More Than a Tourist #2

June 3, 2015September 21, 2015 / Professional Nomads / 5 Comments

We continue our exploration into what it means to be “More Than a Tourist” with a submission from Patrick Kelly! After graduating with a master’s degree in outdoor and environmental education at Alaska Pacific University, Patrick seized an opportunity to participate in a week-long cultural exchange in the village of Tatitlek. In this piece, Patrick shares details from his impactful experience, and reflects on the greater importance of adventure, especially when juxtaposed against insulated, cruise ship tourism.

Want more from Adventures in Aperture? Check back Friday, June 5th for the next installment of “More Than a Tourist,” or click “follow” in the sidebar and let us remind you. New photo journals from readers like you will be published every other day for the next two weeks!

Click on the first photo to expand Patrick’s photo journal into a storybook!

: Leaving Whittier, my contingent from Alaska Pacific University embarked for the village of Tatitlek to teach kayaking for the Peksulineq Cultural Heritage Week.

: Over the course of the week we got dozens of new kayakers, Alaska Native and non-Native, onto the water.

: A theme of the week was traditional subsistence food. The seal was hunted, skinned, and cleaned. The meat from the seal was eaten later in the week. Two visiting Alaska Native artists collected the bladder for a traditional bladder ceremony and gave the seal a drink of water to assist in its return to the spiritual realm. This beautiful tradition of giving thanks has been lost in many villages today.

: The land of the midnight sun extends to Prince William Sound as well. The village is a breathtakingly beautiful place, with its scattered children’s bicycles and distinguished dogs adding a flare of the pragmatic.

: After the bladder ceremony, releasing the bladder of the seal back into the ocean, we had signs of its spirit as free once more. That evening, two seals were spotted off of the ferry dock, an extreme rarity, and later that night, the Aurora came out full-bore. The lights danced for an hour beginning at exactly midnight. The lights whipping across the sky, seemingly erupting from Copper Mountain, made the night like nothing I have seen before. At one point, the lights gathered together and formed what looked like an ethereal seal in the sky. It may seem coincidental or like confirmation bias, but even in reflection the only way I can think of the events of that night, after that powerful ceremony, was incredible and appropriate.

: As the lights grew dimmer, we remained by the fire, keeping watch for more aurora, and speaking to each other about what it all means.

: The next day a sea lion was hunted and brought on the beach. Local children had never seen one up close before. Their reactions were mixed, between two little boys poking the body with their feet, and one little girl who kept asking if it was dead, and why.

: Eventually, the sea lion was harvested, and the remains were left off of Dead Dog Point, where eagles swarmed the carcass to feed for days.

: Leaving Tatitlek with an expanded group of friends, we were all taken aback by the splendor of Prince William Sound. Our group came to Tatitlek separate—as kayakers, artists, musicians, dancers, and storytellers—but left embodying all of these traits and passions. The power of travel, of embarking on a genuine adventure, is in the discovery of passion. What drives people? What do they have to share? What do you have to share?

: After nine hours on the ferry, we arrived back in Whittier to beautiful vistas, and the Grand Princess cruise ship. The difference between the adventures of us, and the “Princess people” became palpable, even from a distance. We had just spent the past week, and even the last several hours, outside and in the fresh air. We were sunburned, exhausted, and yet energized by the adventure we had all been a part of. We were not whisked away from one insulated boat to another insulated train car, just to make it to our insulated hotel rooms. Adventure is about more than spending money to look outside of a window for a week, it’s about spending time actually in a place, and learning to see beyond the dichotomy of self and place. Tourism let’s one take pictures of their self being in a place. Adventure allows one to let the place become a part of their self.

Continue to More Than a Tourist #1 and learn about Becky Kusar’s transition from tourist, to outsider, to local in St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands!

Phil Hilbruner: The Unwavering Passion of an Alaskan Fishing Guide

April 13, 2015September 21, 2015 / Professional Nomads / 1 Comment

A young Phil and his sister, Anna, on the Deschutes

The trout water of Oregon’s Columbia Gorge spawned Phil Hilbruner’s love of fly-fishing. Phil grew up in Hood River, 45 miles east of Portland on the Columbia River, a short cast from the Deschutes and other rivers that piqued his boyhood curiosity. Now the 30-year old is launching into his third season as owner/operator of Catch A Drift, a drift-boat fly-fishing business on the world-renowned Kenai river in Alaska and it’s clear the proud business owner is as excited about fishing today as he was as a little boy.

As a little kid, Phil was intrigued by his dad’s fly-tying hobby and his dad took notice. “He was pretty awesome about getting me started and teaching me. He saw that I really wanted to do it.” His dad supplied a vice and the necessary tools and extended him free reign of his materials. By the time he was 8 or 9 he was selling flies to The Gorge Fly Shop in Hood River. “I dunno what the owner was doing with those flies, if he was actually turning them around and selling them or if he was throwing them away or if he was using them himself or what.” Inarguably, he was stoking Phil on tying flies and fly-fishing.

Phil, Anna, and their dad at Canon Beach

Wonderment rippled through the young angler’s river days. “I remember, like, sailing in the Columbia and saw this huge chinook tail—it had just jumped and it was going back in the water. It was twice as big as me as a kid.” Although Phil played soccer, baseball, and ran track, organized sports never compared to the mystery of the river. “Fishing—it’s like a different world in the water.” Phil was increasingly drawn to the rivers but a jarring move to Maryland as an eighth-grader disrupted his intimacy with trout water.

He felt ripped out of his habitat; as stark a contrast as freshwater to saltwater. He had developed a fond appreciation for nature but eastern rivers didn’t harbor the magic of those he’d abandoned. He fished on, but his heart yearned for the west coast.

Alaska beckons

After high school, Phil’s priority was to move back west. College wasn’t immediately important. “I didn’t want to waste a bunch of money and get in all this debt.” He hoped to figure out what appealed to him at which point he’d acquire the necessary education.

His sister worked in Denali National Park and she encouraged Phil to apply, as well. Employment included room and board for a nominal fee and Phil, almost broke, was sold. “When I got on the bus to go up to Denali in Anchorage I had twelve dollars in my pocket, and I spent six of those dollars on flip flops to shower in Wasilla.” The move didn’t immediately return Phil to desirable fishing water. The glacial waters of the north side of the Alaska Range support little aquatic life, and he was without wheels or a fishing rod anyway.

First steelhead Phil caught on a swung fly

A few years later, directionless and desiring change, Phil experimented with life in Anchorage, a metropolitan access point near Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula. One day, a coworker shared photos of large rainbow trout he’d caught on the Kenai River, and Phil begged to be taken the following weekend. “The first day I caught a rainbow three times bigger than the biggest one I’d ever caught, if not bigger. I mean, just 28-incher. That was it; I was hooked.”

For a couple years, Phil worked minimal-pay customer service jobs three or four days a week and tried to fish the other three or four—often hitching rides or borrowing cars to get down to the Kenai. Eventually, he returned to Denali where a significant wage increase allowed him to catch up a little bit financially. “At the end of that season I bought a piece of shit van, took it down to Cooper Landing, and got a brand new, nice fishing rod and a little pontoon one-man rowboat.” He camped out on the Kenai for six weeks, and as the Kenai revealed itself to him, he realized there was more potential on that river than he’d imagined. Back in Anchorage, however, he floundered. Finally, a non-profit job that paid eight dollars an hour to, among other things, power-wash human feces off roads became his breaking point. “One day I was just on a break at work and I realized: this is fucking miserable. I need to start pursuing what I want to do.” It was a blessing in disguise.

Take me to the river

Phil needed a job to position him in Cooper Landing and allow him to truly learn the Kenai. Any job. Search engines directed him to Kenai Cache and the owner enticed Phil with an intern guide program, a somewhat misleading description. Essentially, he worked at the tackle shop and if the guides used the boats for fun-fishing he had a guaranteed seat.

First fly-caught lake trout

But Phil came prepared with a keg of beer. “I figured I’ll roll in there and there’s going to be somebody that wants to go fishing.” A few solid guides adopted Phil as a guide-in-training and razzed him into hitting his mark with the oars. “I was still a miserable rower at the time. They really schooled me up fast.”

Day by day, Phil learned his craft. The tackle shop turned out to be a good place to get information, and Phil fished hard every second he wasn’t working. “If I wasn’t working or sleeping I was fishing. That got me to where I needed to be so that I felt confident that I could start guiding the river.” The next summer he signed a two-year service contract to guide for Kenai Cache. The first year was rough and filled with disagreements but things improved the second year. “That year was better because by then I was exclusively his trout guide which is what I want to be.” In a state widely celebrated for its salmon, that’s a strange thought.

Big resident rainbow

Phil’s infatuation with trout grew from fishing them as a kid. They are a resident species that feeds year-round, minus spawning season when it’s unethical to fish them. “If you’re in touch with what the trout are doing you know what’s going on with the river.” A good fly-fisherman knows what the fish are eating, which requires an understanding of the ecosystem. Then, he must replicate that ecosystem in fly choice and presentation. “It’s not like sockeye where you go out and you’re basically trying to snag them in the face.” Salmon are on an upriver trip to their breeding grounds “basically on a mission to spawn and die,” and therefore rarely eat in fresh water. “You gotta have mind tricks. Like, how do I fool this trout?” And if you do, you’re in for a good fight reeling him in. In the end, Phil may prefer trout but he doesn’t dislike salmon. He laughs, “It’s not their fault they’re not trout.”

