By Anne Groebner

I met Ielah (pronounced ila) Pratt through Made in Greer artisan gift shop in Pinetop. I had just read the book “Winterdance,” by Gary Paulsen and mentioned it to her one day while I was shopping. Gary Paulsen’s book is a hilarious depiction of training for and runnning sled dogs in the Iditarod. It is by far one of my favorite books. It turned out that she was good friends with Paulsen when she lived in Bemidji, Minnesota. So we started talking about sled dog racing, and she told me a few stories. 

For instance, she was hauling raw meat for Paulsen’s dogs, but not any kind of meat — frozen raw beaver. They were hauling them, in their station wagon, back to Bemidji, after they stopped in Superior, Wisconsin. The weather was cold when they left so they thought the meat would be fine.They stopped to eat, and after they ate they went shopping for stained glass. By the time they got back to the car, the temperature had warmed and the odor was pretty bad.They drove all the way to Bemidji with the windows down.

In her book of poems, titled “Raindrops,” she writes about a northern experience of running her dogs. “We traveled through an Ansel Adams landscape. Gliding over a pristine trail…”

Ielah finishes with,“I thought then, ‘this is as close as I will ever get to skiing.’ I think now that may have been as close as I will ever get to heaven.” 

Her poems are amazing.

Ielah was born and raised in Topeka, Kansas, but she loves the mountains and lived in the Pikes Peak region of Colorado for many years. She works in leather and is an incredible beader, something she learned when she moved to Minnesota. She draws inspiration from her “great northern adventure” — the time she lived just outside Bemidji. It was there that she met and worked with artisans who helped her develop her lifelong passion and art form. She calls her time there “the days of the Frontier.” It was a time that changed her life.

She lived in Iowa for 13 years on the beautiful bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River. While she was there, she wrote and published three children’s books: “Trouble on the Trail,” “A Haircut for Henri,” and “Nana, Read It Again.” She credits her storytelling to her grandparents, whose stories she never tired of, and her illustrating from her mother, who was a wonderful sketch artist.

Some friends who lived in the White Mountains of Arizona invited Ielah to visit, and she fell in love with the area and has lived in Pinetop, now, for over 10 years. She loves everything about the mountains: hiking and the local history. She also loves spending time with her many good friends. “Finally,” she says, “she has found her forever home.”



You can see Ielah’s beautiful handiwork at Made in Greer in Pinetop, Arizona, at Times Square Plaza across from Charlie Clark’s.