Kathryn Van Heynengin's Author Bio

Kathryn is the daughter and wife of retired army. As such, she feels she’s fortunate that she’s been blessed with the opportunity to travel, to meet new people, to adjust and adapt to an array of environments and believes this background gave her a greater appreciation for other people’s cultures and point-of-view.

In 1951, Kathryn’s father was posted to Fairbanks, Alaska. As modes of transportation to Alaska were limited in the early 50’s, her father purchased a 2 ½ ton International Harvester truck for the trip up the Alcan Highway. He filled the back with household goods and

made a pallet for his daughters next to the tailgate as their special vista. The monotony of the dusty trek was broken with the ever-present hope of catching sight of Sgt. Preston (of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police) and his sled dog, King.

She says that she thrived in the dry cold of Fairbanks, and safely attended school at 49 degrees below zero. Minus 50 was considered dangerous. Whether going to school or playing outside, she was bundled with layers of clothing. Heavily mittened, with a stocking cap on her head, and a wool scarf covering all but her eyes, and Eskimo mukluks on her feet. “My perimeters were so well protected, frostbite didn’t have a chance.”

The family later moved to the small Russian village of Kenai, Alaska where housing was extremely scarce. Still, her father located and rented a vacant homesteader’s log cabin. Though it was a nightmare for her mother housekeeping-wise, Kathryn thought having water supplied via a hand pump in the kitchen and light from kerosene lanterns were really neat.

In that wild country, she learned that reading, picking berries and wildflowers, or wandering the woods and beaches was far more entertaining than plunking down in front of a television set as children in the “lower 48” could do.

She’s had numerous “close encounters of the Moose kind.” Often, the family woke to the sounds of the massive animals scratching their antlers on the side of the house or chasing the family huskies. A “resident” bull moose taught her to tread gingerly past him on the way to school each morning. And she catalogs her childhood experiences as a small example that the “Spell of Yukon” cast over her life.

After she was married, Kathryn and her husband, John, lived on the moors of England, a world directly from the pages of “Wuthering Heights” or “All Creatures Great and Small.” As in living in Alaska, she said that the climate built character

and determination. “Had I waited for the wind to let up or the rain to stop, I would have sat inside for our entire tour and would have missed the magic of the Yorkshire moors.” Contrary to the harsh climate, she found “English people gentle, warm, and remarkable as their antiques.”

Now retired to what she construes as the heady heights in the mountains of Florida (an impressive 65 feet above sea level), she remains passionate about Alaska and “the ‘freedom and farness’ that inspires us all to reach out and enjoy the wonderful planet we call home.”

In her life, Kathryn has held a number of positions, causing her to ponder if she has ADD. However, she worked over five years as the first woman Environmental Inspector in the State of Florida hoping to see the “real” Florida before it was buried beneath subdivisions and shopping malls. She was also employed as a polygraph examiner, where she “learned a great deal about people, good and bad, the importance of listening to your gut instinct.”

Since retiring, she has devoted her time and energy to what she calls “my greatest, if least financially rewarding, occupation, writing.” She follows world events and enjoys reading and writing political commentary. Her works have been published in a number of newspapers, and she has been quoted in books on American political thought.

As a strong supporter of the military, she says: “I thought, when I was a child, that our guys were the most important people on the planet. I still do.”

Kathryn’s personal motto:

Never take yourself too seriously. There’s always someone worse off than you are.