Phil planned to spend several more years learning from other guiding outfits in preparation for starting his own. However, an exciting job prospect at a new lodge guiding under the wing of perhaps the most veteran Kenai guide fell through last minute. Suddenly adrift, without a backup plan, and past the prime hiring season, Phil couldn’t face losing a season’s experience. It was time to either hit the streets begging for a job or go all in and start his own drift-boat guiding business, ready or not. Phil anted up.

Catch a Drift

Out with clients

Everyone who knew Phil at that point understood his passion for fishing. People saw him working hard on the river so they supported him. “I had a decent amount of capital to get started but not enough. I could probably write a movie list of credits of people who helped me in some way.” Permits, gear, and tackle added up. Unable to find a used boat he had to purchase a new one. “Starting up was steep.” And terrifying. “The biggest feeling preseason that I had was fear. I’m investing all my money into this, I’ve taken money from other people that believe in me, I’m going out, I’m putting myself out there; I have nobody I can rely on for a paycheck other than myself.” A good friend and successful businessman bought Catch a Drift’s first fishing trip to support his young friend and kick off the season.

Bookings were slow but other guides assured him business was coming. Phil scraped by. After all, he didn’t really have any overhead other than the initial money for the boat and gear. “It’s not like I had huge payments to make other than the same cost of living I’d always had, just rent and phone.” Then, ironically, Kenai Cache called. A guide had quit so to fulfill bookings they lobbed a string of trips to Catch A Drift. Overflow business trickled in from other outfitters and Phil slowly built a customer base from independent bookings, as well. Though he didn’t have a lavish past for comparison, that first season he made more money than ever before. In one day, he could now make what used to take five days working for someone else.

A perk of the job

Fear diminished and pure enjoyment bubbled in its wake. “It’s a dream come true. I get paid, and get paid well in-season—which, it’s a short season—go to the river and do what I love to do, and get people excited about it.” From first-timer to trophy fisherman Phil invests himself in every river trip. “I try to give everybody at least a small taste of what it is that that river means to me.” Simply put, it’s nostalgia blended with an opportunity to participate in an ecosystem. “Very few days have ever felt like work since I started guiding.” The fact is, more often than not, after dropping off clients he’s quick to grab a couple friends and go right back out fun-fishing.

Phil-osophies on Fishing

The peacefulness of the drift boat experience

Catch a Drift guides drift boat fishing for rainbow trout, dolly varden sockeye salmon, silver salmon and steelhead on the Kenai River. Phil believes drift boats offer the best experience, allows clients to get closer to the fish without spooking them, and also cut down on pollution. Phil waxes fishing philosophic with the bewilderment of a child, the audacity of a young adult, and the ease of a professor. That is to say he’s cozy with the subject matter and his opinions fringe on controversial.

“There are some demons with it. Being a catch-and-release fisherman there is a certain mortality rate that goes along with it. Being an ethical fisherman you do everything you can to reduce mortality.” For instance, Phil encourages fishermen to pinch their barbs, something a lot people don’t want to hear. Lately, Phil’s leading by example. For the last two weeks he’s frequented a section of the river that is known for trash. After a couple hours he puts down the rod and picks up litter. In the last two weeks he’s pulled 80-90 pounds of lead out of the river, including a 50-pound anchor. He’s presently organizing manpower to join in the efforts.

“This may be smelly, but it’s a beautiful thing. Roughly a 60lb king has completed his life cycle against all odds, one of two or three of his thousands of brothers that got to perpetuate the species” -Phil Hilbruner

On a local level, Phil feels it is unethical to fish king salmon, harbingers of the impact of current unsustainable fishing practices. Low runs and smaller average fish sizes suggest kings need time to heal their population. Motorized traffic, though not prohibited in all sections of the Kenai, is further compromising the health of the fishery by, among other things, disturbing the specie’s spawning practices. “A lot of these kings are spawning in pretty shallow water. When kings spawn you get trout right behind them trying to eat up the eggs.” People fish those spawn beds to target the trout, which doesn’t affect the kings. However, after fishing a hole in their powerboat relatively quietly, they’ll “fire up the motor and run straight back up over it, right over all those spawning kings.” There are many reasons Phil doesn’t like motors, “But the biggest one is they’re unnecessary.” Perhaps for that reason every other drawback carries a little more weight.

But the fight for the fishery’s health has escalated. The Ninilchik Tribal Council recently gained permission to put a gillnet just below Skilak Lake on the Kenai River—a decision that could decimate the ecosystem. “It’s a super nonselective and lethal way to fish.” A gill net, of course, catches indiscriminately. “It’s not a tribal rights issue; it’s a subsistence community issue. They’ve come out and said they don’t have a meaningful method of harvesting their subsistence fish.” A claim that is simply not true. Subsistence communities must be a certain distance from a grocery store to be classified as such, and because of that distance they’re extended privileges for hunting and fishing. The thing is, Cooper Landing, out of which Catch a Drift operates, is also considered a subsistence community. Because they’re all fishing the same river, locals know the claim doesn’t hold water and they’re fighting the decision. “Subsistence does not trump conservation.”

A morel mushroom, a different river offering

It all comes back to connection with the ecosystem. “What you get from fishing is an opportunity to be an advocate for those fish. Sport fisherman are the biggest voice or the only voice to protect the fish. The more you know about them or understand them the better you can do that.”

The Future

Winters are still a work in progress for Phil. He’s considering options in other states and scheming ways to extend his season. “Winters need a change. I need more fishing and possibly better work until I get to a point I don’t have to work in the winters. That would be nice.”

A small sampling

Last winter Phil tied over a thousand flies. He tied for many purposes but one was his latest obsession: to hook a steelhead at the surface. “I’m on a mission for next year to try to get one from the top of the water so I’m gonna tie some top water patterns that will skate across the surface and try to entice a steelhead to bite.” Steelhead are a variation of rainbow trout that go out to saltwater for several years at a time. Phil marvels at the fish’s adaptability and the risk of swimming into a foreign expanse teeming with large predators. “They go out in this big black hole, this big void, this big tough ocean and come back as huge rainbow trout that fight hard. […] This fresh-saltwater, rainbow, ocean beast.” Unlike salmon, steelhead also have the potential to spawn multiple times, and to Phil that’s always painted them as the stronger species. “They’re my holy grail.”

A man doing what he loves

Phil eats, sleeps, and breathes what he loves. During a low point in life he trustingly redirected his life toward the thing that impassioned him. A few years later, facing another low, he risked everything and did it again. In a relatively short period of time, he became owner/operator of a guiding service on a desirable river—and he’s succeeding. Regardless of whether he’s fishing with clients or friends, Phil’s engaging in what he loves. When people feel that their job is not actually work the world should pay attention. More people should be so lucky—but of course, luck has little to do with it. The forces that be may have shaped his love of fishing, but his success is the result of deliberate lifestyle choices and hard work mixed with passion. More people should live so deliberately.

On a somewhat recent trip to Hood River, Phil was stoked to see The Gorge Fly Shop still supporting it’s local fisherman. “I was back in there a couple years ago bullshitting with the guy and three kids probably ages 8-12 come in the store.” The owner welcomed the kids by name who, of course, had run out of whatever fly they were fishing with. “Okay, well, you know where it’s at—get it and get out of here,” the owner barked. Perhaps those flies, if presented right, could catch more than just fish—they certainly did with Phil.

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The Fishing Guide

April 13, 2015September 21, 2015 / Professional Nomads / 2 Comments

Tune into an ecosystem and share your love of the river with clients. The impact you have can help perpetuate good river ethics and keep fisheries healthy for future generations. You are responsible for the happiness and success of your clients’ day, from first-time fisherman to seasoned angler. You must be guide, babysitter, educator, your clients’ best friend for the day, and (in the case of a drift boat rower) the muscle of the operation.

Professional Nomad:

Phil Hilbruner

Owner/operator of Catch a Drift, a drift boat guiding outfitter on the Kenai River in Cooper Landing, Alaska since 2013
Passionate trout fisherman and conservationist
Self-made success story

Must-Read: Phil Hilbruner: The Unwavering Passion of an Alaskan Fishing Guide

Phil and a client thrilled to with his catch of a big resident rainbow

Phil and a happy client with a big, resident rainbow

Advice from a professional:

“Would-be guides should make life choices to spend as much time as possible fishing the water they want to work on,” Phil says. If you are serious about guiding, move to the river you want to fish and get a job wherever you can to support yourself as you learn the fishery. In Phil’s case, he worked at a tackle shop in Cooper Landing which became a great place to glean local information.

Compliment your fishing with these resources recommended by Phil:

Research fly-tying patterns and methods through Youtube. “InTheRiffle.com has hundreds, if not thousands of well done postings on Youtube about tying flies, knots, rigging rods, etc. Great resources.” -Phil

“A great novel about fly fishing and becoming part of a community” -Phil

“Since its publication by Sierra Club Books more than two decades ago, The River Why has become a classic, standing with Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It as our era’s most widely read fiction about fly-fishing.” -Amazon.com

Aliy Zirkle: The Trail Less Traveled

February 24, 2015September 21, 2015 / Professional Nomads / 8 Comments

A frosty Aliy Zirkle

For those willing to break the paradigm, a deeper fulfillment becomes possible. In the dog mushing community, Aliy Zirkle represents a breed of mushers who learned to travel with dogs by following their passion for adventure. Initially, Aliy had no intention of racing, let alone making a living off of it. Now, after three consecutive second place finishes in the thousand-mile Iditarod Sled Dog Race, Aliy has unquestionably developed into the people’s favorite competitor in this year’s race. It’s easy to look back at her life now and see destiny, but the true story shows a trail of blood, sweat, and passion.

