March 2, 2020

On Dec. 17, it was -15 degrees outside and, after a long day
working on his Alaskan homestead, Tyson Steele had forgotten to stoke the
woodstove fire before drifting off to sleep. Awoken by a chill in the middle of
night, he quickly tossed a big piece of cardboard, some split logs and tinder
into the fire and went back to bed.

That decision would unfold into a nightmare that Steele had
never envisioned when he bought his little piece of land and homestead in
Alaska — a lifelong
dream.   

He was drifting back to sleep when he noticed a hole in the
ceiling and fire coming through. Thinking it wasn’t too serious, he grabbed a
fire extinguisher but — puff
— it was old, and
nothing came out. He went outside to start throwing snow on the fire. That’s
when he saw that the whole roof was aflame.  

Steele only had seconds to react. He rushed into the shack to grab as much as he could, but everything was already engulfed in flames — including all of his communication devices he had been charging in a row. His radio, cellphone and inReach satellite communication device were gone. So as the roof began to collapse over his head, Steele grabbed blankets, sweaters and other tools within reach, and ran from the burning building.

Within moments, Steele had lost his shelter, communication
and — tragically — his dog. When the fire had
first started, Steele had ushered his four-legged friend from the fire, but in
all of the chaos, the dog never made it out.  

For a moment, wearing just long johns and winter boots
without socks, Steele sank into the snow, watching the flames melt all of his
possessions. He realized he never should have thrown the big piece of cardboard
in the woodstove, which didn’t have a spark arrester. A spark had probably
flown up the chimney and landed on a portion of the roof that was made out of
plastic, and the fire had grown from there.

“But I realized that every moment I spent sitting in the
snow, just shocked and feeling sorry for myself, was wasting precious time,”
Steele said.

He had a two-year supply of food, and it was on fire. Greases
and oils in the pantry, and the nearby propane tank, had only intensified the
flames. Ultimately, the only food that survived was some canned food, most of
which had burst open and started to melt.

After about nine hours shoveling snow onto the fire, Steele took stock of what he did have. Among other things, his survival would depend on how much food he was able to save. He had 60 cans of somewhat edible food — or two cans a day for 30 days.

Prepared for the
Worst

Steele’s grandfather and father had both lived in Alaska.

“As I kid, I loved to hear their stories,” Steele said. “I
knew that one day I’d make it up to Alaska.”

Six years prior to buying his property, he got a job working at a fishing lodge on Admiralty Island, and later became the winter caretaker. There, he encountered the good and the not-so-good parts about living in Alaska, and he still loved it.

Finally, he bought land. One parcel had an original homestead first built in the 1980s on it, which he planned to fix up over time. It was truly in the middle of nowhere — about 20 miles from the nearest civilization and only accessible by private plane.  

“I just loved to be out there in the wild,” Steele said. “I
loved having fresh stream water as opposed to tap water. I loved having timber right
there instead of going to the hardware store. I just loved that lifestyle.”

So he was devastated when that life went up in flames. But,
having spent so much time in Alaska and on winter excursions in remote places,
Steele knew he was equipped with the skills to survive.

“It was more of a mental game than a survival game,” he
said. “I knew that the key to staying sane was to stay busy, so even though all
I wanted to do was cuddle up in my sleeping bag and stay warm, I could only
sleep for so long before I needed to get up and do something. So I just kept
doing something.”

With the idea of keeping busy in mind, Steele got off his
knees on the night of Dec. 17.

Keep Doing Something  

Unfortunately, given Steele’s busyness trying to improve the
homestead, he had only been periodically checking in with his family — something he would grow to
regret. He had told his family not to worry if they didn’t hear from him, and
had last checked in with his parents and told them he was OK the day before the
fire. As a result, he knew it could be several weeks before his family raised
alarm.

The trek to the nearest civilization was dense with rivers,
lakes, forest, deep snow and animals like moose and wolves. With no GPS or map,
walking to safety was out of the question.

So besides saving a ration of food, his next order of
business was figuring out what to do about his lack of suitable clothing — specifically pants, socks, gloves
and a real jacket. It was superbly cold, and would…