Meet Kirsten Dixon

Kirsten received a U.S.P.H.S. scholarship to attend Syracuse University in New York. She graduated in 1980 with a baccalaureate degree in nursing and came to Alaska to fulfill her scholarship obligation working at the Alaska Native Medical Center. She worked in the intensive care unit at the hospital where she met her future husband, Carl, who was an audiologist at ANMC. They were married in December of 1981 and, in 1982, they both left their jobs to start a new adventure by building a wilderness lodge and beginning their tourism careers.

For the next fifteen years, Carl and Kirsten lived along the Yentna River with their two daughters, Carly and Amanda. Starting with one guest cabin that could accommodate four people, the Dixons began building their business one cabin at a time. The girls were home-schooled through the State of Alaska correspondence program in Juneau. Throughout this period, Kirsten discovered an interest in cooking and cuisine. She began to make educational journeys to Europe and throughout the States. She wrote about what she was learning in the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Magazine, and other publications. She wrote The Riversong Lodge Cookbook in 1994. This book is still in print and available through our website, amazon.com and other booksellers.  

Around the same time, Carl and Kirsten purchased two additional properties from long time Alaskans, the Branham family. The Dixons converted the small remote hunting camps into popular and successful tourism venues.

In 1987, Kirsten received the Self Magazine Fresh Start Award, which culminated in a congressional luncheon in Washington D.C. honoring excellence in achievement for women. In 1991, the Dixons received the Governor’s Exporter of the Year Award for Tourism. Kirsten has been named one of 10 best chefs of the Pacific Northwest by Pacific Northwest Magazine. She has been a guest chef twice at the James Beard House in New York. Condé Nast Traveler Magazine named one of the top 25 lodges in America. Kirsten’s award-winning cuisine has been featured in Bon Appetit Magazine, CNN, the Food Television Network and international publications such as Britain’s Food Illustrated. Carl and Kirsten received the first Chuck West New Pioneer Award under the new Alaska Tourism Industry Association in Fairbanks. Kirsten won a recipe contest sponsored by the Hankyu Oasis Corporation in Osaka, Japan in 1991. She spent a week in Osaka offering seafood cookery demonstrations in conjunction with ASMI promotions. She was invited to return in 1992.  Kirsten is an adjunct professor with the University of Alaska teaching culinary arts. She travels frequently to Japan. Kirsten visited China for 15 days in 1999 with the Women Chefs and Restaurateurs delegation hosted by the China Association for Science and Technology and participated in the Governor of Alaska's trade mission to China in October 2000 and his European mission in 2001.

Kirsten is an avid gardener, interested in collecting old Alaskan cookbooks and recipes, and enjoys researching the history of the regions where her lodges are located. Her second book, The Winterlake Lodge Cookbook was published in the fall of 2003. The Winterlake Lodge Cookbook won the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards for best female chef USA cookbook. Kirsten completed a master's degree in Gastronomy through the Cordon Bleu and Adelaide University, Australia in 2004. She is currently enrolled in the MFA program at Goddard College in Vermont.