One flyer on a University of Pennsylvania lab door rerouted sophomore biology student Aliy Zirkle’s future. “Why are you studying biology in downtown Philadelphia when you could be in Alaska?” it asked. Aliy wondered the same thing and seized the bait. She volunteered for Fish and Game in a national wildlife refuge on the Alaska Peninsula, made $4 a day, and fell for Alaska, “hook, line, and sinker.”

Two years invested in college obliged Aliy to finish her degree. Traditional life, after all, was the culture she knew and the environment college propelled her toward. She contemplated med school versus vet school, but the standard path felt lackluster compared to the connection she felt to summers in Alaska. The post-college rhetoric soon changed to finding a “real job” in Alaska. After graduation she wrote 250 letters to parks, BLM, and everything in between; received two offers, and selected the more remote location of Bettles, Alaska.

The formative years

Nicknamed “Gateway to Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,” Bettles lies above the Arctic Circle, has a winter population of 35, and is disconnected from the road system. Therefore, the village is accessible only by airplane, boat, snow machine, or dog team, depending on the time of year. Dog mushing captivated Aliy immediately but she knew nothing about it. She bought one dog and a random book on the subject written by a woman “who’s probably from Wisconsin,” and started figuring it out. At the time, she didn’t know people bought dogs from champion kennels for several thousand dollars and it wouldn’t have mattered if she did—this wasn’t about competition but traveling the land and learning self-sufficiency.

Initially, she brought her dog, Skunk, to the other two kennels in the village and asked to run her dog with theirs. However, she soon realized “that probably wasn’t really correct” so she adopted five more dogs. Guided by her mushing book, she built a sled, figured out harnesses and lines, and began traveling with her hodgepodge team.

Purely Alaskan

In the early days, twelve miles was a big adventure. She’d set up a camp with a tarp and cook dog water over a fire. “That was really cool to me, being totally self-contained with no mechanical anything—fire, dogs, snowshoes, and go.” Eventually, someone invited her on a fifty mile trip—an intimidating prospect. “I was like, ‘are you serious? I don’t think I could do fifty miles. I could do it but it would take me, like, a week.’” Yet soon she was exploring the Brooks Range on more robust trips with friends who opened her eyes to what dogs were capable of accomplishing. They traveled forgotten trails and seldom saw another soul. “There’s not a lot of people in that part of Alaska in the winter. No one goes snowmachining for fun there.” She stayed in Bethel four years and never stopped learning. “You can do so much more with dogs because they have the power to help you carry stuff and go for a long ways. One soul being out there is a lot harder and scarier and wild than with a group of dogs. They’re there to help you.” Little did she know, she had only scratched the surface of what dogs are capable of athletically.

Transformation

SP Kennel out on the trail

Dogs became Aliy’s passion. When a busy friend near Fairbanks needed help with his kennel, she seized the opportunity to work with larger dog teams and moved back to the road system. The following winter she handled for her friend on the Yukon Quest—a thousand mile sled dog race that alternates direction between Fairbanks and Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory. This introduction to long-distance racing inspired her to run it herself and the following year Aliy came in 17th out of 26.

Halfway through the race, Aliy left Dawson near the back of the pack and hit a blizzard around American Summit. Another musher, heading east on a westward racecourse advised Aliy to follow suit. Aliy was incredulous. “I was like, ‘Turn around? Where are you going? Dawson is, like, 75 miles. I’ll stop and camp for awhile but I’m not going to turn around.’” She continued on and never saw another dog team for 450 miles. “All the teams who were ahead of me were so far ahead of me that when I came into a checkpoint they’d already left and all the teams that were behind me had waited for that storm so my first thousand mile race, for 500 miles I didn’t even know I was racing because I was just the only one there.” It didn’t matter.

Fairbanks was practically home, so it never occurred to her to quit the trail. She had to get to that area eventually—it may as well be by dog team. “I came to the finish line, the banquet had started two hours earlier, and I remember the Yukon Quest champion in 1998, Bruce Lee, saying to me, ‘Aliy, they get easier after the first one.’ They did. He was right—until last year.”

When Aliy initially moved to the Fairbanks area she still had a job with Fish and Wildlife as a biological technician making decent money. For many people with her background, she’d found the ultimate career track that synthesized the love of the outdoors with a steady paycheck. “I could have definitely done that for twenty years and then been free with my retirement.” She recalls the incessant buzz of artificial lights in February while people sat around making work for themselves. Discontent and disconnected from her reasons for being in Alaska, dogs pulled her toward something richer.

When Aliy chose to leave her Fish and Wildlife job to bartend, work construction and pursue dogs she officially left behind the academic pathway for the passionate one. Since then, the girl who was once intimidated by fifty miles has finished seventeen thousand-mile races, won the Yukon Quest in 2000 (two years after her rookie race) and took second in the Iditarod the last three years. Aliy found her passion, lives it daily, and has taken it to a competitive and economically viable level.

Commitment

Aliy and Allen

Aliy’s entire world revolves around the kennel she operates with her husband, Allen Moore. Although the travel-for-fun harnesses are hung up, long-distance racing continues to deepen that connection. “Both Allen and I have always had a competitive spirit. If you’re going to do something, you’re going to do it to the best you can do.” SP Kennel requires complete devotion from both of them these days. “We are similar yet we are different enough that we can have a work relationship and a love relationship.” Their differences become complimentary strengths in keeping their kennel sharply competitive. That relationship, the commitment to the dogs and to each other, is a driving force in their success. “I love him with all my heart. I would do anything for him, but he probably wouldn’t ask me to do everything for him. But I would.”

At SP Kennel, the dogs and mushers work equally hard. “Our dogs enjoy themselves but they’re working dogs. They have this desire to work that comes from being raised by us.” To be at the top, everyone must give their best everyday. “You’re going to fail sometimes and you’re going to make the wrong decisions sometimes, and that’s all okay as long as you always continue to know that you always tried your hardest.” Aliy and Allen raise all their dogs at their kennel and only breed one litter a year.

Schmoe helped lead Allen’s team to second place in the Yukon Quest earlier this month

“You put a hell of a lot of effort into them. You know them, you know their parents, you know their grandparents, you know that when Scooby fell in the water when he was 7 weeks old that’s why he’s scared of water. You just know everyone and that’s what almost makes it not only addictive but more competitive, as we continue to raise these dogs they get better and better and better because we only breed the best physically and mentally to the best physically and mentally. Year after year, we’re like holy cow, they not only keep getting better genetically but they’re more part of us.”

Last year’s race surpassed ’98 as Aliy’s most challenging race, yet she finished only two and a half minutes behind the champion, Dallas Seavey. Low snow conditions and a game-changing windstorm near the finish meant the 2014 Iditarod required a bit of luck for even the most savvy race veterans. “That just makes fuel for the fire when you get through an incredibly hard situation and you’re actually still alive.” Aliy asks one hundred percent of her dogs in all conditions and in return she can’t give anythings less. Dogs are acutely attuned into their musher’s psychology, so when the trail is toughest Aliy must reach inside herself for something positive to give back to them. “If I was down either physically or mentally, I would be the one letting the whole team down.” Intense sleep deprivation preys on mental weakness and therefore the musher is simultaneously the leader and the weakest link. The harder it gets, the more Aliy strives to rise to the challenge and prove to herself that she can handle it. “Last year’s Iditarod did nothing but get me more and more positive about my dogs’ ability, my ability, and our commitment to each other.” More than anything, chasing a win is about giving the dogs the recognition they deserve.

Purity of the Race

Aliy and the team out on the Bering Sea ice, Iditarod 2014 (photo courtesy of Sebastian Schnuelle)

Aliy represents a breed of mushers who learned the land, and learned to travel with dogs for the sheer passion of it, without intention to race. As the Iditarod becomes a bucket list item for wanna-be wilderness types, Aliy recognizes that less-skilled people are going to be scraping together the minimum requirements to participate in the race. While that weakness is unavoidable, there is something else compromising the race even further: the rescue button.

When activated, the SPOT rescue button sends GPS coordinates to a designated center to summon help. “The button,” Aliy sighs. “I’m not a fan of the button, personally.” After examining her background it’s easy to understand why. “So, when I first started mushing I had those six dogs, it was me, myself and I, and six dogs. I learned right away that I had to stay with them and they had to stay with me, so I started wearing a leash on my arm. Wherever they went I went, wherever I went they went. It’s a team, it’s a commitment; it’s everything. So I’m not into the button. Every one of those people could have just taken a breather, you know, fed their dogs for 24, 26, 48, 50 hours, a week, and then gotten somewhere. Just because your race is over doesn’t mean you have to push the button, to me.”

The purity of the race lies in self-sufficiency which the rescue button undermines. “The glamor of the race really was you and your team endure what you need to endure to get where you need to get, but that goes back to these people who are just there to race it.” There’s no going back once you soften the race. She continues, “These people need to read some books of, like, 150 years ago where, like, Russian sailors were stuck above Svalbarg in Norway and, like, endured three months of hiking across open sheets of ice. We need to be that way if you’re claiming to be this long-distance, endurance musher.” Furthermore, those who don’t raise their own dogs or embed in that lifestyle never develop a spiritual connection with the landscape—a journey that only increases the reward. When sled dog racing is approached and treated like a Nascar race, some mechanical thing on a track, that organic connection is lost.

