Adulthood Gary Paulsens adulthood was very exiting and full of adventures. Gary had many other jobs before he became a successful writer. He worked as an electronics field engineer, a soldier, actor, truck driver, singer, and sometimes as a teacher. One of his biggest loves was training and racing in the 1,180 mile Alaskan dog sled race the Iditarod. He suffered a heart attack shortly after a race and was forced to stop racing. He switched his obsessive training schedule over to writing.