Family Camping

Charlie Ess grew up camping in Minnesota and left the north woods for the far north woods, mountains, and oceans of Alaska in 1978. Charlie, 62, met his wife, Cheryl, in 1980 when she hired him to help with her commercial fishing operation out at False Pass, on Unimak Island, which is the first in the 1,200-mile string of the Aleutian Islands. Charlie has been writing for magazines, newspapers, and other publications every month since 1993, and has been the North Pacific bureau chief for National Fisherman since 1998. In addition to his writing life, Charlie has facilitated experiential outdoor activities for the past 15 years with students at the Alaska Job Corps Center and through the Anchorage-based Rural Alaska Community Action Program, where he coordinates an AmeriCorps program

Photographer Cheryl Ess came to Alaska decades before Charlie, as a 4-year-old along with her mom, dad, and three siblings in 1959 as part of a group of adventurous Midwesterners who came north to prove up on homesteads and carve out a life in the last frontier. Cheryl’s career in photography stems back to the early 1970s when she began shooting Kodachrome through an Olympus OM-1. She frequently publishes photos in National Fisherman magazine, Alaska magazine, and numerous other publications, and additional samples of her work can be viewed at SnowshoeMedia.com. They live in Sutton, Alaska.

For more information about Charlie and Cheryl, please visit SnowshoeMedia.com