Failures and successes in equipment, dog training, and handling personal emotions—as well as the ability to prioritize all of the above in extreme conditions—is what grooms the musher. Alaska reality television perpetuates a myth that Alaskans take extreme risks and live in constant danger. Similarly, Into the Wild glorifies a kid who cut human ties and common sense from his life and died attempting to live off a foreign landscape. True Alaskan wilderness men and women, however, learn to listen to the nuances of the environment to mitigate risk. Native cultures have always done this. As that way of life is continually compromised, Iditarod pays homage to that lifestyle by celebrating sled dogs’ value in the landscape. If the race’s spirit lies in the relationship to the land and the ability to care for and depend only on your team, then the rescue button mocks that intent and simultaneously puts local volunteers in adverse conditions on behalf of the poorly prepared. This is a nine-day race not a four-hour game. There is no rescue button in Alaskan bush life.

Inspiring passion

Aliy felt uninspired by the 9-5 dream so she invented her own. “That was always so very run of the mill. You can live life easily these days as an American or some other country, get a little job, make enough money to have a small place to live, eat, buy food at Wal-Mart—you can live, it’s not hard to live.” To strive for something outside the paradigm, however, takes courage, but with that comes potential for incredible reward. Guided only by passion, Aliy bushwacked an unmapped path toward personal fulfillment.

Most people get into dog mushing through dog handling for a professional kennel but Aliy modeled a different method. “It’s an obvious way to get into it, but crap, you could go get a job anywhere in Alaska and make a little bit of money and have six dogs and be pretty righteous and go to Hatcher Pass. I never had a dog truck in the beginning, I had a little Chevy S10 and all the dogs fit in the back.” If the passion is to travel the land by dog team, then pursue that because competition morphs the training philosophy and reduces raw adventure overall.

At the professional level, dogs require far more invested time and energy than the 9-5. “I can’t imagine how many hours a week I put into my, quote, job now so 40 hours a week is like a pittance.” However, every iota of that time and energy is invested in personal fulfillment. Aliy encourages kids who are uninspired by traditional culture to shed their fear of adults disagreeing with them, and instead listen to their passions. “Realize that there are different ways to please people. You can please family, friends, and yourself through so many different means than your normal societal expectations.” By relaxing our clutch on tradition we can more fully embrace our personal values. “I definitely think you can break the mold if it’s a passion,” Aliy encourages.

Aliy made a conscious decision to pursue this lifestyle; it wasn’t an accident. “I still think that the bottom line to life and to mushing and to dogs is that you have to actually enjoy your life because your life could end tomorrow. These dogs know that they’re going to have fun.” Fulfillment comes not from money but from the bond with the dogs. The lifestyle is the reward. Professional Nomads are nomads by choice, not by default. “Find your passions. I’m excited to have found my passion and not everyone does.”

Aliy out on the Bering Sea ice, Iditarod 2014 (photo courtesy of Sebastian Schnuelle)

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Raising the Nomadic Kid

January 12, 2015September 21, 2015 / Professional Nomads / 2 Comments

Children thrive on stability. For the Overingtons, that balance spans two homes in two separate environments, thousands of miles apart yet inextricably linked by a predictable, seasonal migration. In part 1 of their story, we discovered the obstacles the Overingtons overcame to make their lifestyle work. In part 2, we’ll examine the opportunities that their nomadic lifestyle has offered their son. Just as sharing in the outdoors bonded Buckwheat and Louise as a couple, the birth of their son, Louis, secured that passion as the cornerstone of their family dynamic. The Overingtons prove that professional nomads can lead stable family lives, and even offer their children valuable opportunities endemic only to the nomadic lifestyle.

Family time

Louis hitching ski laps in Buckwheats backpack at nine months

Born in April, Louis began hitching rides down Utah ski hills in his father’s backpack at six months. “First two years with him in a backpack I didn’t slow down. I was skiing everything, all the trees and steeps and chutes, not even changing my ski tactic at all, just taking him everywhere.” Buckwheat laughs. “I got a lot of crooked looks out of that.”

By three, Louis was getting a little heavy so they put him on skis and took turns parenting on the bunny slopes and indulging hot chocolate breaks. The adventure slowed down temporarily as Louis learned the fundamentals of skiing, but simultaneously it developed new meaning for his parents. A brand new adventure awaited on the other side of that learning curve. At eight, Louis showed interest in jumping bigger, so Buckwheat figured he’d test out each jump or drop to measure its suitability for his son. It wasn’t long before the roles reversed and these days Buckwheat finds himself following his son off cliffs he would never have dared on his own.

The family enjoying flatwater on the Jack River in 2010

Like Wasatch snow in the winter, Alaskan rivers provide a summer environment in which the Overingtons can grow as individuals but also bond as a family. They comprise a perfect, self-sufficient boating trifecta with enough eyes and paddles to look out for each other. No longer do they follow in a tight line through rapids for safety. Now the family scatters across the familiar, turbulent water and catches waves within eyeshot of each other as they dance from one feature to the next. Although Louis has developed into a solid class IV boater, it’s not important to him to always be on the gnarliest section of river—though it is critical to explore whichever section he is on to its maximum playfulness. Beside him, Buckwheat enjoys guiding his son’s development and Louise values family time outdoors. Sharing their passions keep their lives intertwined and engaged with one another. Their nomadic lifestyle provides daily outdoor opportunities year-round and Louis’s enthusiasm ensures that everyone gets a large helping of them.

Natural classrooms

Louis first time on skis at 2 1_2 yrs old copy

Louis’s first time on skis

Like many kids, Louis’s athletics are a classroom for life lessons. In all areas of their son’s development, Buckwheat and Louise have encouraged Louis to approach challenges by analyzing risk versus reward. “I think that’s been the balancing act with Louis in adventure sports: taking the risk but trying to keep the fear out of it, not taking the risk too far; knowing where the limitations are, knowing where the edge is, and giving him the opportunity.” In this situation, that approach has worked well. “Fortunately he’s not a blind hucker. He’s a calculated risk kid; he wasn’t the first one down the slide.” Louis learned by watching others and estimating his abilities from what he saw. Even in adventure sports, that calculated attitude still pervades.

Louise recalls her son’s first powder run. Louis watched an older kid ski first and then assessed the slope thoroughly. “I saw him contemplating the run, for a little guy who was five. Louis just stood there watching it—very calculated—and then he just took off. It was so cute; it was perfect! Beautiful little turns all the way down.” From there, Louis would always be reaching for more of that—more autonomy, more understanding of the environment, and more confidence that he can work within natural parameters to face challenges.

Louis huckin’

The Overingtons couldn’t fathom how integral the outdoors would become in their son’s development. Over the years he patiently built a technical skill set, but the winter and summer surrounding his eleventh birthday showcased that the physical and mental side had finally caught up to his dedication. “It’s a whole new level of confidence,” his dad says. “He’s stronger and smarter. He’s not a little boy anymore.” His drive grew with his abilities and at twelve Louis became the no-name kid who won the IFSA Freeride Nationals in his age group. The title was exciting, but the season was about much more than that for Louis. Similar to the painting an artist hangs in a gallery, the championship was payoff for dedication unwitnessed by the audience. Moreover, for Louis it’s meaningless without it.

Louis 2014 IFSA Jr Freeride Camp Ski Line

Louis at the 2014 IFSA Jr. Freeride Nationals

“I don’t really want to have a competition against other people, I just want to have a competition against myself. If I’m, like, skiing like crap but I’m winning…” Louis looks for the words. “You’re not as happy as if you were skiing really well and not winning,” his dad offers. Louis nods. “I kind of, like, have a goal against myself. I just see how well I did so it’s definitely a goal, not an expectation.”

The seasonal dynamic has offered Louis unique learning opportunities right outside his door. Consistent exploration in these environments have taught him about the natural world as well as himself. Through skiing he’s likely learned about different types of snowpack, how temperature alters it over time, and mountain composition. For himself, skiing’s taught balance, skill progression, and how to set achievable goals. Similarly, through kayaking he’s learned about buoyancy, displacement, current, characteristics of glacial water vs. fresh water, how water and erosion shape the landscape, and that water flow is unceasing. Consequently, he’s learned to maintain mental composure, embrace difficulty, and that consistent hard work pays dividends. Reflecting upon both sports, he may have even likened the flow of water to that of wind over a ridge top recognizing that both create eddies on the leeward side of the current.

Louis’s adventures reaffirm his ability to assess situations thoroughly and trust his judgment. Through all of it he probably learns more from his failures than his successes. He tests himself against the challenges nature sets and in return the environment provides measurements that don’t lie. For Louis, the world is a playground and the lessons are infinite.

Après ski lessons

Buckwheat and Louis paddling the downriver race in the Nenana Riverfest (photo courtesy of Kris Capps)

The same lessons taught in adventure sports mirror the Overingtons’ parenting philosophy. Buckwheat encourages his son to, “explore those boundaries, and assess the danger factor, and make those decisions and pay the consequences for whatever the result is from that decision; learn from it and grow from it.” They believe responsibility mixed with culpability have given him a step up in many aspects of his life.

Lessons about right and wrong are achieved through self-discovery and consequences. “I learn a lot every day from letting this one play out. And it encourages Louis to test the boundaries, sometimes to our frustration, panic, alarm, etcetera, but more often to our pleasant surprise and amazement. You take the good with the bad,” Buckwheat explains. “I want to be there to monitor, nurture, and assist in his discovery and decision-making while I can, so hopefully he will be more capable when I’m not there. How can you learn self-preservation when you’ve been guided by, “stop, don’t, and no?” Throughout all of it Louis is making decisions and learning about his own abilities.

