Petersburg Pilot -

John Charles Ellis, the youngest of four children was born to Chet and Margaret Ellis on May 20, 1947 in Juneau, Alaska.

The Ellis family lived near the Mendenhall Glacier, homesteading behind Auke Lake. Young John spent his first ten years subsisting with the family in the lifestyle of wood stoves, coal oil lamps, outhouses, and water buckets. They survived on a menu of venison and fish in addition to vegetables grown in a big garden. Early on in John’s life he spent summers trolling with Chet as they kept a watchful eye out for creek robbers for the USFWS. His Dad passed away in the f...