Match.com

July 2016 at the Unalakleet River Lodge

Stage Left: Enter 48-year-old high school English teacher from Wisconsin, now residing in a remote Alaskan village on the Bering Sea, teaching Spanish to Eskimos.

Stage Right: Enter 60-year-old trapper/fishing guide/small engine repairman from Minnesota, who has spent the last 25 years earning his Sourdough title in that same remote Alaskan village on the Bering Sea.

Front Center Stage: Match.com

It all started with a Wink.

Kathy (aka Alaska_Soul) had been dating on and off via Match.com for 15 years. Finding herself single and headed to the Alaskan bush to teach, she began checking out profiles for men in the Unalakleet area, located on the Norton Sound, south of Nome, Alaska. Her lifelong dream had been to live off the land in an off-grid cabin somewhere in the wilds of Alaska. She wasn’t getting any younger and with both of her adult daughters building their own lives in the Lower 48, it was time to make the jump.

In a state whose motto is, “The odds are good, but the goods are odd,” as relating to how many single men live there, the selection was pretty slim in Unalakleet, according to Match. But, Kathy wasn’t looking for love as much as she was looking for peace and quiet. Still, there was one profile for a clean-shaven man who caught her eye.

She winked.

First Dance.

Gregg (aka Buckshot Gordy) had put a profile on Match.com after much urging from his trapping partner. He’d corresponded with a few women from around Alaska, but nothing ever stuck. Living off-grid in his self-built cabin on the Unalakleet River, the only year-round resident on the river, didn’t provide him much time for online dating. However, he did run a small engine repair shop in the village where he had a cell phone and internet.

He had let his Match subscription lapse, but still occasionally checked to see who was on there. One day, there was a wink. He winked back.

Alaska_Soul messaged Buckshot Gordy through the dating site but never heard back. Buckshot Gordy never read the message because he didn’t have a subscription. Nine months passed, during which they both reread each other’s profile descriptions several times. He figured that in Unalakleet, population 750, they were bound to run into one another. She figured that he just wasn’t interested.

Finally, he showed Alaska_Soul's profile to Sissy, his trapping partner, 30 years his junior and very technologically savvy. She did a quick search on the woman’s profile picture, discovered her blog, and found out that she was the local high school English teacher. That was all ole Buckshot Gordy needed to know.

Out on the trapline

He headed over to the school that November afternoon about 3:30, just as school was letting out, and asked the school secretary where he could find the English classroom. Being a longtime resident, she didn’t even question him, just pointed the way.

Five minutes later, in his grimy overalls, having come straight from under a snowmachine rebuild, and sporting his usual baseball hat, work boots, and bushy beard and mustache, he walked into Ms. Kysar’s classroom and said hello to a few of the boys as he made his way to her desk, where she was finishing up with a student.

“Hi,” he said with a big smile. His blue eyes sparkled from beneath the filthy hat.

“I’m Gregg,” he introduced himself.

Immediately, the teacher thought this must be a parent that she didn’t recognize and she responded, “Hello?” with a question in her voice.

“Buckshot Gordy,” he explained.

“Ohhhh,” she laughed nervously as all of the curious eyes in the classroom watched her.

Wedding Day

“I’m sorry, but I’m really busy wrapping up the school day. Uh-,“ a million thoughts raced through her mind. Awkward, yes. Off guard, yes. Nosey students everywhere. Online dating is embarrassing. Why was he here? He didn’t look anything like his clean-shaven online picture. They seldom do! That smile was drawing her in. In fact, she liked beards.

“No problem. I’ll catch up with you later,” and he made a quick exit. Just like that, he was gone. She didn’t know where to find him or how to reach him.

“It’s just as well,” she quietly thought to herself as the students left and she packed up her desk. He was all she could think about as she walked back to teacher housing.

Driving his 4-wheeler back to his repair shop, Gregg realized that he probably hadn’t made the best first impression.

“Maybe I should have cleaned up a bit first,” he questioned himself, “Well, what you see is what you get.”

He thought they’d probably run into each other around town, but that was about it. She didn’t seem interested. A notice showed up in his email saying that he’d received a message from her, but he didn’t want to pay the activation fee just to read an email that probably just told him she wasn’t interested.

Three months later, Match.com offered a free weekend of communication in honor of Valentine’s Day. Gregg read her email. She had sent him her phone number.  He called.

Shocked to actually hear his voice on the phone, Kathy’s heart crawled up her throat. The phone calls continued over the next couple of weeks. Conversation was easy, but it felt strange to her to be carrying on a phone relationship with someone who was calling from a mile away.

Honeymoon

On his end, Gregg was unfamiliar with dating, having lived off-grid for the past 25 years and spending much of that, months at a time, completely alone on the trap line. But, there was something about Kathy’s profile that intrigued him. Perhaps it was that she enjoyed the outdoors. It did say, “If you can chop wood, that’s a plus.” He laughed at that one, as he tossed another log into his wood stove. Were there actually people out there who couldn’t chop wood?

Finally, they set a date for the first week of March. They would meet up after she finished teaching for the day and 4-wheel up the frozen Unalakleet River. She followed him as they started out onto the river on a well-traveled trail, each on their own 4-wheeler. Here and there, along the way, Gregg would stop to point out landmarks. North River. South River. Fish camps. A free-flowing spring along the north bank where locals got water in the winter. An old log cabin that he first stayed in and ran sled dogs from when he moved to Unalakleet those many years ago.

Seven miles up river, they arrived at his cabin. Warming up with hot chocolate next to the oil stove, they talked until the sun started to go down. It was easy. It was comfortable. It was perfect.

Being that this was her first time on the river, he led her back to town and they said goodbye at the edge of the water in the AC store parking lot, too bundled up to do more than wave goodbye.

Their story goes on from there. Quiet dinners at her apartment followed by movies on the television turned into peaceful weekends at his cabin, reading by kerosene lamp. They became inseparable.

The following April (4/10/17), they were married by the local magistrate with two close friends as witnesses as he put the most unique wedding ring on her finger, a shiny, new hose clamp. You just can’t make these things up!

The Cabin

They now live at the 400sf cabin together, the only year-round residents on the Unalakleet River in western Alaska, seven miles from the Bering Sea, with their three dogs always underfoot. Gregg still works at his small engine repair shop in town and traps in the winter, working at the Unalakleet River Lodge in the summer. Kathy spends her days minding the cabin, working the garden, sewing, canning, and writing.

Take a bow, Match.com! The curtain has closed on another great match.