“The thing is,” Buckwheat explains, “I’ve also noticed that by leading with a loose leash you don’t really have to yank on the leash. They learn how to discover that edge themselves because they’ve been discovering where it is their whole life and so they’re much more familiar with where that edge is and how to recognize it when they get there. A few times here and there, it’s more like suggestions, giving them a different perspective on something that maybe you’re seeing in a different way.”

Louis getting endered in the Nenana

Sociability

Louis has grown up in a more socially varied world than just winter scene versus summer scene. From raft guides, to kayakers the age of his grandparents, to ski coaches, to local athletes he admires, Louis’s dynamic background seems to have given him a step up socially. He engages easily with people of all ages and older and younger companions alike often find his excitement and optimism infectious.

At ten years old Louis’s dad lobbied for him to get into the Alta Freeride Division (AFD). They had tried several ski programs previously but because those organized participants by age nothing quite meshed. The minimum age requirement for AFD had just been lowered from twelve to eleven for the first season ever, but Louis was only ten so his dad arranged for him to tryout with the coaches. They determined that Louis’s skiing skills and maturity would balance well with the rest of the team and invited him to participate. Throughout the winter, Louis impressed the coaches with more than his skiing. At the end of the season they award a cowboy-style belt buckle to the member of the team who brings the right attitude and embodies the values that they’re trying to instill in all the skiers on the team. Normally the buckle is reserved for a second or third year athlete but that year they picked Louis, a brand new athlete and youngest member on the team. Buckwheat beams when relaying this. It’s clear that public recognition for those qualities in Louis makes him prouder of his son than any gold medal.

The big picture

Louis has made some notable athletic strides in his young life, but those aren’t the things that make him a noteworthy kid—it’s what Louis and his family represent on a larger scale that’s important. The nomadic lifestyle enables deeper immersion into our passions—a valuable gift nomads can share with their children. Not only is it possible to continue the seasonal lifestyle into parenthood, when done well it offers children unique learning opportunities, connects them with their environment, and provides opportunities to achieve autonomy at a young age. For Louis it’s not a question of how he handles the seasonal lifestyle because that’s been the tempo of his entire life. So far Louis has been part of only two communities—one in the summer and one in the winter—and in each one he’s connected with the landscape and grown his identity from that. The Overingtons teach us that professional nomads do not have to abandon the lifestyle they love to raise a family. In fact, that lifestyle might rank among the greatest gifts they have to offer a child.

Louis playboating, summer 2014. (Photo courtesy of Rebecca Tifft Photography)

Missed part 1? Catch part 1 of the Overingtons story and learn how the Overingtons built their nomadic family dynamic!

The Overingtons

December 21, 2014September 21, 2015 / Professional Nomads / 2 Comments

Part. 1: Building the Seasonal Family Dynamic

The family and their new boats in New Zealand

For professional nomads, the seasonal lifestyle is not about stringing jobs together, it’s about weaving employment into a lifestyle guided by passion. For some, the idea of raising a child in that lifestyle sounds irresponsible if not impossible—but it doesn’t have to. There is no reason the driving, architectural force of one’s young adulthood should be stymied by parenthood. By adopting that commonality as the cornerstone for their seasonal family’s foundation, couples that meet while working seasonally can remain in the lifestyle that attracted them together and still raise a child responsibly. The unknown path, though intimidating, is not unnavigable. For the Overingtons of Healy, Alaska and Salt Lake City, Utah, it’s been a series of calculated risks.

Bill “Buckwheat” Overington and Louise Lovrich have raised their 12-year old son, Louis, entirely in the seasonal lifestyle. They own a rafting business in Denali National Park that operates in the summer, and the rest of the year find themselves in Salt Lake City where Louise works in pharmacy and Buckwheat drives for the transportation concessionaire at Snowbird ski resort.

Louis on the top of the podium at the IFSA National Freeride Championship

Louis on top of the podium at the IFSA National Freeride Championship

That recipe has produced interesting results. If the fear of raising a kid seasonally is that transferring between schools twice a year will stunt him socially, fill him with loneliness, instill a penchant for over-compensation, and—yaddah yaddah—ultimately leave him homeless and in a ditch, we can probably shelve that one. In reality, what’s emerged from the oven is a well-adjusted kid who looks up to his dad, kayaks with his parents regularly, out-paddles boaters twice his age, and last year became the national freeride ski champion in his age group. He’s confident, smart, and supportive of his peers. Although there’s still time for him to end up homeless in a ditch, the evidence suggests he’ll be fine.

Beyond passion for the outdoors, as business owners the Overingtons’ livelihood depended on blending parenthood into the seasonal lifestyle successfully. “The thing is, most people have never done it themselves and they don’t know anyone else who’s really done it that way either, so in their mind you can’t do it—until someone does it and it seems to work. Then they’re pretty supportive,” Buckwheat explains. Trailblazing requires fortitude, but the Overingtons’ sagaciousness enabled another Salt Lake City family to set up a seasonal lifestyle in Panama. Most of the anticipated roadblocks, both families discovered, were nothing more than untested parenting taboos.

“It’s all about risk, all of these things,” Buckwheat says. “It doesn’t always work out, and it doesn’t always work out the way you expect it to, but if you have the fortitude and the gumption to accept the consequences as they be, whatever it is, you know, you learn from it, you grow from it.”

Navigating the school system presented the first hurdles, and tested the family dynamic they’d constructed. Until this year, Louis began each school year in Healy, Alaska before transferring to Salt Lake City in the fall. “[People] ask us, ‘Does the Utah school allow that?’ It’s like, ‘how can they not?’” Buckwheat laughs.

Louise recalls being warned by the school that Louis would lose enrollment if he accompanied her to New Zealand for six weeks in kindergarden. Louise asked, “Can I just re-enroll him when we show up?” Well, yes, she could. By testing the perimeter, they’ve teased out opportunities that wouldn’t have otherwise existed, and for the first time they’re carving out a more significant slice of their year to devote to New Zealand.

In an effort to integrate Louise’s home landscape deeper into their lives, this year the family has made an opportunity to visit Louise’s parents and explore New Zealand kayaking and mountain biking. After beginning the school year in Healy the “Wheats,” as friends often refer to them, are trying out homeschooling.

The family taking a break from skiing

So what’s the recipe behind the recipe? What aspects of their seasonal lives became the pillars of their seasonal family? Where were forks in the road where they could have folded? By evaluating the risks they took as individuals, and then as a couple, we can understand how the Overingtons beat odds to become the seasonal family they are today.

Louise

Louise with a 3-month old Louis

Louise grew up in New Zealand, the daughter of Croatian immigrants. Her parents, WWII survivors, had made aversion to danger the guiding force in their life and that was reflected in their daughter’s upbringing. Louise felt sheltered from many benign experiences. Family beach outings provided an egress but a desire for something more burned inside of her. Although New Zealand would become the adventure sport capital of the world, that exploded after Louise’s time, and like many Kiwis she looked out from her country in search of more world than could fit onto her tiny island. Thus, as a young adult Louise left the country in search of adventure.

After pharmacy school, a ski week in Austria inspired Louise to make plans with a friend to move to Colorado and become ski bums for one winter. At the last minute, however, her friend bailed to get married. This was an important moment for Louise. Her friend married and never again had the chance for that one winter at a ski resort, and it would have been easy for Louise to bow out and follow suit. Louise was intimidated but the departure date was approaching fast so she stuck to the plan, found a restaurant job near Aspen, and fell skis first into a twenty-five year passion for powder. A series of events led to her renewing her visa, living in Durango, and meeting Buckwheat. What was intended as one winter abroad quickly evolved into a lifestyle of adventure.

Buckwheat

Punching Two Rocks rapid on the Nenana (Buckwheat guiding far left)

By age ten Buckwheat was already riding his motorcycle solo through the woods. Although he claims his mom was “a bit of a scaredy cat,” she was apparently out riding motorcycles at times, as well. Regardless, Buckwheat’s childhood provided more room for scrapes and bruises than Louise’s, and he mitigated the doldrums of suburban Florida by channeling his energy into motocross and football. At twelve, his parents divorced and he and his mom moved to Colorado where winters suddenly impeded on the Floridian’s hobbies. An extracurricular ski class at fifteen, however, gave winter purpose. “Winter was just a pain in the ass up to that point. Skiing opened up a whole new side of life,” he reflects.

Under the guidance of his best friend, Rick, Buckwheat evolved into an aggressive skier. The pair often skipped school for powder days and were gifted enough students that it bore little affect on their academics. Adventures amplified their lives until one fateful night when Rick was killed in a car accident. Rick’s ashes were scattered on Telluride and since then skiing has become more spiritual for Buckwheat, who still thinks of his friend often while on the mountain.

In college, Buckwheat couldn’t afford motorized bikes anymore so he ditched the motor and joined the pioneer mountain biking scene in Durango. An outdoors class at Fort Lewis introduced him to kayaking and soon this trifecta—skiing, mountain biking, and kayaking—vied for his attention and became the guiding framework of his young adult life. Eventually, photography and driving work for a Grand Canyon raft company led Buckwheat to raft guiding on the Animas in Durango. That segue planted a major life seed that years later blossomed into the founding of Denali Outdoor Center, but it’s significance lay dormant at first.

