic close in around them. On national lecture tour, it was Connie who narrated. We ended up just hangin at Johns and playing a new game. For most of her adult life, writer and filmmaker Jean Aspen has been recording her experiences in remote Alaska as well as in the more settled world. I chewed my lip and tried to trust the river, to sense when to paddle and when to be still. They would leave him with friends and continue on as before. My mother wrote eight published books. Although he lost his sister on a 1987 trip, that didnt stop him from pursuing his dreams and passions. Phil Beisel, ( For me, it is good to be aging and mostly at peace. He tends to step in the background and stay quiet. Do you know something about Lucas' life? My parents, Bud and Connie Helmericks, travel the Arctic coast by dogsled about 1948. Receive the digital, interactive PDF of the newspaper in your inbox. Until I was ready, we both knew we werent going anywhere. She wrote hundreds of letters in a meticulous hand that were cherished by friends for half a century. Over them, she penciled her brows in high arcs. She also went on the lecture circuit with her parents. Lucas was a resident of Homer, Alaska. Reluctantly, he had embarked alone on their scheduled lecture circuit. Talking about her family Jean is the author and daughter of Arctic Constance Helmericks and she herself has been traveling all over Alaska for more than 28 years. She was working as a student editor on our documentary and pleaded to be included. Hazel eyes, wise as an aging otter, crinkled behind thick lenses. I initiated most of our adventures, but he threw himself into them like a dog invited for a walk. Perhaps he felt deficient: he was a farm boy from a meat-and-potatoes family; she was cultured and articulate. When he was given permission for a months holiday, my parents shipped the Queen Beaver by rail to Fairbanks. Medical establishment comes to Homer Part 1. At some point, the rift in their basic values began to widen. Nancy Pfister was a hard-drinking free spirit who traveled the world on a whim. In the spring of 1944, my father constructed a second canoe, the Little Willow, fourteen and a half feet long and very beamy. I was the artist. Its not an easy gig.. As somebody who lives in the burbs and has never been camping this doc provides a glimpse of a lifestyle/adventure that I will never see but wish I could. Jean was born in 1943 in Erie, Pa., and moved with her family to California in 1951. The sun climbed above the Sonoran desert, flowers wilted, and temperatures rose into the 90s. Im tired of caring for five acres and all that weve built. Submitting this form below will send a message to your email with a link to change your password. My earliest memories are of wild places, campfires, and trails along desert streams. He had been on his own since the age of twelvedriven out by a new stepfather. What began as a series of letters to our son, Lucas, when Tom and I set out to search for a different future, evolved over the seasons into this fourth snapshot of my life. He was unabashedly affectionate, holding my hand in public and walking with an arm around his father. Tom and I were suddenly alone in the vacant studio sharing his old four-cylinder Toyota pickup, bought when Luke was born. We are very proud of our film festival, having chosen countless films that will challenge, endear and entertain audiences with their style and depth, said festival director Rebecca Pottebaum in a press release. After that Jean Aspen had done graduation in Bahlor degree in US state university. The plumbing was dank, the rooms cramped and dingy, and the electrical wiring dangerous. The information in this obituary is based on data from the US Government's Social Security . Name Jean Aspen Birthday 1950 Age 70 Gender Female Nationality American Occupation Author Parents Constance Helmericks Siblings 1 Net Worth $1 . The curtain came down on our familys very public fairy tale in March of 1953. He has been an amazing partner.. Even in youth my father enlarged his lifeas if he could never be enough. We never had trash. I am deeply grateful to my beloved husband, Tom Irons, and to Laurie Anne Schacht, companion of many adventures. There is no doubt that Aspen and Phil richly deserve our kudos for the miraculous feat accomplished. We paused to listen as a car came up Sunset Road and topped the hill a quarter-mile away. Janet learned to appease their father, while Connie rebelled. That evening, Egypt launched an air assault on Israel. Curious as an ermine, I followed emerging patterns in and out of time. The fearful one had yet to speak. He had banked everything under his name and I never knew how much. The obituary was featured in The Daily Record on June 5 . For more than forty years, this wild valley has cradled my dreams. Connie saw everyone, including herself, as characters and willingly played foil to Buds prowess. Nevertheless, I found myself again yearning for the freshness of uncertainty and for a gentler landscape than the twenty-first century. Connie pointed out a colorful hummingbird and much to her distress, Bud shot it for her. His frame was lanky and strong with the unconscious ease of youth. Touching that ideal and manifesting it, however, were different stories. Jan Aspen was inspired by his fathers wild adventures, so he chose the same hobbies as his father and began exploring at a young age. Theyve wintered over at Kernwood but more recently have spent summers and part of the fall there. Lucas Irons died unexpectedly at age 25 in 2012. He gave me a wicked grin. While countless others tended our flames. The remote Territory was vulnerable and strategically located. How old is Jean Aspen age ?What is Jean Aspen Religion ? 