Alaskan Bush People Bid Farewell to Browntown

It’s not an ending. It’s a whole new chapter.

This is how the Discovery Channel teased last night’s emotional episode of Alaskan Bush People, which featured the Browns making a move no loyal viewer of this reality show ever expected them to make:

They actually, literally moved.

A few months after Ami Brown was diagnosed with cancer and her loved ones opened up about the serious disease on the Season 7 premiere, patriarch Billy Brown met up with a friend who told him about a 40-acre plot in Colorado.

The family had already left their beloved home in Alaska for southern California, in order for Ami to receive treatment, but their future remained unclear.

How long did Ami actually have? Would they remain in California while she remained under doctor supervision? Would they return to the north after she sadly passed away?

These were the kinds of questions viewers discussed online, pondering whether this would be the final season of the popular series.

On Thursday night, a few answers were provided.

“We’ll shut the book on living in the forest and we’ll open a new book,” Ami herself told Billy, while her husband gave away their boat, Integrity, on nothing but a handshake.

This was how the boat was gifted to them, Bear explained, and the Browns wanted to help another family who yearned to live remotely.

“All good things must come to an end… but an end is also a new beginning,” said Bear as a way to cope with the major life change about to affect him and all his siblings.

With the season finale set for next week, it sounds as if an eighth season is actually on way for Alaskan Bush People.

But this isn’t the main focus of any family member or any fan of the series, of course.

Instead, all thoughts center on Ami.

Last we heard, she was in bad shape.

The star’s lung cancer has reportedly been diagnosed as Stage 4; her tumor is allegedly inoperable; and she’s been relegated to a wheelchair.

We really wish we had better news on her condition.

Earlier this season, young Rain opened up about her mother’s health, saying on an episode of the program:

“I don’t care who you are. I don’t care what you’ve been through. I don’t care how old you are. If you hear that your mother has cancer, it’s going to shock you.

“I just wish I could change it somehow. I’m very scared for her.”

Ami, however, does not want anyone feeling sorry for her.

She says she’s not afraid of what’s to come and she wants her husband and her seven kids to think positively and to simply live their lives.

“Bill and the kids are very loving and supportive. They’re all worried. I tell them, don’t worry. Please don’t worry. Be happy,” Brown said a few weeks ago, adding:

“Keep the faith. Good or bad, it’s God’s will and we’ll walk that road.

“There’s a lot for the kids to experience. I want to be there. I want to hold their babies. I want to hear them laughing …

“I want to see their eyes wide with enthusiasm as they experience these new things.”

Let’s all pray she gets the opportunity to do so.

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Alaskan Bush People Fans: Don"t Close Browntown! Honor Ami Brown"s Dream!

Alaskan Bush People‘s seventh and final season promised to include the biggest challenge and darkest moments yet in the series about a family roughing it in the wilderness.

Rumor proved true when Ami Brown’s lung cancer diagnosis was revealed.

Now fans of the family and the series have another concern about the family’s fate, and this time the worries are about the entire Brown clan.

You’d think that a television series that began right after their old home had been burned to the ground (for being on public land illegally) would end on a happier note than it began.

But that’s not how things always work out in life.

Especially not when we’re talking about people who are dedicated to living in the wilderness.

Ami Brown is receiving treatment in the “lower 48,” meaning in the US but not in Alaska (or Hawaii).

Obviously, with such heavy news and the final season of the series, there’s been talk of the Brown family closing down Browntown and rejoining civilization.

Billy Brown said as much.

And that is the new source of concern among some of the fans.

You might think that fans of the series, knowing that the series is ending anyway and wanting the best for the Brown family, would rejoice at that news that the Brown family would rejoin civilization.

(While, of course, still grieving for Ami Brown’s diagnosis)

But their reaction has actually been the opposite.

Fans use Facebook groups to discuss the series.

It’s understandable that they’ve become intensely attached to these people after watching them for so many years.

What’s a little more perplexing is the fan reactions to learning that the Brown family is all reportedly living in the lower 48.

Fans of Alaskan Bush People are asking the Brown family children to return to Browntown, because fans believe that it will honor the dedication and dreams of their parents.

They even hope that Noah’s fiancee, Rhain, will join the Brown family in the wilderness.

This speaks volumes about these particular fans.

In part, it says that they’ve become attached to Ami and Billy and their dream and lifestyle, rather than just to the younger characters.

There’s arguably a romantic quality to the idea of living in the woods and making it on your own.

People love The Hunger Games, after all. But those books and films are pretend.

The problem in Alaskan Bush People is that they had kids and raised their children in that way of life.

Kind of hard to get a fair start in life when you spend a lot of your childhood in temporary shelters, you know?

Regardless, they’re now (mostly) adults and reality stars and they’re all starting new chapters in their lives.

It’s more than a little unsettling to see so many fans wanting them to not do that.

What the Brown family members deserve is to live their own lives.

We’re sure that they’ll all have more opportunities in the future based on their existing fame.

Everybody could get a book deal, for starters.

Noah and Rhain can do their alternative/goth thing wherever their lives take them.

If this were happening a few years ago, we’d suggest that Bear Brown might get some modeling gigs.

Sometimes fans grow too attached the idea of the show and not the people.

If the folks on Naked and Afraid stayed on the show for more than half a decade, fans would probably be upset when it came time for them to put on clothes.

Fandom’s a weird thing, and endings are always bittersweet.

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