Initially, sports were about adrenaline—even skiing to an extent. Buckwheat’s first overnight river trip on the San Juan, however, developed his spiritual connection to the outdoors. “Finding solitude in the canyons of southern Utah, reading Desert Solitaire, and discovering the tranquility of isolation, truly turned me on to river life,” he explains. “[Adventure sports] became a catalyst for spiritual and physical happiness; connecting me with the power and humility of the experience, and maintaining my physical well-being as they continued to satisfy my desire for the next adrenaline rush.” What began as hobbies escalated into indispensable intimacy. Since then, these pursuits have infiltrated every aspect of his life.

Providence

Louise hit the jackpot. Her first ever river trip comprised three weeks on the most coveted section of high volume whitewater in the country and even introduced her to her future husband. They didn’t date immediately, however. Buckwheat would drive Louise twice that year, first as her shuttle driver for the Grand Canyon and then again for public transit in Durango that winter. After the second meeting, Buckwheat invited Louise out for a drink but in an effort to stick to a new personal restriction about not agreeing to every date proposal, she turned down the man she would eventually marry. Providence provided a second chance meeting at the laundromat that evening, however, and afterward they found themselves getting that drink after all.

Many adventures later, Buckwheat would get hired at a rafting company in Denali, but bailed on the idea after doing some research at the library. “We’re looking at the rainfall amounts and stuff and we’re like ‘we don’t want to go there, drive all the way up there and have it be cold and rainy all the time,'” Buckwheat says.

“I just remember that picture of everyone [rafting] in Helly Hansen,” Louise laments. “I was like, uh, looks like it rains a lot there.”

It does, which they discovered firsthand that year when low water on the Animas expanded their migration to Alaska despite themselves. Denali revealed something more desirable than rain, however. The Nenana proved to be a high volume, low traffic, non-permitted river through incendiary landscape. Over the next few years, they built a home, built a business, and made that glacial-fed river their backyard, rain and all.

Trailblazing

Home sweet home: sunset over Otto Lake at Denali Outdoor Center

The Denali business originated as an idea for an inflatable kayak school with little hope of getting off the ground. Banks continually refused Buckwheat’s proposal until finally he met with a loan officer who happened to recognize him as the now grown son of her husband’s good friend. She took a chance on his risky idea and, thus, the Denali Park Paddling Center was formed in 1993. Eventually, that evolved into the Denali Outdoor Center (DOC), one of the most respected rafting companies in Alaska today.

Until then, Louise was building a pharmacy career but she quit her full-time gig to start DOC. They had hoped DOC would make enough money for Louise to quit pharmacy all together, but it didn’t work out that way. Although the business is successful, it’s difficult to make enough money in four months to fund their preferred lifestyle. “There’s a certain level of income that’s required to meet those needs to raise a family, it’s one of the reasons why we only have one child. We can afford the tickets to New Zealand, we can afford the toys for everybody, and still live the lifestyle. At 2 or 3 kids we might have to reassess and have a different lifestyle.” Buckwheat analyzes. Therefore, both parents maintain employment in the off-season. Louise became a relief pharmacist which allowed her to work when and where she wanted. It also took her over Colorado mountain passes and away from home for several days at a time—an arrangement unsustainable into parenthood.

They searched Alaska and the West for a place that allowed all facets of their lives to synchronize. Louise offered Walmart winter pharmacy work strictly in Salt Lake City and they accepted. “Back then it was easy since they were so short of pharmacists and they took what you could offer. Hence, I created a seasonal job due to the need for pharmacists. I don’t think I could get away with it now.” In Salt Lake City, they could afford a 4-bedroom, 2-and-a-half bath, decent house in a nice neighborhood, ten minutes from the world class skiing of Snowbird-Alta, for $170,000. “To be able to afford a home that we were only going to live in half the year and that we didn’t want to rent out the other half of the year—you can’t do that anywhere else that I’ve found. You couldn’t pull those pieces together, the work, the other shoulder season activities, great mountain biking in spring and fall there, close to the desert, you know, all the elements. International airport, direct flights to Anchorage.”

Louise adds, “Everything gets negated because of the smog.”

Undoubtedly, her comment represents the underlying truth: there isn’t one landscape that currently meets the family’s needs and desires. Thus, the migration persists, something everyone processes differently. Buckwheat accepts it as a necessary discomfort because neither landscape is attractive to him in the opposite season, whereas Louise is reminded that she would prefer to integrate into one, year-round community. For Louis, the seasonal cadence has permeated his entire life so he has no basis for comparison. Despite the obvious inconvenience, the fall drive south—peppered with kayaking and mountain biking adventures—has developed into a beloved, annual, two-week family vacation capable of dissolving the rest of the bullshit. Indeed, the parents especially know how rare it is to share adventure with the whole family.

Built-in adventure buddies

First day of skiing 2012

If the couple that plays together stays together, then the family who extends that gift to their children fortifies their bond that much more. For those who disbelieve that a person can chase their passion and raise a happy family, the Wheats shatter that illusion. Parenthood mellows the terrain temporarily and adventures metabolize at a different pace for a few years, but seeing passion mirrored in the incredulous eyes of one’s own child deepens that activity’s value forever. In the long run, it can even keep adults engaged in the outdoors at a greater intensity for more years than they naturally would otherwise. It certainly has for Buckwheat and Louise.

Louise admits she satiated her addiction to powder and no longer needs to alter her life for it, however engaging in her passion for the outdoors with her family remains paramount. Buckwheat recognizes that parenthood now has him playing on his skis and kayak with the intensity of his young adult years. As a family of three, the Overingtons travel as a self-contained unit—built-in adventure buddies looking out for each other’s safety and sharing the stoke. For professional nomads, that qualifies as living the dream.

To succeed as a parent in the seasonal lifestyle only the rules need change. As with everything, there’s a way to do it responsibly and a way to do it irresponsibly, and this one starts with a change in the narrative. It’s not a rootless existence but migration between seasonal habitats. Pick your playgrounds, create a niche, and the resultant passion will foster a dynamic learning environment for a child. Adventurous couples have the opportunity to break the paradigm and see their passions take on new life in the next generation. If life is a series of calculated risks, then parenthood is the last place to start taking the easy way out.

Ready for adventure in New Zealand

Continue to Part 2: Raising the Nomadic Kid

Trent Griffin

September 27, 2014September 21, 2015 / Professional Nomads / Leave a comment

Trent and the Beaver in the Don Sheldon Amphitheater, Denali National Park, Alaska

Glacier pilot in Alaska
Skydive pilot in Hawaii
Surfer

Dreams require tinkering. It’s the impetus of invention, even in one’s self—it’s the audacity to try and fail yet persevere through. “I’m afflicted with the obsession of just tinkering with stuff. I get it from my dad.” Similarly to his Dad, tinkering instilled Trent with the follow-through to succeed, no matter what the challenge.

Technically, Trent’s story begins in Australia, but while he and his brother were still babies his parents transplanted the family to Talkeetna, Alaska. The house was in shambles so his dad fixed it up while the rest of the family stayed in Anchorage. “It was pretty trashed. I believe there was a motorcycle inside the living room taken apart, and the outside steps for the porch were, like, out in the middle of the yard somewhere. To boot, it was 35 below zero for like a month that winter.” Trent’s dad persevered and renovated the home in which the boys would grow up. That ability to hunker down, see a project through, and enjoy the how-to process is something his dad passed onto him. “My dad’s always been my hero, and I take after him in most things. He’s an amazing builder and mechanic, and he just loves to tinker.”

Talkeetna, Alaska is the aviation hub of the Alaska Range, and the pre-base-camp hangout for most Denali climbers. Therefore, many aviation legends and climbing tales are spun in this little community of about 1300 people. Trent grew up less than a quarter mile from the town’s 3500ft airstrip, but consciously speaking, that proximity played little part in his career choice. Before college, he was just a regular kid playing hockey and working on cars. “I actually didn’t fly an airplane, I mean actually sit at the controls of the airplane until I was in college. I just didn’t have somebody to go flying with the whole time. If I did, I’m sure I would have gotten into it a lot earlier.” Therefore, when he did pursue his pilot’s license it was a very cognizant choice.

After graduating high school with approximately eighteen other students, Trent’s parents encouraged him to pursue professional aeronautics at University of Alaska Anchorage, during which time he earned his private pilot’s license and instrument rating. By then, Trent had 95 hours—he also had an epiphany. He thought, “Why do I need to pay all this money to be part of a university setting when I could just be part of a flying club?” This was a defining choice in two ways. First off, he paid far less per flight hour than he did renting a plane—not to mention he saved on tuition fees. Perhaps more importantly, though, joining a flight club exposed him to tailwheels and ski planes—the latter particularly is a specialized type of flying that few people have access to, let alone consistently, but which nourished Trent’s adventurous side. “Flying on skis was awesome. It made flying this total open abyss where you could go, especially in Alaska. You’ve got lakes everywhere, flat surfaces, and tons of snow. As long as you’re being careful you can get there on skis.”

Trent and I met in Alaska at our first aviation jobs, albeit in much different capacities. Trent was essentially a co-pilot and I was the office manager/flight coordinator for the same company. I was starry-eyed about the unique brand of flying it showcased. In high school, I attended a career day pilot’s talk, but my dreams of adventure were dashed when the speaker painted a limited reality of airlines, military, or both. But Alaska offered something different: the opportunity to fly in in unique places and tinker one’s career around a nomadic lifestyle. At the time of employment, Fly Denali and Talkeetna Aero operated jointly—Fly Denali landed climbers and tourists on Mt. McKinley’s (Denali’s) glaciers in ski planes, while Talkeetna Aero employed twin engines equipped with supplemental oxygen to fly over the mountain’s summit at 20,306 feet. Eventually, Trent would fly both types of aircraft as pilot in command, but back then he was second in command in the twins. Trent’s aviation career was just taking off.