'Here's another batch,' Phil said, excising the wriggly pearl of a maggot with the point of his pocketknife. I watch the young ones set out on their own grand adventures and wish them joy. Its quite miraculous how life opens to you when youre open to it, she said. For more information on the festival, visit www.anchoragefilmfestival.org. When spring again released the river, we embarked on a six-hundred mile canoe voyage back to that other world, a treacherous journey of more than three weeks. After the uncertainty of my youth, I had longed for safety, yet having created this haven, I was again seeking change. In 1992 Jean Aspen and her husband, Tom, took their young son to live in Alaska's interior wilderness, building a cabin out of logs, hunting for food, and letting the vast, harsh beauty of the Arctic close in around them. See more at www.jeanaspen.com and their ARCTIC SON Facebook page. Seeing him shadowy there by the wall, I recalled a vision that had surprised me several times during my pregnancya dark-haired youth passing just beyond the window. As if on cue, a coyote barked from the nearby wash. Another answered to the west and Lucy growled. Next month, the latest film installment of Aspens life, Arctic Daughter: A Lifetime of Wilderness, premieres at the Anchorage International Film Festival (AIFF) with a showing from noon-1:30 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 10, at the Alaska Experience Theatre. The miles have humbled me and I have learned compassion by smashing into boulders. Your father convinced me that we would save money by using the same lawyer, she later said. document.write(year) Im standing on the shoulders of other people, she said. The ex-husband and former in-laws of a slain Hong Kong model have been detained on charges in her killing after police found body parts in a refrigerator and a pot. Staff. An autumn breeze rattled the leaves. It looks too perfect to be true. We need to leave here, I told him the next evening. With Jean Aspen, Thomas Irons. Thursday June 9, 2011. If lifes purpose (as I believe) is to evolve and express at ever-higher levels, a safe and uneventful course may not serve. Jean Aspen, daughter of Arctic explorer and author Constance Helmericks, began life in the wilderness. Spring of 2004 blushed the Sonoran desert, whenjust before his eighteenth birthdayour son moved out, taking his old dog, much of our furniture, and my green Honda. Jean Aspen holds baccalaureate degrees in biology and nursing. This journey had been incubating in my heart along with a growing unease about the American Southwest. Theres a fine line between challenges that are part of an adventure and the signposts of impending disaster. I never heard his side. Our sacred Earth, of which I am a cherished member, has provided my every breath. How are John and Kevin? I am, after all, just a human, a member of a new species struggling to find its way. Book Overview. His compact hands, nails always clean, were powerful. which she continued with her husband. The Sonoran Desert lay hushed beneath an expanse of sunset sky, mountains shading into autumn dusk where Wasson Peak loomed in silhouette, dark and mysterious. Its less about me, wonderful me and all the great things Ive done, she said. The Helmericks individually and together wrote a bookshelf of Alaskana, including We Live in Alaska, a 1947 best seller; Constance Helmericks Down the Wild River North,: and Harmon Helmericks The Last of the Bush Pilots. Aspen is working with the University of Alaska Fairbanks to archive her parents films and photos. In 1992 Jean Aspen took her husband, Tom, and their young son to live in Alaska's interior mountains where they built a cabin from logs, hunted for food, and let the vast beauty of the . That meant lugging around heavy cameras and tripods in remote wilderness, where the sound of the river fills much of the background. All those seemingly random threads have woven the tapestry of her journey and the journey of the river flowing by the remote cabin. How often I have tucked my fears beneath my arm and leapt. Janet and Bert Cutler, who taught me the joy of simplicity. America was awakening from the Great Depression and another World War grumbled like a bank of clouds along the horizon. I wanna work with handicapped kids well, who knows? It's almost as if the exigencies of the situation filled