Jeanie of Alaska, 1952

"Jeanie of Alaska" is a silent film by Harmon “Bud” Helmericks and Constance Helmericks, circa 1952. The film includes scenes of Bud, Constance (Connie), and their two-year-old daughter Jeanie at the family’s cabin in the Brooks Range of Alaska, and traveling along Alaska’s northern arctic coast.
Bud Helmericks and his first wife Connie Helmericks spent more than a decade living in and exploring northern Alaska during the 1940s and 1950s. Constance was the best-selling author of eight non-fiction books, five detailing their lives and adventures in the far north. Films that the couple shot on 16mm color film were the subject of national lecture tours. Shot with great care and artfulness under extreme living conditions, these films depict the unique lives of the Helmericks family, as well as the rapidly-changing lives of small groups of coastal and inland Iñupiat peoples during the era of pre-Statehood and pre-pipeline Alaska. Daughter Jeanie Helmericks (now Jean Aspen) is a writer who has continued to explore northern Alaska and the Brooks Range throughout her adult life. She and her husband Tom Irons, along with son Luke Irons, have also made films of their time in the wilderness, including "Arctic Son - Fulfilling the Dream," and "Arctic Daughter - A Lifetime of Wilderness." For more information, see the Jean Aspen Papers collection at the Alaska Film Archives and www.jeanaspen.com.
Detailed summary information for "We Live in the Arctic" was provided by the filmmakers. According to these notes, the film includes scenes of an airport in Montana; Views en route to Alaska; At Takahula Lake, the Helmericks’ log cabin home in the Brooks Range; Ice-fishing; Flying in May to the still-frozen Arctic Ocean, 300 miles directly north of cabin; Bud setting up Explorers Club flag on a staff; Pitching tent and making a polar camp; Hunting seals and polar bear; at Oliktok Point on the north coast of Alaska; Inside tent with members of the Woods family; Summer evening on the Koyukuk River; Trading post of Hughes; Over the Brooks Range; Sunset rainbow over Takahula Lake in summertime; Building a dock and steps to cabin; Planting garden; Bud hanging moose antlers on cabin gable; Connie and Jeanie paddling through waters of Takahula Lake in homemade kayak; On the Arctic coast in summer - Helmericks family camping with tent; Mosquitoes on Bud’s back; Point Barrow - tractor pushing off a boat; Two views of the polar ice pack as it looks in summer; Walrus hunt; The word HELP appears written on the ground at remote Anaktuvuk Pass in Brooks Range; People, dressed in summer parkas, are worried about a very sick baby (Bud flies the baby to the nearest hospital at Point Barrow - not shown); Family examining a new electric generator weighing 800 pounds which was flown in 100 miles from the trading post; Jeanie crawling over an ancient mastodon tusk on lake shore; Bud motoring up the Alatna River in the big yellow canoe; Caribou and sheep; Bud felling giant spruce tree; Connie at her twin aluminum sinks inside the cabin; Jeanie sampling the pie dough; Bud cutting moose steak; Connie at her typewriter inside the cabin; Outside, the first snow of winter beginning to fall; Barricading the cabin and laying a plank with spikes in front of the door to ward off bears; Bud and unidentified man at Hughes, pulling plane from the Koyukuk River by tractor; Ice cakes running in the Koyukuk; Flying through Anaktuvuk Pass over the Brooks Range once more to the Arctic Ocean; Landing on sand beach of the Colville River delta and waiting for the Arctic Ocean to freeze for ice fishing; Friends look at power generator brought for them; Their old house and view of their new frame house (lumber was ocean-freighted from Point Barrow, 240 miles to the west); Ice-fishing; Sleds full of fish are upset onto the ice, making piles of frozen fish all over the river delta to be picked up at will; Inside the new frame house - looking at the Sears catalog is a popular pastime; Bud draining the oil out of the “Arctic Tern” when the temperature turns 30 below zero; The airfield at Barrow is marked by two lines of empty oil drums on the snow; Scenes at Point Barrow: Tractor is used to haul Arctic Ocean ice (fresh) for drinking water for the village; Panorama of Barrow showing a city without sidewalks or streetlights; Panorama shot ending with the white frame Presbyterian church whose diocese covers an area the size of England and the British Isles; and The End.
This sequence contains excerpts from AAF-16005 and AAF-16006 from the Constance Helmericks Papers collection held by the Alaska Film Archives, a unit of the Alaska and Polar Regions Collections & Archives Department in the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks. For more information about this film, other Helmericks films, and related holdings from the Jean Aspen Papers, please contact the Alaska Film Archives.

[@randysandberg5615]

Wonderful video. What an adventure. Every day brought something new. And no cell phones!

[@ConniRandwulf]

Jeanie grew up, went to the Brooks Range herself and wrote two books I highly recommend. Arctic Daughter and then with her child, Arctic Son. Wonderful reading! She and I wrote each other a bit back and forth in the eighties.

[@ConniRandwulf]

her pen name is Jean Aspen

[@harrys6807]

The Helmericks wrote a series of books about their life in the Arctic beginning with "We Live in Alaska " followed by "We Live in the Arctic", "Our Summer With the Eskimos", "Our Alaskan Winter" and "The Flight of the Arctic Tern". They were true pioneers living off the land. They later divorced and Bud remarried and made his home in Alaska. He was the author of several subsequent books about Alaska including children's books and works detailing the exploits of Alaska bush pilots of which he was one of the most celebrated. Constance continued her exploring with her two daughters, Annie and Jeanie and wrote several books detailing their adventures. She also wrote the very authoritative and informative book, "Hunting in North America". Their books are out of print but can be found for purchase on the web. Harmon (Bud) died in 2010 while Constance (Connie) died in 1987.

[@tinge1954]

Jeanie is so cute with the snowshoes. Great film.

[@Richard_K1630]

I cringed when that prick shot the polar bear but gave the film a second chance. Later on I pulled the plug on it when they went after the whales. People sucked back then too.

[@Rovertrail]

+Richard K poor fish and seals, hunters are a bunch of meanies...they should just go to the grocery store.

[@randysandberg5615]

+Richard K Where do you think your hamburgers or leather shoes come from? They come from an animal, not a plant. You are narrow minded or a fool.