When Dulce and Michael East started Kahiltna Birchworks—their birch syrup business—30 years ago, they had no syrup making experience, just a desire to live on their homestead in the Alaskan wilderness and make a living off the land. Surrounded by birch trees in Alaska's boreal forest, it made sense to tap into this abundant resource. It was a steep learning curve, but the Easts have successfully pioneered the birch syrup industry in Alaska and beyond and are currently the world's largest birch syrup producer.  

The Folk School of Fairbanks is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that offers year round classes and programs in a wide variety of hands-on disciplines. Their mission is to perpetuate the joy of hands-on learning. Classes include music, woodworking, outdoor and survival skills, crafts, working with birch bark and other natural materials, cooking, food preservation, basket weaving, fiber arts, blacksmithing, boat building, visual arts, log construction, and much more. Their premier program, Week in the Woods, is an immersion experience into the boreal forest with talented instructors from many disciplines.