
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 7, 1994                   TAG: 9412070108
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: MELISSA DeVAUGHN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

HOMESTEADER-TURNED-WRITER TELLS KIDS ABOUT ALASKA ADVENTURES

She lived alone in the Alaskan bush, out in the country where her only companions were 52 sled dogs she trained for races. The closest road was 40 miles away. There was no running water.

"I spent most of my time reading and running dogs," said Shelley Gill, one of the first women to complete the 1,049-mile Iditarod sled dog race from Anchorage to Nome. "That was the life I was living then, but now if I were back there, I'd spend all my time writing."

Gill, an accomplished children's author, was in Blacksburg this week, sharing stories of her adventurous life as sled-dog racer, writer and Alaskan homesteader.

The audience - pupils at Margaret Beeks Elementary School - listened and watched in awe as Gill spun stories and showed pictures she brought from her home in Homer, Alaska.

"You know, there are bears everywhere in Alaska," Gill told the children who hung on to every word. "Only in Alaska can you look out at the woodpile and see a grizzly bear snooping around."

Gill also told the children about grizzly bears, Kodiak bears and - best of all - the big, white polar bears who, for fun and games, enjoy knocking out the lights along airport runways.

"The polar bear, he's a solar-heated bear," she told the children, who instantly began laughing. "If you look closely, their hair is actually see-through, but their skin is black."

Gill, along with her 5-year-old daughter, Kye, makes these trips each month to the lower 48 states, promoting her children's books, six of which have made the best-seller list. Her visit to Margaret Beeks was the result of a grant supplied by NationsBank of Blacksburg and the Beeks PTA.

Gill, 40, has been living in Alaska for 21 years, and she says there's nowhere she'd rather be. "Even when I was a kid I wanted to go there," she said. She talks about her home with a sincere fondness that comes from years of living and learning about the area. In fact, that's how her career in children's writing began.

"My first job was at the Tundra Times, a native newspaper," Gill said. But later, Gill felt the need to do more.

"I realized that kids in Alaska didn't have any real books that celebrated their lifestyle and their culture," Gill said. What followed was Gill's first book, "Kiana's Iditarod," in 1983, about one of Gill's sled dogs on her Iditarod race of 1978. Other books include "Thunderfeet - the Story of Alaska's Prehistoric Critters," "Alaska's Three Bears," "Mammoth Magic" and "North Country Christmas."

Gill has expanded her children's writing to include textbooks about the Iditarod, which can be used in conjunction with lesson plans. The integrated curriculum is being used successfully in Virginia.

So what's in store for a writer who seems to have accomplished everything she set out to do?

"I've got about five picture book ideas, three juvenile ideas and I'm hoping to write some memoirs on journalism in Alaska," she said.

by CNB