Author/Singer/Father of Jewel: Atz Kilcher at Ah Haa, 3/10

04 Mar Author/Singer/Father of Jewel: Atz Kilcher at Ah Haa, 3/10

Atz Kilcher is the eldest son of Yule and Ruth Kilcher, who emigrated from Switzerland to Alaska in the late-1930s, joining some of the town of Homer’s earliest homesteaders. Today, Kilcher appears regularly along with family members on the Discovery Channel’s popular “Alaska: The Last Frontier.” He also performs music around the country, occasionally alongside his singer-songwriter daughter Jewel, a part-time Telluride local. Atz Kilcher is in town on Saturday, March 10, in support of his new book, “Son of a Midnight Land,” on a program that is a collaboration between Ah Haa and Between the Covers Bookstore, Kilcher will tell stories of Alaska and sing songs in between (with Jewel? TBD). The event at Ah Haa starts at 7 p.m.

Atz Kilcher – Author, singer/songwriter, artist and star of “Alaska: The Last Frontier” reality TVshow on Discovery networks at his workshop in Homer, Alaska. Photographed by Scott Dickerson.

Blackstone Publishing announces the release of SON OF A MIDNIGHT LAND, a powerful new memoir by Atz Kilcher about growing up with a hard father in a hard land.

Atz Kilcher learned many vital skills while helping his parents carve a homestead out of the Alaskan wilderness: how to work hard, think on his feet, make do, invent, and use what was on hand to accomplish whatever task was in front of him. He also learned how to lie in order to please his often volatile father and put himself in harm’s way to protect his mother and younger, weaker members of the family.

Much later in life, as Kilcher began to reflect on his upbringing, seek to understand his father, and heal his emotional scars, he discovered that the work of pioneering the frontier of the soul is an infinitely more difficult task than any of the back-breaking chores he performed on his family’s homestead.

Learning to use new tools — honesty, vulnerability, forgiveness, acceptance — and building upon the good helped him heal and learn to embrace the value of resilience. That revised perspective has enabled Kilcher to tell an enhanced and more positive version of the legacy his father created and has him doing the most rewarding work of his life: mapping his own inner wilderness while drawing closer to his adult children, the next stewards of the land he helped his father carve out of the Alaskan frontier.

“As a daughter, this book is transformative. Very seldom do we get windows into our parents’ private lives with such honesty. But I am most excited about this book for others to read, because it proves anyone can find forgiveness, love, and even change at any age. This is a tale of great courage and a ceaseless hope for a better life. My dad was the son of pioneers in the wild lands of Alaska, but miraculously he became a pioneer of a new kind of untamed wilderness: he became an Inner Pioneer. I guess trailblazing is a family tradition,” Jewel, singer and daughter of Atz Kilcher.

Jewel

“As a son, I cried tears of forgiveness; as a father, tears of regret and pain; and as a warrior of everyday life, tears of love, fear, and victory! A must-read!,” Atz Lee Kilcher, son of Atz Kilcher and star of “Alaska: The Last Frontier.”

“Personal, honest, charming, and often funny. It’s the rare cowboy who can rope, yodel, and write. Atz is one of those,” Tom Bodett, humorist, author, and panelist on NPR’s Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!

“With incredible courage and honesty, Atz invites the world into the deepest recesses of his soul. Pain, fear, redemption, forgiveness—it’s all in there. The Alaskan wilderness is just the backdrop for the true final frontier—the one in which a man faces himself and finds the means to overcome his hidden demons,”
Bonnie Rose Ward, author of “Winds of Skilak: A Tale of True Grit, True Love and Survival in the Alaskan Wilderness.”

“Years of brave reflection—and, as he’s quick to add, professional therapy—turn this pensive homestead confessional into a small triumph of redemption,” Tom Kizzia, New York Times bestselling author of “Pilgrim’s Wilderness.”