**A home is not a home without a dog**

Granted we have twenty three of them. Since the dogs, Elijah purchased an acre of land right off the Parks Highway. He did this so he could build a home around these dogs and get them off of their 4 foot chains and out of the elements. With some help from friends and his talent for building, he has built this unfinished energy efficient 40x60 foot warehouse. We have spray foam insulation and a heated slab floor that is also insulated by 4 inches of foam board. He designed it to have a passive solar greenhouse, of which we do not currently obtain the funds to finish. We also have a root cellar in the back, which is an underground cellar that keeps your vegetables cool during the summer months. He got these ideas from Michael Reynolds, Earth Ship Designs.

We live upstairs and the dogs live downstairs. Upstairs is a mezzanine that wraps around and we are able to look over the half walls onto the dogs kennels. Currently, we only have South facing windows and soon we will install North facing ones so we can watch the Northern Lights at night.

The dogs are all between 8 and 13 years old. We realize that there is only about 6 more years left in their lives and because of that, we are trying to adapt the kennels downstairs to be designed to allow them to go inside and outside as they please. Once all the dogs are gone, we plan on making this place a Planetary Health Zone, where we can host passionate, healthy and like minded individuals to come and stay, with very little to no cost of living, so they can focus on animal rights like helping the bears, wolves and salmon, as well as focusing on Alaskan topics of debate.

The planet does not need more “successful people.” The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kinds. - Dalai Lama

Best,
Nicole and Elijah