This season of Alaskan Bush People shows the Brown family relocating to the wilderness of Washington state after matriarch Ami gets treated for cancer in California. But why didn’t the family just pack up and move back to Alaska?

In an interview with Monsters and Critics, the Brown family explained it was Ami’s health that prevented them from going home to the bush. Ami needs to visit a doctor at least every three months to get scans to make sure her cancer hasn’t returned, and it’s safe to say there are probably not many places to get CAT scans in the Alaskan wilderness, or to quickly get her care if her health declined.

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

"When Mom collapsed over last Thanksgiving and we had to emergency rush her into the hospital," Gabe said, "that's around when the doctors were saying that if something like that happens and we live where we normally do, you're not going to have your mother, my dad's not going to have his wife."

And that limited what the Brown family was willing to do. "We didn’t really have much choice in how we decided," Billy said. "The doctors were quite emphatic that we couldn't go back there, it was just too hard to get her to…to set up something she would need if something happened. It's just too risky now."



This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

The family temporarily moved to Calfornia while Ami underwent treatment, and the Browns decided to balance their love of the wilderness with keeping Ami healthy. Their current property is 500 acres in Washington state, seven miles from any roads.

"If we were waiting until Mom was healed up to move back…it seems like one thing that may never happen and she would be constantly waiting," Bear said. "Alaska will always be home to me, personally, and to all of us, but family is more important and Mom just can’t live up there anymore."

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io