How to Poop in an Outhouse at -58°C

There are remote places, and then there is the part of Alaska where Kona Morris found herself living at 19. So far north that even being anchored out in Anchorage would constitute a relatively leisurely urban existence. For this very north west right of passage, even Michelle would be shocked. Morris’s five-year adventure in a remote village beyond the road system is the stuff of another world. Yet, in How to Poop in an Outhouse at -58°C, she tells it with such disarming simplicity that the extraordinary becomes entirely believable.

Morris met a Native Alaskan man while travelling through Colorado and, unwilling to say goodbye, drove him home – and driving home was not a ten-minute ride sort of thing. Love and adventure took her – well – let her tell you that its equivalent is from Gibraltar to Tromso, and then some. Arriving north of the Arctic Circle, she encountered grizzly bears, wolves, the Northern Lights, enormous whirlpools and temperatures at which even aircraft can no longer operate.

The title is, of course, an irresistible invitation to find out precisely what happens when nature calls at -58°C. There are practical tips along the way. But the outhouse is really the gateway to a much bigger story about love, adventure, growing up, community and finding your place in an environment where almost everything familiar has been stripped away.

Morris is a natural storyteller. Her apparently innocent, almost “little girl lost” vocal style somehow redresses the sheer scale of the story told. Against the vastness of the Arctic Circle and the Alaskan wilderness, it makes her experiences seem all the more enormous – and all the more incredible. She paints pictures in the mind with remarkable ease. Of course, making something look effortless takes enormous effort, and her hour of storytelling is a masterclass in precisely that.

There is humour, but also genuine wonder. Her descriptions of baby bald eagles learning to fly, the Northern Lights and life beside the Yukon give the performance an almost cinematic quality. Everything outside that extraordinary wilderness suddenly seems rather tame.

There is a special guest. I won’t spoil the reveal, but that arrival prompted an affectionate outburst from the audience and provides a beautifully judged conclusion to a remarkable story. Morris describes the show as her “gift to the world”. It certainly feels like one. Bring your sense of adventure. Leave your assumptions about Alaska at the door of the outhouse.