Bundled in sweaters, snow crunching beneath her boots, Suzi Simpson trekked onto Alaska's Colony Glacier with a small army of attendants in her wake. While the photo crew framed this month's northern exposures, Suzi gazed at the Chugach Mountains in the distance and let memories roll past like ice floes in a swift current. Cross-country skiing through the woods. Racing snowmobiles across frozen fields. Harnessing her pet Samoyed dogs to a sleigh for a mush down snowed-in suburban streets. The last time Suzi saw the Great North, she was 11 years old and tomboy tough. Her father, a career Navy man, was stationed in the Aleutian Islands, which meant a summer of midnight sun for his itinerant clan. The oldest of four children, Suzi learned her first lessons in independence early -- how to go along and get along but keep her self-image intact. "Some military children have a terrible time adjusting to a life that's maybe not the norm. They become really introverted people," she ...
