Seth Kantner's afternoons in northwest Alaska are not those of your typical writer.

On a recent weekend at his home in Kotzebue, Kantner spent time working on his snowmobile, cutting up caribou meat to dry, while intermittently "pounding out a few words," and then taking photographs of ravens cleaning up meat scraps.

"I guess I've got about four different careers going at all times," he said. "It just depends what day I'm filling out a paper that asks me my career, which one of those - commercial fisherman, hunter, photographer, writer - I put down in the slot."

Kantner, the acclaimed author of "Ordinary Wolves," will host a slide show presentation about wildlife, landscapes and growing up in northern Alaska at 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 15, at the downtown public library. The presentation also will include readings of his work, including his upcoming book "Shopping for Porcupine: A Life in Arctic Alaska," which is set for release in May.

Kantner has a home in Kotzebue where he says he does the majority of his writing, stores his photographs and is connected to the outside world via the Internet. It is up the Kobuk River, however, where his family spends as much time as possible, he said.

"Up the river is where I was born and raised; it's sort of where I like to be," Kantner said. "We divide our time up."

Kantner's latest book is quite different from "Ordinary Wolves," his award-winning debut novel about a fictional boy growing up in remote Alaska. "Shopping for Porcupine" is a series of essays and photographs about Kantner's life growing up in northern Alaska that highlight the changes witnessed during his lifetime.

"I talk about a life of hunting and moving toward the new Alaska, which is more jobs and money," Kantner said. "I've sort of swung from a subsistence lifestyle to a life of working as a photographer and a writer while still being a hunter and all that."

Juneau-based author Nick Jans said Kantner exhibits a unique and authentic Alaskan voice.

"Nobody else could do what he's doing," he said.

Long before the two were established writers, Jans and Kantner met each other 28 years ago in the small town of Ambler.

"First time I saw him, he was a 14-year-old kid walking in the Ambler Trading Post with his brother trying to sell fox skins," Jans said.

Kantner has shown the same resilience as a writer that he has as an outdoorsman surviving off the land in remote Alaska, Jans said. His writing captures an existence on paper that most people will never experience, he said.

"It's absolutely authentic, as far as a slice of life and what it's like to live in Bush Alaska," Jans said.

Kantner said he has also been working for years at capturing the authenticity of northwest Alaska through a telephoto lens. He has had numerous photographs printed in high-profile publications and has been selling prints for a number of years. "Shopping for Porcupine" will include the largest collection of his photographs published at one time, he said.

"I've been working for years to get photos that I've had in mind - say a caribou herd coming through a certain valley with the winter light on their trail," Kantner said.

And just like living in the Bush isn't easy, photography in the Alaska wilderness is not a simple task, Kantner said.

"Photography up here is fairly challenging; animals often run away and the weather is often bad," he said.

Kantner also spends his time writing for other publications, including working as a columnist for the Anchorage Daily News and as an online correspondent on climate change for Orion magazine. Kantner said climate change in northern Alaska is no longer just a vague idea.

"The easiest thing to see is we really have a lot later falls, maybe a month later than 20 years ago," he said. "The growth on the tundra is pretty crazy."

The longer summers are producing brush, berries and small spruce trees at a faster rate than can be remembered, Kantner said.

"We always have blueberries, but we never see anything like the growth of this past summer," he said. "There are all sorts of little things. I guess when you walk around on the tundra a lot, you notice these things."

Kantner said he is not sure how people will accept the different approach of his latest book.

"I guess I imagine people are divided into different camps as far as wanting fiction or nonfiction, and I'm hoping that people are excited to read a different genre here," he said. "I'll be writing fiction next. I started a third book that is fiction."

• Contact Eric Morrison at 523-2269 or eric.morrison@juneauempire.com.