While growing up in Wisconsin, Heimo had an exuberant interest in wilderness and adventure, stoked by stories of hunting big game in the pages of Outdoor Life and Field and Stream magazines.  The biography of frontiersman Daniel Boone was also very inspirational to him.

As a young man of twenty, Heimo discarded a factory job which he found to be dull and uninteresting.  It was August of 1975.  Heimo flew to Alaska to take a job as a packer for big game hunting guide Keith Koontz in the Brooks Range.  They became friends and Keith helped Heimo get set up with a cabin for a winter of fur trapping.

The cabin was in remote wilderness 70 miles south of Fort Yukon on Beaver Creek.  Heimo was alone with meager provisions and no experience with trapping or wilderness living.

For the first month Heimo lived mainly off what grouse and ducks he could shoot.  There was no stove in the cabin.  Someone was supposed to come downriver with a stove but didn’t show up because of the early freeze-up.

By early October there was a foot of snow on the ground and temperatures dropping below zero.  Heimo had to sleep outside and build bonfires to keep warm.  He was in real trouble.

Needing food, Heimo set out to find a moose and in the woods out back of the cabin miraculously came upon a collapsed cache with a wood stove and stove pipe among the debris.  Heimo got it set up in the cabin and finally had heat.

By mid-November, desperately low on food, Heimo attempted to hike to another known cabin with the hope of finding food there.  On the way, he fell through the ice and had to make a run back to his still smoldering wood stove to survive.

More desperate than ever, Heimo hoped to signal a plane.  Chances of a plane flying by were very slim.  A friend of Heimo’s asked a bush pilot to do a flyover and check to see how Heimo was doing.  Again, seemingly another miracle, Heimo was able to signal that he was in trouble and got flown back to civilization.

The few furs Heimo had managed to catch during his time on Beaver Creek brought less than $100.  Not wanting to give up on Alaska, Heimo went back to work for Keith Koontz, this time on St. Lawrence Island off the west coast of the Alaska mainland.

In the ensuing years, Heimo would continue to trap and built his first cabin on the upper Coleen River in June, 1978.  Here he would trap for over 40 years and raised a family along the way.

Among the furs Heimo harvests in this northern boreal forest include wolf, fox, marten, wolverine, lynx and beaver.  Heimo runs his traplines by snowmachine.  He has had several seasons of over 100 marten harvested.

Heimo received the Alaska Trapper Association’s Fabian Carey Trapper of the Year award in 2003, in recognition of his commitment and dedication to trapping.  Heimo’s sense of humor and engaging personality have won him friends near and far.

An excellent book, The Final Frontiersman: Heimo Korth and His Family, Alone in Alaska’s Arctic Wilderness by James Campbell came out in 2004.  Much of the information for this short biography came from that book, with Mr. Campbell’s permission, and most of the photos came from his website (Also with permission)

More recently, Heimo has been featured as one of the cast of the very popular reality TV show “Last Alaskans”.  The show has helped to portray fur trapping positively to audiences worldwide.

Like most trappers Ray Lewis has been interested in the outdoors since he was old enough to remember. He had no mentors in his family, so it was “learn as you go”. Harding books and Fur-Fish-Game were his only instructions. He set his first trap at 12 or 13 years old and caught a possum under an old oak tree – in a snowstorm! First set; first catch. He was hooked! Living in rural Michigan near many lakes and rivers gave him plenty of opportunities for trapping. With lots of water, mink and coon were his favorite targets. He enjoyed trapping but his lifelong goal was to be “an old-time woodsman” and live in the wilderness – and the place he had in mind even as a small child was Alaska! And at the age of 21 he succumbed to his lifelong passion! 

And he had a willing partner to share this passion with! Ray and Cindy met at work and dated for a couple of years. Cindy always loved the outdoors and especially mountains, but the thought of living in Alaska had not yet entered her mind! When they decided to move to Alaska, they thought it best we marry first. They got married Feb. 14th, 1983 and moved in with her parents so they could save money for their “big” adventure. On June 1st, 1983, they left Michigan and headed for Anchorage, arriving two weeks later. They both found jobs right away but as time passed, they found Anchorage to be “too much like Chicago” and not what they came to Alaska for! They both gave their employers two weeks’ notice and in April they headed north to Fairbanks. 

This was their home while they waited for homestead land to become available. In 1987 Ray made a trip out to the Nowitna River. The years that followed they put in the acquired time needed to make the land theirs. Ray worked seasonal and Cindy had a year-round job until they started spending their falls, winters and some springs in the woods. 

Molly their first daughter came along in September of 1993. Then Emma in December of 1995, so they wanted to find some place closer to Fairbanks. Our homestead was quite far and expensive to get to with our family growing! A friend found an already established trap line on The Little Black River. With this place they could drive their outfit to the Yukon River and shuttle it to the cabin. Sarah our youngest daughter was born in January of 1998 and pretty much grew up on the Little Black River, along with her other sisters, when we were not in town for the summer. The girls never slowed them down. Ray always made their lives in the woods very easy with his exceptional woods’ skills. 

The whole family did several summer trips either by boat or canoe to explore and look for interesting things. The girls loved it. They learned respect for the land and animals and to this day still love getting out in the woods, when they can steal away from the duties of being responsible adults! They like to put their woods skills to use by hunting, trapping or just floating down an Alaskan river and enjoying what it does for the soul and spirit. 

With their move to Alaska the opportunities to trap increased dramatically, but trapping always remained secondary to just living in, and enjoying the wilderness! Ray never pursued trapping in a professional manner, but it still held a strong attraction for him – and in some years trapping has been their sole source of income. He says, “Big money/big numbers/expensive equipment is for others as I prefer to trap on foot; keeping things simple.” Ray has always worked in the summers and lived in the woods in the winter, so trapping was always right out his door! “In good country it’s not hard to catch 80-100 marten or 40-50 lynx; plus assorted beaver, mink and occasional wolverine. As I recall, my best year was about 40 cats, 30 marten, 12-15 mink, 12-13 beaver, 2 wolverines and maybe a fox or two. Generally, he doesn’t trap wolves, as packing a frozen wolf on snowshoes 5 miles is too much like work! With fur prices so low lately, he hasn’t been trapping much, except for beaver to eat! Instead, he is exploring new country and looking for those new challenges that keep he and his family going – while looking forward to many more successful seasons of trapping and wilderness adventure.