"Can I help you?" asked Mossy Kilcher, when I pulled into the driveway of her ranch and stepped out of the car.

Mossy is Jewel Kilcher's Aunt. She is the proprietor of Seaside Farms, a Swiss Style ranch in Homer, Alaska. Homer is where her father, Yule Kilcher (Jewel's Grandfather), arrived from Switzerland in search of a safe place to bring his family. His journey was not one of leisure.

Homer is a small village on the Kenai Peninsula overlooking the Kachemak Bay in the south central part of Alaska. The Ranch is a vibrant plot of land with cabins, horse corrals, berry patches, moose crossings, camping pavilions, hiking trails, beach pastures, and a spectacular view of an enormous glacier working down the mountains on the other side of the Kachemak Bay.

"I'm looking for someone from the Kilcher family," I asked, unsure of who this woman was. "I want to know about Jewel's grandfather."

"That's Yule," she lit up, "I'm his daughter."

"I heard some stories about him," I said. "I heard he was a badass."

"[He] came over here from Switzerland in 1936 to look for land and then again in 1940 to stake it out," she said, proudly. "Things were bad in Europe and my parents didn't want to stay there. So my dad got a boat ride to Seward [Alaska]."

Seward is on the east side of the Kenai Peninsula. It was there where he met someone who told him about a small bush town called Homer. Yule liked what he heard.

"He had to cross the Harding Ice Field to get here," she says of his outrageous trek. "He just had a compass and some survival gear. It took him quite a few days."

Crossing an ice field is extremely dangerous. Only the likes of John Muir, Jon Krakauer or Yule Kilch should attempt that kind of a stunt. Ice fields are formed in mountains after thousands of years of snow pack into a highly dense lake of ice. Glaciers form when the field overfills and slowly flows down the mountain like a slow, lumbering frozen river. It rarely moves faster than an inch a year. They are rampant with crevasses that are often obscured by snow. If you fall into one of these you could slide over a mile into the depths of the ice and not come out for a thousand years. The upside is when you do come out, you will be perfectly preserved.

The Harding Ice Field covers 300 square miles and was uncharted when Yule crossed it: those are serious bragging rights. When Yule finally tackled it, he met some old-timers who gave him a lift in their boat.

"At the time," explained Mossy, "Homer . . . . was inaccessible by anything but boat. . . When he arrived he staked out some land and moved mom and us kids out there and that's how we grew up. . . . We lived on the land and shot moose and bear, to eat; we fished for silver salmon, and ate wild mushrooms, berries and greens, and even had a root cellar. We were home schooled too."

As she says that, her horses start neighing and stomping wildly and her dogs start barking. I ask her to pose with the horses. She agrees and stands by the horse trailer with the horses in the background and the dogs beside her. Just before I snap the picture the horses stampede away.

"Do you keep the fact that you are related to Jewel a secret," I ask after snapping the photo.

"Not a secret," she answered, "I just don't talk about it unless they ask. I don't advertise it. I don't want to use her. . . ."

"How has Jewel's success affected you?"

"It hasn't really affected our life very much. She's been very respectful of our privacy and we've been respectful of her needs. We're not in contact that much. She has a lot of security around her. She's very busy. She comes to visit every year though . . . And it's all very quiet and there's no big press about it. It's her retreat. She comes up here to get away from the busy life and ride horses. Her favorite horse is Enchantress."

Mossy Offers horse trips to the guests of seaside farms. Her website boasts, ". . . . Ride on the beaches of the Kachemak Bay. View the majestic mountains and the glacier as you ride through miles of beautiful scenery. . . . Stay in an historic cabin near beautiful Swift Creek. Cook over an open fire. . . "

"Starting when Jewel was eleven, she spent three summers living with me on the farm. She would go out on our horse trips and help me with the wrangling and the saddling and the cooking and cleaning . . . She sang and yodeled a lot on our trips. She had a wonderful yodeling voice even back then and we really enjoyed her company. She added a lot to those trips. Little did we know then that someday she'd be famous."

Mossy has owned Seaside Farms since the late 70's. It has cabins and campsites and a hostel where travelers can stay.

"This is a real, old Alaska Homestead that I acquired, and converted into a real Alaskan farm. Travelers come through and they help me and I help them. We have camping, cabins, long term and short term."

For more info go to http://seasidefarms.org