Bernie Karl

Bernie Karl was born the sixth of sixteen children and grew up on a farm in Peoria, Illinois. Bernie’s father was a world-class photographer for Caterpillar, the company that manufactures heavy construction and mining equipment and has its home base in Peoria. Bernie worked at Caterpillar until, at age 20, itchy feet and a dream of making it big had him venturing north to the Last Frontier, moving to Alaska during the pipeline boom of the 1970s.