No man can outrun Father Time, especially in the Alaska Bush where life remains closer to the age-old struggles of nature than the comforts of the modern age. But Joe Delia gave it one hell of a try.

For 50 years, Delia was an institution along the Skwentna River. Time Magazine profiled his life in 1970 under a headline that read: "The Vanishing World of Trapper Joe Delia.'' 

Delia was 40 then, and it might have seemed the world he knew was vanishing. It wasn't. It was changing in ways that no one could quite predict. The Alaska population boom that was threatening the lifestyle of those who knew the Alaska Bush turned into something of a population dud. Alaska grew, but it didn't grow in Skwentna. The back-to-the-Earth hippies went back to town. Alaska coalesced around a few major cities. It continues to do so.

And now Delia lives in one of those cities. The Iditarod Air Force, a crazy gang of volunteers who fly small planes for the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, descended on the community of Skwentna last week to help Joe and wife, Norma, pack their belongings for a move to town. At the age of 82, with his health not the best, Joe has been pretty much forced to accept civilization. Life in the city is infinitely easier than life in Skwentna.

Not that Joe wanted to go. Everyone agrees on that. "It's heartbreaking," said friend Bonnie Childs.

Childs used to manage the Skwentna Roadhouse, which her parents built 30 years ago. Skwentna has always been home, and she's now moved back. Her husband, Steve, is taking over Delia's job as postmaster. He'll be manning the tiny, log post office just up the bank of the Skwentna River across the water from the airstrip. It won't be the same without Joe .

Delia was an institution in a community so small it isn't even called a town. It's considered a "census designated place." And in this census designated place, Joe loomed large. Skwentna without Joe Delia seems to many sort of like the Alaska Range without Mount McKinley.

"He's like one of those old landmarks," said Danny Davidson, a volunteer pilot for the Iditarod Air Force for 32 years now, working in his own way toward becoming a landmark. Davidson and Joe Delia go way back. There are a lot of people who duck in and out of the Alaska Bush (including the author of this story) who have that sort of relationship with Joe. The people who've warmed themselves against bitter cold or blizzard conditions in Delia's home over the years number in the hundreds, if not the thousands.

One of his homes Delia gave to the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. He moved out of that one and into another in 2008. There was some talk then about his moving to town. Norma was ready. Joe fought it every step of the way.

"He did not want to go to town," Childs says. Delia loved Skwentna, though there isn't much there to love by 21st century American norms: an airport, a school that closed down because there weren't enough students, a few houses scattered in the woods, the Roadhouse, and, of course, the river and the forests that sprawl north and east toward the Alaska Range. Delia loved the forests around Skwentna and the wildlife that lived there. He was a modern-day mountain man. He tried to take his snowshoes, rifle and pack with him on the plane when he left -- just in case.

He told friends maybe he could get a snowmachine in Anchorage and drive back out to Skwentna to trap in the winter. It's 90 long miles by trail, a long ride even for a younger man in the best of health. It's not the sort of drive Delia is up to making these days, but letting go of a place you love is a hard thing for a man like Delia. The country becomes part of you are. It's a piece of your soul.

"He came up to see me the last time I was there, and he was not tickled to leave," Davidson said.