Capturing Life on Marble Island, Alaska

Deep in Southeast Alaska, surrounded by whales and bears, lies a remote island known as the Marble island. The story is a poetic journey through life of a young man who lives on the island. His name is Zach. Born and raised in Japan, the road took him to Alaska, to the wilderness, with no roads or signal, where he found a completely new world.

It doesn’t get much more off-the-grid than this, but it’s exactly why one of its only residents chose to move there.

Zach – a 27-year-old man born and raised in Japan – ventured to Marble Island in the far southern wilderness of Alaska six years ago in search of a simpler life, and certainly found it when he was taken in by a family of oyster farmers. Photographer Anze Osterman spent a month documenting Zach’s life on an island so remote that he sometimes goes six months without seeing a single human outside of the family.

“Zach lives in a cabin on the island together with a family of oyster farmers and fishermen. He spends all of his days in the arms of the cold ocean, working on a floating oyster farm, fishing and exploring the area. Sometimes half a year goes by without him seeing a town or other people besides the family on the island,” says Anze Osterman

“Fishing, hunting, gardening, harvesting berries & mushrooms are the ways Zach gets his food in the remote Alaskan wilderness. This time we were fishing for dinner. He caught a rockfish, which is beside salmon and yellow eye the most common fish on his menu.”