BEAUFORT DELTA - Only a week before his 96th birthday, Mike Krutko's memory is as sharp as ever. He still has a lot of good stories to tell, but he doesn't think he'll keep writing them down. It's been six years since his autobiography, Mike Krutko's Amazing Adventures, was published, and the Yellowknife resident doesn't relish the idea of writing another book.

Mike Krutko is a great-grandfather, entrepreneur, trapper, author and former bush pilot now living in Yellowknife. - Ian Vaydik/NNSL photo

"It took me a long time to write this one," he laughed. "It certainly seemed like it was a long time."

Krutko, a great-grandfather, entrepreneur, trapper and former bush pilot now living in Yellowknife, spent many years living and working across NWT, the Yukon and northern Alberta, but he particularly treasures the memories he made over the span of 41 years in Fort McPherson. After several years away, Krutko drove back last summer, over the Dempster highway he helped build, back to the place where he raised his family.

There, his trading post-turned general store survived direct competition from the Hudson's Bay Company, he launched his own construction company, Krutko's Enterprises, and took up flying in the 1950s as the hamlet's only pilot.

He covered more than 100,000 miles in a decade during a time when air strips didn't exist in many of the North's small communities and chartered all types of people, from those in desperate need of medical attention to police, bishops and other trappers.

"I've flown a lot of people and I never charged anybody a penny," Krutko recalled, adding, "I always survived. I never got hurt in forced landings."

Those and countless more of Krutko's adventures are chronicled in great detail in his book, which lives up to its title. To retell his tales, he backed up his already nearly infallible memory with journal entries from the trapline and kept his meticulous habit of documenting accounts from the store.

Krutko's story has found its way into schools, museums and homes across the North and Alberta, where the author sells it out of his van to people he meets on his many travels. His next stop is the Baker's Centre bazaar later this month in Yellowknife, where he also takes computer courses and goes curling once a week -- though he said "I don't slide like I used to."

Learning more about computers has been important to him since he finished his book, although he didn't expect to take such a liking to the subject.

"I never went to the Internet or e-mail. I just wanted to learn enough to write a book and I did that," he said.

That pragmatic approach to life is why Krutko believes his book appeals to such a wide variety of people, from elders on prairie reserves to students on university campuses.

"I didn't criticize anybody. I just wrote about how people had to survive, more than anything."

Krutko said strangers often come up to him to tell him they loved his book, including a memorable encounter with a man who told him he couldn't put it down to sleep at night.

"I don't know who the guy was, but he sure enjoyed reading my book. And I had other people tell me the same thing," he said.

"My grandchildren come over and they say, 'Grandpa, I need two books because so-and-so wants them. You've got to sign them for me,' they say. So I say, 'well, OK.'"

But he's not in it for the money or the praise.

"I went through the Depression. I've worked for $5 a month in my life and I've worked for a lot of money in my life," Krutko said. "I'm not what you'd call a wealthy man but I have what I need."

We welcome your opinions. Click here to e-mail a letter to the editor.