I was always fascinated with Alaska – exploring it, flying above it, and knowing the science behind it. While in college, I spent a semester in Alaska and got hooked. I wound up selling my truck to buy a pretty rough 1950 Piper Pacer floatplane in order to build up my flight time and some true “Alaskan Experience,” critical in getting a flying job in Alaska. I flew around the state building my experience as funds would allow. After college, I worked in the field for the US geologic survey in Alaska and then went to grad school in Earth Science, which partly freed my summers up to spend working as a bush pilot out of King Salmon Alaska. I worked for an air taxi company flying hunters, scientists and tourists around the Alaska Peninsula, as well as working for a remote fly fishing lodge flying guests to and from spectacular lakes and rivers for premium fly fishing. I knew I wanted to live full time in Alaska, and began looking for a plot of land large enough to host an airstrip somewhere in or near Homer, which I fell in love with.

A real estate agent told me about a remote homestead property that was for sale for relatively cheap as it had just been logged from the beetle kill blight that ravaged southern Alaska forests in the mid 1990’s, and it was tough to access being at the end of a 3 mile dirt road. Thus was inaugurated the “Stump Ranch”, where I fixed up and moved into the old A-frame, built a hanger, and began commuting to the Homer airport from an ancestral seismic line trail on the property, about a 5 minute hop via the Pacer.

I lived on and off this property through the years, and I ran my air-taxi business from here, but when not living on the property I recreated on it with family and friends via hikes and atv trails that I built.

27 years after purchasing the property and having it regenerate itself from stumps, I finally decided on its purpose with me, to share with others as a remote wilderness and wildlife park. 

-Clifford Gill