them with capabilities otherwise they would not have known existed. Arctic Daughter: A Lifetime of Wilderness is the second documentary by Jean Aspen and Tom Irons. Sleeping little, he worked to enclose the home he was building on forty acres of woodland. Total Jean Aspen Net Worth in 2021 $1 Million $5 Million (Approx.). It has nearly taken my life many timesand yet I owe it everything. While my husband, Tom Irons, picked blueberries of a summer afternoon, I sorted memories like familiar old clothes, holding each to the slanted light before releasing it into the fire with the next log. Within an hour, they caught the train to Seattle and then boarded a steamer for Alaska. Thats the way it is with answers, I thought, they run their course. By the time a third large problem emerges, it is time to back-paddle. They had traveled hundreds of miles by canoe, foot, and dogsled, living off the land for two winters and three summers. Tom leaned forward on his bench and turned the salmon. Its the second in a planned trilogy of films that will culminate with Rewilding Kernwood, about the final phase in the Aspen-Irons familys life at Kernwood, a remote cabin on the Chandalar River in the Brooks Range. What about my woodshop? $15.00. var today = new Date() Tom and I are working to leave something for the next generation, to say This is how people lived.. I relaxed into the evening sounds of desert and fire, yet even here I caught the grumble of traffic carried for miles up from the flatlands. My father remarried and edited Connie and her daughters from the official version of his life. What began as a series of letters to her son, Lucas, when she and her husband Tom set out to search for a different future, evolved over the seasons into a many snapshots of her remarkable life. Its really the whole story of my life, Aspen said. Grizzled chest hair curled from the neck of his T-shirt, and his dark beard was streaked with white. Aspen came back to the Arctic in 1992 with her second husband, Irons, and their then young son, Lucas, and a friend, Laurie Schacht. Once we could have named the people who built within a mile of us. The fire had died to glowing coals. He was secretive and controlling; she was as open and as friendly as a puppy. I am grateful to my many teachers, especially: Winifred Chittenden, who gave me roots into this blessed Earth. I wonder if there still is an America where people sit on porches and talk. It had gotten so I couldnt walk across the street without him, she told me. I was afraid to move ahead, but couldnt face the disappointment of my friends by calling it off. For the past few summers theyve been taking Kernwood apart, pulling nails, ripping out flashing, and burning or setting adrift in the river logs. My book, Arctic Daughter: A Wilderness Journey, recounts how Phil and I navely set forth, without even a map, on the mighty Yukon River in the spring of 1972. We were seated by our backyard campfire, cooking salmon over mesquite. Around campfires, they talked about their dreams. After our campfire discussion, Tom shifted gears. These grueling, life-defining moments mount atop one another: locate, shoot and butcher enough moose to last them through a rapidly descending winter; without the benefit of shelter, work in temps hovering beneath 30 below to complete construction of their cabin; make do with clothing and shoes ravaged by the elements, barely protecting them from hypothermia; survive in a hostile environment. Login or Sign-up Naw. Reaching a tributary, we ascended on foot, pulling our craft north into the mountains. In went ceramic tile, carpet, a new heating and cooling system, ductwork, modern wiring, underground 200-amp service, insulated windows, new appliances, lights, and fresh paint. After that Jean Aspen had done graduation in Bahlor degree in US state university Ultimately, we would spend close to four years walking that great and unpeopled wilderness. For years, Do not sell or share my personal information. Time is our only currency. I wondered. Sylvia had been a sleek, black beast with smiling eyes and snowy chestour guardian throughout an uncertain childhood. An email message containing instructions on how to reset your password has been sent to the e-mail address listed on your account. Twenty-eight months later they emerged on the Arctic coast of Canada at the delta of the Mackenzie River. People ask, Whats the script? I dont have a script. Behind him the ancient saguaros stood black against a fading lemon sky where rafts of clouds flamed coral and then pearled to gray. The rapids were sounding louder and dread took root in my stomach. Now at sixty-six, I close the circleonly to discover familiar footprints in the snow. Find Jean Aspen movies, filmography, bio, co stars, photos, news and tweets. Later that month, my father obtained materials and built a nineteen-foot canoe from two layers of thin canvas and hand-cut planks. She met my father while a student at the University of Arizona in the fall of 1939. 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