Office with a view

After the summer at Fly Denali/Talkeetna Aero, with about 575 flight hours logged, Trent went to Bethel, Alaska and became a bush pilot for Grant Aviation. At this point, it’s useful to define what a bush pilot is precisely, since the term bush pilot is often sloppily used to encompass all Alaskan aviation.

Trent with a 98 yr old woman in Western Alaska, who made him a fur hat from beaver and seal.

Trent with a 98 yr old woman in Western Alaska, who made him a hat from seal and beaver fur.

The majority of Alaska is cut off from the road system that connects the state to Canada and then feeds back into the contiguous United States—a fact which pleases most Alaskans. Case in point, when the only road into the fishing community of Valdez was annihilated by an avalanche last winter the town shrugged it off and used boats to fill the void. Boats, sled dogs, snow machines, and bush planes are the unifiers between communities off the road system. “You can fly five minutes out of Anchorage and you’re out in the wilderness, but you’re not a bush pilot, you’re taking off out of Anchorage,” Trent explains. Most pilots agree that a pilot’s point of origin and intended destination must be off the road system to qualify as bush flying.

Winter flying in Western Alaska is not only off the road system, but it’s often brutal, and Trent’s experience was no exception. “That was pretty real. It was super windy, it was super slick, the runways were just solid ice.” Most Januaries produce more snowfall, but it was a warm winter. “Everything was, like, water over ice with little bits of peat gravel showing through.”

He recalls his first day waiting for the company instructor in the Cessna 207, which was tied down but not yet started. “It was blowing something like 25 gusting to 30-something. That’s pretty fast, especially when you’re just sitting there and the plane’s rocking all over the place and you hear these wind whistle sounds going by. But as soon as I got in the air I was like ‘okay, this isn’t so bad.’ A plane in the air can handle quite a bit—more than you think they can.” Trent adopted the challenges as learning opportunities. “The thing that it taught me is to make the right decision and listen to that little voice inside your head because you’re probably right. If you start pushing that limit too many times then you’ll probably have an accident. You have to realize: who are you proving it to?”

Concerning safety, some companies have a reputation for shopping unfavorable bush flights around the pilot lounge until someone finally accepts. Thankfully, Grant wasn’t one of them. Ultimately, it’s the pilot’s decision to refuse a flight but Trent encountered several self-righteous pilots on his three “tours of duty” in Western Alaska. “They were seeing how far they could take it. I’ve seen a few where the guy took off, it’s dark, it’s only seven-fifteen in the morning and they’re not supposed to be off until eight, and ten minutes of flying and their airplane was covered in ice. It’s scary looking—the spinner had spikes coming off of it. You see what their motivation is and it’s not worth it. It’s really not.”

Photo by Michael DeYoung

A few years of experience later, Trent returned to his roots as the chief pilot at Fly Denali. In an effort to boost his company’s reputation, Trent accepted an invitation to be filmed for National Geographic’s Alaska Wingmen, which meant flying the turbine beaver with a camera crew in tow. Reality television has synonymized Alaska with danger, but the term “reality” is a complete fallacy. Ask an Alaskan fisherman about Deadliest Catch, a pilot about any of the aviation shows, or any Alaskan in general about Sarah Palin and they’ll roll their eyes. “It’s crap. Everything is made up. ‘Don’t worry, we’re National Geographic,’ they said, and I was, like, ‘well I just don’t want everything to be staged, I want it to be real. You need to realize aviation isn’t this terrifying, death-defying event. It’s supposed to be safe. There’s so many things that you have to do to make it safe, and I don’t want you guys to film and ask me to tell you that ‘oh man at any point here if we lose an engine we’re all going to die.’ They really embellish the danger factor all the time, because otherwise they’d have nothing to film. ‘Well, another uneventful day of flying.’” The truth may not be as flashy, but reality is compelling in its own nature. Among its honors is the esteem of being honest and allowing audiences to draw their own conjectures.

Another fallacy permeating this lifestyle is tourism. Over time, many tourist towns construct a marketable facade of the town’s soul for tourists to consume. Growing up witnessing tourists trample your homeland is enough to embitter locals, however, Trent is more accepting. “Here’s the thing. I wasn’t the last one in, and I’m not the kind of guy who is ever going to tell people how it is up here. There’s certainly a pace of life everywhere you go, and everybody that’s visiting those places should respect that and not just expect it to be the way it was where they came from. No one can say this is my land, because they’re really just a blip in this timeline of this world. So when I think about it that way I don’t get annoyed.”

Trent immersed himself in tourism as an outsider when he landed a job flying in Hawaii. After a chance meeting in Alaska with the owner of Skydive Kauai, Trent accepted an invitation to check out the operation in the winter. “I kinda went on a whim, brought my girlfriend with me and said ‘I’ll figure it out.’” Before long, Trent became their full-time pilot flying skydivers and hour-long air tours.

Most single-engine pilots eventually chase money into larger aircraft, a tendency Trent calls, “The big shiny jet syndrome.” Although most of Trent’s flight hours have been single-engine, time in the Navajos and a recently earned Airline Transport Pilot license diversifies his marketability should he decide to pursue something larger, which seems unlikely. He illustrated the dilemma musing over the ski planes he’s flown professionally. “Flying bigger airplanes doesn’t really appeal to me. Even going from the Beaver to the Otter, all of a sudden it’s a slower-turning airplane, I mean it’s awesome, but it’s not a 185. The 185 is like a little hot rod and then compare that to the Otter, it’s like driving a dump truck.” The idea of the airlines conjures adventure for some, but sounds mundane to Trent. A more appealing step to him would be fire-bombing for wildfire control or flying with the Department of Natural Resources.

Looking toward Anderson Pass in Denali

Although repetitious flying invites monotony, Trent recognizes his good fortune. “Every day is different. Even though it’s the same mountains and the same terrain, the scenery is always changing. The clouds, the weather, the winds; the picture is painted differently every day, but with the same background.” Trent has witnessed spectacular sights from the cockpit, from humpback whales breaching in Hawaii to northern lights in Western Alaska. “I saw 7 bears on a beached whale one time. One of them I distinctly remember was laying on its back and its belly was, like, over its rib cage, and he’s almost just scratching itself looking up at me, not a care in the world sitting next to this huge stinking gray whale. Those bears were in heaven. I feel pretty lucky to be seeing those kinds of things.”

Aviation is just one of Trent’s many interests, but it certainly adds a dynamic when indulging his other hobbies. Now that he owns a Tripacer he expects he’ll still be flying on weekends. “But it will be a means to an end. I’ll go straight to where I’m going, land, and have an adventure. That’s what it’s all about: getting to those way cool out of the way spots that are otherwise unobtainable. I like to see stuff from the air, but I don’t really have an ambition, like, ‘I want to go fly the Grand Canyon.’ I have much more ambition to raft the canyon, or fly somewhere and get out there and hike. That’s what an airplane allows up here is there’s so much freedom where you can go. You can fly out there and then enjoy this total, untouched wilderness.”

Although Trent opted not to return to Skydive Kauai this winter he is planning a long surf vacation in the off-season. “If I had a warm ocean and waves [in Talkeetna], I would never leave. That’s what my other passion is. Really being next to the ocean, being in the ocean—I love surfing.” Ultimately, there may be a way to combine his passions. “I’d love to fly for, like, a surf adventure company and go to these exotic spots with a float plane or a Twin Otter, and just drop people down out there for, like, a week at a time and have boats to get them out to surf spots. It would be amazing.” The gift of this lifestyle is that such dreams are viable. If he tinkers long enough, Trent might just figure out how to transform this idea into reality.

Continue to: What You Need to Know About Becoming a Commercial Pilot.

Kauai sunrise at 10,000 ft.

Prosaic in Nature: rejuvenation in transition

September 15, 2014September 21, 2015 / Professional Nomads / 4 Comments

The following is adapted from a speech the author gave in Denali National Park, Alaska at a My Seasonal Life showcase—a project by LivingSeasonal.com

Exploring the Columbia Gorge in Oregon.

This is how it happens. At breakfast, a coworker sits down across from me in the employee dining hall, exhales heavily and says, “Do you want to climb Kilimanjaro with me?” I pause as I swallow my bite of Raisin Bran and—perhaps fueled by my healthy breakfast choice, or delusional from seven hours between work shifts—I respond, “I think so. Give me a week to see if I’m lying.” I resume conversation with my other breakfast buddy and the topic drifts to the possibility of sailing the Virgin Islands with a boat captain friend.

Later that day, I’m in my room with my current and former roommates divulging my new intentions. “I think I might go to Africa this fall,” I clear my throat to consider how ridiculous the next phrase will sound, “and climb Kilimanjaro. Is that weird?” Immediately, one friend responds, “I’m thinking about going to Africa this fall to do some rock climbing!” The other chimes in, “I’m pretty sure I’m going to France and probably touring a great deal of Europe.” So on and so forth as I share my half-baked travel plan over the next few days my friends in this nomadic community share theirs.

Sure enough, no one ever responds, “That’s weird.” No one says, That’s crazy,” because it isn’t. Certainly, no one ever chides, “That’s irresponsible,” although financially they’d be somewhat right. But, fuck it. Africa, ya know?

The author uncertain about a volcano mud bath in Colombia.

