Photos: Haines' Rosemary McGuire, one of a kind

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Rosemary McGuire is on top of the glacier behind Palmer Station on Antarctica. McGuire had just arrived to Palmer for the season and solstice was just around the corner.

Lifelong Alaskan Rosemary McGuire, 38, grew up in a Haines home without electricity or running water, has commercially fished out of Cordova, paddled miles of wild Alaska rivers (many of them with her dad, Tom), and now -- to no one's surprise -- published a book of Alaska short stories. "Creatures at the Absolute Bottom of the Sea" comes out this month from the University of Alaska Press. "Everything I've ever written has been about Alaska in some way or another. It's the place I know," McGuire says.

McGuire, who looks like she could play Peter Pan on Broadway, is shy when it comes to talking about herself. Friends describe her as curious, stubborn, capable, strong, smart and a bit of a dreamer. Her book may be surprisingly dark for some readers, but she thinks sad is a better description. "There's a sad undertow, and some are somewhat violent in a fishing-tragedy way," she says.

"The stories are all set in rural Alaska, and almost all in the fishing industry. I've been working on them off and on for about 10 years. I started fishing when I was 23, and it's been my bread and butter ever since.

"I've worked on boats as crew ever since," McGuire says. "Most have been commercial fishing boats, but I've also done quite a few stints on research vessels -- in Prince William Sound and in the Aleutians. In the winter, I work in Antarctica (more than 9,000 miles south). At the moment, I am running the boathouse at Palmer Station, on the Antarctic Peninsula. Work here includes just about everything from whale tagging to drilling rock for landing pins (to secure boats)."

It's her third season in Antarctica, and she's become something of a Ms. Fix-It, one day patching the Zodiac's rubber skin, the next maintaining motors and electronics, the next piloting scientists to locations where they're studying penguins and whales out to collect data. Few scientists know much about driving the boats, so she's particularly valuable.