How it all started:

Just an off-grid lady and a golden goddess!!! Faith has lived off-grid in Southeast Alaska her entire life. She was raised in Hoonah and then moved to Point Agassiz when she was 12. Point Agassiz is a tiny community of around 5 full-time families and several more part-time residents, 10 miles by boat from Petersburg. Point Agassiz is on the mainland, but is cut off from the rest of the world by huge glacier covered mountains. Point Agassiz is in the Tongass National Rain-forest. It is the perfect area for a remote homestead for anyone who loves to hunt, fish, trap, and explore this great land. Faith has excelled in all of those activities, and for almost 14 years Audie was by her side.

While Audie wasn’t Faith’s 1st golden, she was the matriarch that started Nelson’s Golden Retrievers of Alaska. Audie has been described in her younger years as the buffest dog that ever lived. She never left Faith’s side, whether it was hiking, biking, or beach-combing for dinner. While Faith raked back the seaweed to expose hidden Dungeness crabs, Audie would slurp up her “blennies” (little mini flat fish that looked like eels) as if they were spaghetti noodles. Audie was a riot in her old age as whenever she was on a walk with you she would nip your hands and bark at you to kick pine cones down the road so she could run them down and chomp them. She was also a natural born mouser, and even up to her dying day if you yelled the word mouse she would spring up and perk up her ears and grin at you as she checked her “trap-line” going along and checking all the mouse traps around the house. When excited, especially right before a run or while mousing, she would stand than and shift from one front foot to the other making a tap-tap sound. If you woke up to tap-tap…tap-tap… …tap-tap, it meant Audie was hot on the trail of a mouse. Standing there staring at the mouse trap in the bathroom, waiting for it to catch her a mouse. Then she would take it trap and all and guard it from all the other dogs. A low growl was all the other dogs needed to know that Audie was still top dog and that that was her mouse! She was quite the successful trapper over the years!!!

Then along came Saga. Saga has been said to be the most gorgeous, classic, stoic, stud-muffin of a golden to ever run the beaches of Point Agassiz, Alaska. Whether he is running with the 4-wheeler, riding in the back of a truck, or hiding from a litter of puppies, he is the definition of majestic. He has the biggest paws and the nose of a grizzly bear. He is the gentlest dog around. He can be found by the side of Steve, Faith’s father, during the day or in his lap at night. Saga is one of the gentlest creatures there is. He is the current Stud at Nelson’s Golden Retrievers of Alaska, but will be retiring soon.

Cammo, became the next apple of Saga’s eye. She thought she was a husky and hated being inside. Even in the winter she preferred to sleep on the porch. And she had the fur to back that up! By far she was the smartest dog Faith owned. Cammo would invent her own games. She would take her ball and roll it under the bookshelves or China hutch from one end then go to the other end and try to get it out, even when she knew she could get it from the original side. She hated being inside so when it was storming Faith had to invent games to keep her busy inside.

It started by putting a ball inside a see-through Tupperware. That didn't take long to figure out. So then the ball in the Tupperware went under a flipped over tote, again she would sit and think then quickly figure it out. Then it was inside a Tupperware, under a tote, covered in a blanket, with a chunk of firewood on top. She would watch you do it and undo what you did. So then you had to put her in the other room and set up a puzzle and she would have to figure it out on her own!!!

Her biggest flaw was that she loved carrying rocks around. She would dive in the ocean and bring up a rock and carry it 3 miles back to the house. No matter what they tried she refused to give up rocks. She was an amazing mother, except for that one time on her 1st litter she tried bringing the newborns her favorite rock!!! THUMP!!! Luckily she dropped it away from the pile of little ones! Living near the beach and around dozens of gravel pits makes it hard to break them of that habit, so she had to get patted down after that so there were no pancake babies.

In 2019, right around Cammo’s 2nd birthday, Faith shocked the tiny community of Point Agassiz by announcing she had met a man named Cody on the internet. It was a shock because having lived off-grid for nearly all of her life, Faith had never even had a boyfriend. Luckily, for him, she finally fell head over heels for him, and he was accepted into the pack in 2020. I’m sure him showing up with a bag full of elk antlers for Saga, Audie, and Cammo definitely helped!

Cody who is a disabled Army veteran, had been living off-grid on a fly-in/snowmachine-in lake up in the Interior of Alaska. On Faith’s dating profile there was a picture of a litter of Golden's in a little red wagon. Cody’s opening line was “you had me at Radio-Flier full of duck dogs!” No answer. 3 days later she emailed him back and said “you do know those are goldens and not yellow labs? I just raise family dogs, not hunting dogs” to which he replied “you do know that a golden’s last name is retriever!?!’ And the rest is history!

