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Michelle "Ruby" Becker

Ruby Becker

Originally from Iowa, Michelle "Ruby" Becker moved to Eagle, Alaska in 2011. She had spent the previous twelve years living in Oregon. Ruby met her husband, Nate, online and since she was always attracted to the north and enjoyed nature and the outdoors, moving to Eagle with her two young daughters was an easy thing to do. In 2012, the Beckers bought property 32 miles below Eagle on the Yukon River (Wood Island), built a cabin that they moved into in the fall of 2013, and spent nearly ten years living a remote, subsistence-based lifestyle with their three children. Ruby worked in the tourism industry in Chicken, Alaska during the summer months to earn enough money to support the family and their lifestyle. After being faced with the challenges of homeschooling their children, in 2021 the Beckers moved into town and settled at Eagle Village. Ruby found a job with the Native Village of Eagle where she helps with administrative tasks and prepares regular hot lunches as part of the tribe's Elder's Services Program.
Michelle "Ruby" Becker appears in the following new Jukebox projects:
Interview Title Abstract Archive #: Oral History Project Date of Interview
Becker Family

Ruby and Nate Becker and their thirteen-year-old twin daughters, Grace and Genevieve, and their seven-year-old son, Hunter, were interviewed on July 20, 2022 by Marcy Okada of the National Park Service and Karen Brewster of the Oral History Program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks at the Charlie Juneby Tribal Hall in Eagle Village, Alaska. In this interview, the Beckers talk about living at a remote cabin along the Yukon River inside Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. They talk about the challenges of maintaining this off-grid lifestyle and raising children there, as well as the joys of living on the land and close to nature. They discuss their subsistence hunting, fishing, gathering, and trapping activities, using a dogteam and other forms of transportation, and staying connected with family and the outside world. All three children chime in at various times with their own memories and stories of particular events, such as seeing a black wolf or the rescue of a swan, and how they feel about their remote cabin living experience.

 2021-03-09 Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve Jul 20, 2022