By Kate Henry

I met Fred Agree last November at one of the early fundraising efforts for the Homer Independent Press. His off-beat humor immediately grabbed my curiosity. Knowing absolutely nothing about him, I sought him out for an interview, only to discover I had stumbled into a remarkable human being.

As I sat listening to Fred and his partner, Nona Safra, share stories of his early days in Alaska, I let my imagination wander back through time, as if stepping into an ice core sample from the 1970s. I pictured him and his sled dogs rising up from the long settled layers of sediment and ash, the young homesteader running his dogs around the Trapper Creek area where he lived.

Born and raised in Philadelphia in a Jewish family, Fred was always a man of spirit and contrast, eventually earning himself the title “Alaska’s Vilde Chaye,” a Yiddish term meaning “wild or rambunctious person.” With a strong connection to his family and Jewish roots, he made his way to Alaska after spending time in Israel and South Africa where he found himself trying on a variety of hats like war-time truck driver, officer in the British South African Police and Spaghetti Western extra.

An old itch began tugging at Fred sometime in 1972. An ever-present desire for adventure and “trouble,” as he says, called him back to America, and he soon found himself driving north to the 49th state. His plan was never to stay, but Alaska has a way of holding onto souls like his, and an offer to work the pipeline at $93,000 a year plus a promise of 160 acres of state homestead land may have sealed the deal. He built a cabin with no electricity or running water, graciously received hydration from a neighboring pond, and took in his evenings under the light of a humble kerosene lamp.

Fred very quickly became involved with dogs as he settled into life in Trapper Creek. Having grown up with them, he decided to get a couple dogs for fun. At the time, there were 17 dog mushing groups in the neighborhood, and his evolution into mushing as a lifestyle flowed, like water into ice, quite naturally into being. He built up his team and in 1984, Fred and his dogs entered their first Iditarod, marking the beginning of a 38 year adventure with the race. He still volunteers at the start on occasion, and in 1990, he was one of the last two people to carry out the U.S. Census by dog team.

Fred and Nona met at a summer camp in 1957. Nona said, “He was the kid in camp that was incorrigible. He was sneaking out of camp to buy beer at 11 years old. He had a bad reputation.”


They forged their own paths in life for many years, but eventually reconnected through Facebook and have been together ever since. 

Nona is an incredible individual in her own right and spends much of her time volunteering these days. Nona is currently working on The  Alaska Friendship Circle All Inclusive Play Center in Anchorage. The building should be breaking ground hopefully in May, and the project is scheduled for completion next year if all goes as planned. She shared a copy of the plans with current costs and vendor information with the City of Homer for use for the project study as they plan the new recreation center.

Nona collects art, including several pieces from John Van Zyle, and Curt Wagner, both Alaskan artists and friends of the couple. Fred’s cabin on Honolulu Creek is featured in two paintings she showed me. She spends a lot of time fundraising and organizing auctions for local charities. 

“People leave the state and give us stuff because they say we’ll know what to do with it,” Nona said. 

This Mother’s Day, she’s working on an auction whose proceeds will go towards fixing the elevator at the Homer Senior Center. She also contributes to saving Leonhard Seppala’s house in Nome. Leonard was a renowned Norwegian-American sled dog musher, breeder, and trainer who became a legendary figure in Alaskan history for his heroic role in the 1925 “Great Race of Mercy”. His house in Nome is currently undergoing restoration to become a museum. 

Fred is still pursuing adventures. These days, they may be slightly less dangerous but no less extreme. It turns out he’s an avid license plate collector and trader. He and Nona showed me license plates from all over the world. For many years he worked as a  sign-maker, running  a company called The Alaska SIGNtist, specializing in making signs and patches for various organizations. He has some plates from when he lived in Africa in the 1960s from countries that don’t exist anymore. 

I asked them to tell me what wellness looks like for them, and I was inspired to learn about their dedication to faith. Nona informed me they frequent the Synagogue in Anchorage or Zoom into service regularly. She also mentioned the Lubavitcher Movement, also known as Chabad, which is a major movement in Hasidic Judaism focused on refining character and fostering love.

She said, “We all have the light inside of us and you have to shine your light. No matter what happens, you bring that light and light up the world.”

Also, everyday, Fred needs to be outside. Growing up, the only time he spent inside was either to eat or sleep. Nature is healing and it has offered Fred so much challenge and joy throughout the years. Of course, Fred also told me to “stay in trouble,” which I’m pretty sure is one of the main ingredients in his secret sauce for life. 

Fred’s spark is apparent when you meet him at 80 years old, and I can only imagine how his curiosity showed up to every moment as a young man. He strikes me as someone who is more about action than philosophy, I believe he might be on to something here. 

Fred’s lead dog was named “God” and his wheel dogs — the sled dogs at the back of the team and closest to the sled — were Sodom and Gomorrah after the Biblical story of two towns that were burned to the ground. When the people left they were told not to look back. The motto of his team and the moral of the story is to never look back, and to always look ahead to God, to the gift in the present moment, or to the light of what is to come. 

This makes sense to me as most of human suffering comes from our attachments to things in life being different than they are. In other words, most pain occurs when there is distance between how we believe things should be and how they actually are. The space between is where you’ll find what’s dragging you down, a.k.a your attachments. Whether you believe in a creator or not, I see the wisdom in the story. It reminds you to keep your eyes on the road in front of you, and look for the light in and around you everyday. It’s there, even if you have to squint sometimes to see it.