Oaklie, (AKA Oak, Oakie-Dokie, Annie Oaklie, Oakl-ahoma) was the first dog Cody & Faith got together. She was a started dog out of Montana who unfortunately just didn’t have the hard drive to hunt that the field-grade breeders were looking for, so she came to Alaska to join the Nelson pack at 11 months old. She has show lines and is absolutely beautiful. She ties Saga as the most gentle lap dog and if anybody in the house gets in trouble and you raise your voice, Oak is the first to climb in your lap to apologize! It was kind of surprising to everybody when Oaklie took over from Audie as leader of the pack. She does have the mama dog energy to back it up now and she keeps the younger pups in line! This current litter of 2025 will be Oaklie’s 3rd litter. They make the best family dogs as they come from the two biggest sweethearts.

Because Cody had brought up a good point “Golden’s last names are Retriever” Faith and him decided to branch out and start offering field-grade golden line as well as family dog line. There are a lot of hunters in Alaska and most hunters prefer to get the more driven field-grade hunting companions. That's when Sonar and Stihl entered the chat!

Sonar is as lean as she is smart. She is fast and likes to be the mediator/enforcer. When the younger pups get wound up she bursts into the room and tells everyone to simmer down! When Sonar was around 6 months old Cody developed psychogenic non-epileptic seizures due to severe chronic pain from his injuries he sustained in a bad training accident in the Army 18 years prior. For some reason Sonar picks up on the electrical signals from Cody’s seizures and has become a service dog for him. She can tell from another room when he’s about to seize and runs in and barks, alerting Faith that Cody is having another seizure. This has saved him many, many times as he has dozens to hundreds of seizures a day, many days a week.

Stihl, who literally showed up the day Cody was 1st hospitalized due to the seizures, will soon be our main stud. We haven't had the heart to tell Saga yet, but I think he’s beginning to wonder who this other dude is sniffing around his ladies!!! While Saga is absolutely majestic and especially stoic in his old age, Stihl is downright beautiful. He is a little over 2 but still acts like a puppy at times, and yips when he gets too excited. He is a goof ball and a dork and is a great buddy. He loves playing fetch. We are arranging to get him and Sonar OFA tested so we can start breeding them now that they are old enough.

The main goal was to train Sonar and Stihl to hunt but unfortunately due to Cody’s constant seizures he was unable to train them, yet but hopes to in the future. Sadly he has been unable to duck hunt in some time but hopefully with enough surgeries he will eventually be able to at least pop a few birds with his 4 legged buddies from time to time.

The next in the golden line-up is Kicker (a spare outboard motor used for trolling and as a backup if your main engine on your boat dies) Kicker is the daughter of Saga and Oaklie, from their 1st litter. She is very lean and is a cuddle bug like both her parents. She loves to play and carry things to you, seeing how many toys she can fit in her mouth at once. She will eventually be bred to Stihl to continue our family line of dogs.

N.Audie, AKA New Audie, was from Cammo’s last litter. At the time we had put the cap at 7 dogs. Faith really wanted one of Cammo’s pups but Cody put his foot down. But then Audie was showing her age and did not look like she was going to be around much longer. We wanted to immortalize her so we thought it’d be funny to have a New Audie… N.Audie…. Naughty is more like it!

But Old Audie had the last laugh as she stuck around another year and a half! N.Audie is just like Cammo. She prefers to be outside even when the other dogs come in. She’ll play all day with the younger dogs but is just as happy hanging out on one of the porches. She’s a goof ball and is the softest, whitest pup since her mom. And boy did she inherit her dads speed! She also loves to go for a ride. even if you’re just hooking up the boat.

And last but not least is Yami (Yamaha). Yami, is a female from Oak and Saga’s 2nd litter, and white for a few weeks she looked like her sister and was hard to tell them apart, she now makes her sister look tiny. She has Oakley and Saga’s big block head and is Cody’s best bud. She is stocky and still very much a puppy who has started to pick up on Cody’s seizures as well and has naturally started to climb on top of him and hold him down, which is what they teach certified seizure service dogs to do. We think it is because Cody seizes in his sleep, in his recliner and Yami sleeps on his lap a lot and apparently just really loves roller coasters! She will lick his arms and face which helps to snap him out of a seizure. If you are someone disabled who is looking for a pup to send off to get trained as a service dog, this line may be a great candidate!