I climb into the two-engine aircraft at the Anchorage airport, ducking low and scooting onto a small seat next to a man in well-worn work boots and heavy winter gear. No armrest. I meld against my stocky flying companion. The cabin is chilly, and I can’t argue the benefits of this compact arrangement.

Tourists are initiated quickly to the Alaskan way of life when they climb into this puddle jumper. Comfortable in jogging outfits and still-clean white sneakers, they look surprised at the casualness, lack of personal space — and the banter of regulars returning from a two-week rotation on the “slope” — Prudhoe Bay oilfields that butt up to the Arctic Ocean at the top of Alaska.

I wear dark denim and a no-nonsense black jacket. There is no space under the seat and no overhead bins for carryons, so I clutch a tote bag on my lap.

For years, I’ve flown from Denver, “home,” to the Kenai Peninsula where I grew up, yet, I anticipate the thrill of taking off. Behind me, fishing poles flail about and tackle boxes slide across the floor as the plane climbs steeply into the air.

Ruth and Roger Rupp’s house, at the Rupp Aircraft Services Center, lies just across the airstrip from the Gaede-Eighty homestead.

The plane gains altitude and the Anchorage shoreline disappears behind us. “There’s a fire extinguisher up here in the cockpit and one under the back seat,” the co-pilot calls back.

The flight will take us over the Cook Inlet, and he adds, “Your seats are flotation devices.” The murky water is frigid — no one would survive. But these planes haven’t fallen out of the sky yet.

I think back to 1961 when my parents moved to the Kenai Peninsula. My father, Elmer Gaede M.D., joined the medical practice of Paul Isaak, the only physician in Soldotna, and one of few on the peninsula. Back then, we didn’t make a quick 20-to-30 minute jaunt between Anchorage and Kenai.

Instead, we drove a pot-holed gravel road for three hours, a road that now has straightened curves, allowing travelers to relax and soak in stunning snow-capped mountains, blue lupines in early summer, or an autumn roadside of cottony, faded-magenta fireweed. Regardless of the season, you can see specks of mountain goats teasingly mixed with patches of snow along Turnagain Arm or round a corner to find moose foraging in the ditch.

The sound of the plane engines change pitch as we drop altitude. I can catch glimpses of the town of Kenai as it sprawls along the banks of the inlet. Low, flat buildings plopped down amid unplanned streets that showed up as needed.

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Inside the small terminal, I look for my sister, Ruth, while the folks around me greet one another. They’re dressed in muted-color sweatshirts, jackets with wood-fire singes, flannel and sandy boots, with gloves sticking out of pockets. “Grunge” might be a descriptor, but they are Alaskans with no nod to fashion: realistic, make-do kind of people.

Just like my mother could, they can fix anything with fishing line, duct tape, baling wire or a piece of corrugated tin. Nothing is thrown away; all is saved “just in case.” They have their priorities: airplanes over SUVs, snowmachines rather than fancy or finished houses, mid-calf rubber boots in the summer rather than Teva sandals.

Just like the settlers who pioneered the wild west, the men and women in the rugged north work side by side, setting fish nets on a raw and blustery day; trimming branches on felled trees; stoking a brush pile until it crackles and the smell of smoke hangs in the air; slamming in fence posts to keep moose from munching on their cherished rose bushes; or landing an airplane on a sandbar.

They are independent, resilient, sometimes coarse, but always optimistic — or they wouldn’t stay in this Last Frontier that lures tourists in the summer and tests the strength of sourdoughs in the winter.