Defiance Press: Rick, your portrayal of 1960s Alaska feels incredibly authentic, which makes sense given that you lived through that era as a child. Can you paint a picture of what Alaska was really like during this transformative time?

Rick Steeby: Alaska in 1960 was a place caught between two worlds – the rough frontier territory it had been and the modern state it was becoming. When my folks moved there in 1954, Alaska wasn’t even a state yet. I was just 10 months old, but by 1960, I was pretty aware of what was going on around me.

Virtually everyone in Alaska was from somewhere else – they’d been tied to the military through work or marriage. Veterans of WWII and Korea outnumbered non-veterans by a significant margin. These weren’t people looking for an easy life; they were pioneers in the truest sense, carving out an existence in one of the most challenging environments on earth.

Defiance Press: What was daily life like in this frontier setting?

Rick Steeby: Not normal, even by Alaskan standards, where most people seemed extraordinary. We had two seasons: winter and fishing season, which we also called construction season. Complex law enforcement cases tended to drag on from one season to the other because we didn’t have the infrastructure that other states took for granted.

We didn’t even have a Medical Examiner’s Office or a state crime lab. There were no instant DNA results – hell, there wasn’t even a DNA test! If you needed forensic analysis, you might be waiting weeks or months, if you could get it at all. Justice moved at a different pace, and people had to be more self-reliant.

Defiance Press: How does this historical reality shape the world of Gold Miner’s Daughter?

Rick Steeby: It’s fundamental to everything that happens in the story. When Wyatt encounters a murder in remote Chicken, Alaska, he can’t just call for backup or send evidence to a lab. The nearest help might be hours or days away, assuming weather permits travel. This isolation forces him to rely on his own skills and judgment in ways that modern law enforcement rarely experiences.

The state government and state law enforcement were still figuring out how to transition from federal territory to statehood. In many remote areas, the law was literally what a man carried with him. That puts enormous weight on Wyatt’s badge – it’s not just a symbol of authority, it’s often the only authority for hundreds of miles.

Defiance Press: The community of Chicken, Alaska plays a major role in your story. What was life like in these remote mining communities?

Rick Steeby: Chicken and places like it were still very much frontier settlements. Alaska and the town are tame these days and commercial, but back then, especially in winter, you might have a dozen year-round residents and that’s it. During mining season, the population would swell, but these were tough, independent people who chose isolation over comfort.

In the book, I show how the residents of the Chicken vicinity – and I’m talking about more than a forty-mile radius of “town” – get together to celebrate the Fourth of July in the wake of a tragedy. That was how it really worked. People looked out for each other because they had to. Your nearest neighbor might be the only help you’ll get if something goes wrong.

Defiance Press: How do you research and verify historical details for your fiction?

Rick Steeby: I start with what I know from living there, but I also do extensive research for specific details. For example, I can look up weather conditions in Chicken, Alaska, on a specific date in 1960. The weather is one of the things that’s easy to check for any area in a particular year.

I have friends who were old timers on the Anchorage Police Department who can advise me about procedures and attitudes from that era, as well as a historian there. Same with the Alaska State Troopers. For Wyatt’s Texas background, I called a friend who’s a historian in Parker County, Texas. Her maiden name was Peoples, and she had relatives who were Texas Rangers, including one who was quite famous.

Defiance Press: What about the technology and forensic capabilities of the era?

Rick Steeby: That’s where research gets really interesting. I have to stop and Google things like what bodily fluids could be used to identify a suspect in 1961, or what communication systems were available in remote Alaska. People today are used to instant everything – instant communication, instant results, instant backup. In 1960s Alaska, you might wait days or weeks for information that we’d expect in minutes today.

This limitation actually creates better storytelling opportunities. When you can’t rely on technology, you have to rely on human intelligence, intuition, and old-fashioned detective work. Characters have to talk to each other, observe behavior, make logical deductions based on limited evidence.

Defiance Press: How do you balance historical accuracy with the needs of your story?

Rick Steeby: I generally work with places that exist in settings I have some familiarity with, so world-building is minimal. I report what’s there to a degree that people who have been there recognize it without getting bored, but I include enough detail so someone who’s never been there gets a feel for the surroundings without being overwhelmed with details that don’t matter to the story.

The key is making sure that nothing in my story contradicts what was actually possible in 1960. If I have a character using technology that didn’t exist yet, or referencing events that hadn’t happened, that breaks the illusion for readers who know the period.

Defiance Press: Your characters seem to reflect the real people you knew growing up. How do you draw from life while creating fiction?

Rick Steeby: In Alaska, the stories of our neighbors and their accomplishments made my life seem ordinary, even dull. A lot of their stories are woven into Gold Miner’s Daughter, combined into second and third-level characters, both good and bad.

Take Dottie, for example. She’s a compilation of strong, attractive, intelligent, successful women I knew growing up – single women who came to Alaska during construction of the Alcan Highway. These women had survived the Depression, made some desperate choices during desperate times, but went on to build successful careers and lives.

One woman I knew made no bones about working the highway as a prostitute during construction, but she retired from her candy business in the 1980s as a multimillionaire with the company she created and sold. These were women who didn’t take a second seat to anyone, and that strength comes through in my characters.

Defiance Press: What do you hope readers learn about Alaska and this era from your books?

Rick Steeby: I want them to understand what Alaska represented to people in that era – it was the last place where you could reinvent yourself, where your past didn’t necessarily define your future. It attracted people with courage, people running from something, people looking for something they couldn’t find anywhere else.

The Alaska I knew as a kid was full of people like my dad, who was a volunteer fireman. He went out and saved lives for free in his spare time. That was the Alaska spirit – ordinary people doing extraordinary things because the situation demanded it. Self-reliance wasn’t a philosophy; it was a survival skill.

Defiance Press: How does writing historical fiction compare to your other work set in contemporary times?

Rick Steeby: Historical fiction requires more discipline in research, but it also offers unique storytelling opportunities. In the modern era, many problems can be solved with technology – GPS, cell phones, computer databases, advanced forensics. In 1960s Alaska, characters had to solve problems with intelligence, courage, and the help of their neighbors.

There’s also something appealing about writing in an era before social media, before everyone was connected all the time. Characters had to rely on face-to-face communication, on reading body language and vocal inflections. It creates more intimate, more human stories.

Step back in time to experience the authentic Alaska of the 1960s in “Gold Miner’s Daughter” – coming soon from Defiance Press and Publishing.