In this community this is normal, even expected, and definitely celebrated. It’s almost easy to lose sight of how adventurous our friends are, because everyone is out there pursuing something badass in the off-season—the time when we’re not working and life really begins. In actuality, there’s nothing really “off” about it.

A good friend once told me, “our friends are better than Travelocity.” He couldn’t be more right. Last year, my friends trekked the Himalayas in Nepal, celebrated Oktoberfest in Germany, explored Colombia, fished from a sea kayak in Hawaii, spent the winter in India, borrowed boats and sailed in the Virgin Islands, taught diving in Indonesia, and mushed the Iditarod and Yukon Quest. The list goes on. All of those adventures—all of that personal expansion and testing of oneself in the unknown—was enabled by embracing seasonal living. Our people place more emphasis on what you do with your time than how you make money.

Keeping things orderly in the Lost City, Colombia

As easy as it is to lose sight of how badass our friends are, all we have to do is look to our childhood friends back home for reassurance. They’re getting married and popping out fleets of children. They’re fretting over floral arrangements and the color of bridesmaid’s dresses. Alternatively, our friends living seasonally have the decency to elope, get those pesky vows out of the way, and then save the good part—the reception—for us so we can celebrate their marriage with good food and copious amounts of alcohol. We just value things differently in this lifestyle. Money buys our fun and adventure. It provides for us, too, but our needs span a much different scale than what we once valued, pre-seasonal adventures.

Taking a break on the Matanuska glacier in Alaska

But here’s the downside. The good ones leave. They burn out, move on to new adventures, answer that call to settle down, or become fed up with steadfast corporate idiocy (a funny thing that rears its head even in this lifestyle). Worse yet, some forget how awesome we have it compared to the 9-5ers because the excitement dwindles as adventure becomes prosaic in our world. The reality is that almost everyone bows out eventually. The place, though home for so many of us, is still just a stop along the greater migrational path.

The decision to climb Kilimanjaro really was made that simply. All the subsequent research I did was essentially fodder to support that decision. When else would I plan such a thing for myself? Right now I’m in decent shape with a wide open fall season to decorate any way I choose. Why not select Africa?

Contemplative along the Oregon coastline

The possibilities in this lifestyle are limited only by one’s imagination. The seasonal community is expansive yet tightly knit, so we make new friends but the good ones never leave us entirely. We’ll cross paths on another adventure and crash on each other’s couches down the line. Our friends really are better than Travelocity. Not only can they provide travel advice to everywhere, but they understand why we must continue searching for new horizons.

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Solo Searching

September 7, 2014September 21, 2015 / Professional Nomads / 10 Comments

Five Things I Learned on a Three-Night, Solo Birthday Trip in Denali’s Backcountry

I’m not sure what happened. The last thing I remember was goofing off in my twenties and giggling at people who feared their thirties. I was minding my own business when thirty-two began cruelly mocking me and my lack of direction. I wondered, what am I doing with my life? I had a midlife crisis at 27, so I wasn’t inclined to repeat that struggle, but I needed an adventure that would straighten out my thoughts.

The author on top of Anderson Pass

Anderson Pass in Denali National Park has beckoned me for years. This pass is nestled in one of the most dramatic sections of the Alaska Range and is one of few nontechnical passes concealed in these mountains. On my first attempt backpacking in that area I hiked into a ping pong ball of fog and the second time I was stymied by snowfall. For my birthday, I would be happy just to see what that backcountry unit looked like, let alone summit the pass. Halfway through the rainiest summer on record, though, it seemed unlikely I would catch a weather break to attempt the trip. Furthermore, on my departure day a 16 year-old tried to thwart my plans by hitting my car at the DMV (he didn’t pass his driving test that day), but miraculously I caught my bus, the skies parted, and the wilderness invited me to explore. This is what I learned.

1. Maps seem quite straightforward, but real life isn’t so obvious. In reality, maps are merely guidelines and as such they may lie to you once in a while, or at least trick you into misinterpretation. If you allow yourself forgiveness for straying from the map, meaningful adventures can follow. During a moment of uncertainty, I hiked up a drainage to assess my situation and soon realized my error. By then I was too mesmerized to quit, and consequently on my birthday I scrutinized the subtleties of a soaring golden eagle, listened to marmots whistle (an animal I think I love because they’re basically wild, overgrown hamsters—the only pet I was allowed to have as a kid) and stood on a glacier. How cool is that?

Headwaters of the Chulitna; south side of Anderson Pass

2. Although the backcountry isn’t exactly trail-less, it does offer the chance to select your own adventure. There is no signage declaring your destination, illuminating your path, or forbidding you from walking on sketchy glacial moraine and ice. If there was a sign, it would simply read, “Caution: Real life ahead.” In this country, no one wants to be safely escorted to a summit. The reward lies in enduring the hardships and misadventures it takes to navigate by your own volition. Whichever route you forge, the backcountry implores authority over each choice. Few decisions in life are more empowering.

Decisions, decisions, decisions

3. If you neglect to interact with nature you don’t simply begin to take it for granted, you build antibodies that reject its luster. Upon first sight, it’s impossible to be insensitive to Denali National Park’s beauty. If nothing else, Mt. McKinley—a massive piece of granite standing amidst six million acres of wilderness—sucker punches even the biggest hard-asses into appreciation. Additionally, giant animals roam freely and because most of them can beat the shit out of you, you observe them with awe. Yet every year local employees forget how beautiful their home is because they don’t engage the landscape. Some will experience less wilderness in four months than tourists who in one day merely observe it through bus windows and video monitors. Indifference is corrosive. If you work in a national park you must get out there, scab your knees, get your feet wet, and poop in the woods. Anything less and you may as well save the hassle and work a year-round, sedentary desk job. Our national parks belong to us as a nation; we deserve people in charge who care enough to experience the hell out of them.

Denali viewed from the Muldrow glacier.

4. It’s easy to overlook how delicate the ground you stand on is until you face a giant crevasse. Conversely, nature’s fortitude is dismissible until you witness flowers growing amidst a desolate scree slope.

5. When you don’t have an adventure buddy available you must still embark. The nuances of a landscape come alive to the solo traveler. Few people spend enough time looking inward anyway, and on a solo trip, you can face your demons and make peace with them. Every action has purpose—from filtering water to setting up shelter—and therefore the simplest things take on more meaning and renews the soul’s sense of effectualness. Ultimately, though, birthdays are still best shared when possible.

Brooke Edwards, pt. 1

August 23, 2014September 21, 2015 / Professional Nomads / 4 Comments

Guide in Alaska and Antarctica
AK Rep for RAMP and Fly Low
All around badass
Brooke earning her turns in the backcountry

“My mom told me when I was young once, ‘you need to grow up and be a ski bum because I never did that.’” To reduce Brooke Edward’s life to being just a ski bum, however, cheapens her vivacious existence. True, Brooke did take one winter to live out of a van with her boyfriend and dog during which time they rafted, mountain biked, and skied the country. However, “bumming” has never been her way. That winter, among other things, she learned the value of the karmic couch. Her motto seems to be: put good into the universe, work hard and play hard and life will pay out in dividends.

Hands-on education

As a kid, Brooke’s parents took her and her sister backpacking on the Olympic Coast where they’d find a wild beach and become spellbound by winter storms. “It wasn’t your normal beach vacation where you’d even touch the ocean. It was, like, pouring down rain sideways and huge surfs and crazy storms, but we would rent a little cabin on a bluff and just walk the beach and look for rocks and driftwood and clay and it was great. I think [my mom] inspired me with just falling in love with wild energy and all its elements no matter what the weather.”

Wild energy captivated Brooke’s imagination throughout her life and perhaps as early as sixth grade Brooke realized her calling. At environmental camp she saw people living her dream life. “[Guiding] just blew my mind. I couldn’t believe that you could get paid to take people into the wilderness.” From then on, Brooke’s plans were inlaid with a desire to pursue the wildly unknown and share it with others—an abstract desire that gestated into something tangible as an adult. Brooke landed her first guiding job cow-girling in Jackson Hole for a summer after college before leaving the country. Whatever she was searching for in life, she needed to go somewhere in the world where it could smack her in the face. She hoped to find that volunteering abroad. “My only criteria were to not put in any money and not get out any money, have it be non religious and be about a year.” Through research she homed in on the Peace Corps.

23 yr-old Brooke during the Peace Corps in the village of Bawade, West Africa

In the Peace Corps, Brooke worked in a small village in West Africa in a program dedicated to staving off the expansion of the Sahara. Techniques are being developed that maximize resource efficiency yet work harmoniously with local culture, and Brooke’s role was to disseminate these methods. “We took super duper simple technology that they already had the tools for and just taught them [different techniques]. I had this little youth group of eight to twelve year-olds that I would teach all that stuff to and they would teach their family so it wasn’t a crazy white lady coming in who doesn’t know anything about carrying water or growing millet.” One method she taught involved planting a thorny species called Acacia that grows into a living fence instead of chopping down wood to fulfill the same need. She also introduced an insulating mud stove that burned far less wood than their current method, as well as various counter-erosion techniques. In Africa, Brooke “got the bug of learning from travel and it only increased that desire to want to show people those kind of places.” She found satisfaction in teaching others as well as in expanding her own worldly understanding through hands-on participation.

Twins Brooke helped deliver. She saved the second from a breach birth helped to deliver and got to even save the second one from a breach birth by "massaging it's head around until it faced the birth canal, then caught it in a mud hut and cut the umbilical cord with a raw razor blade."

Twins Brooke helped deliver. She saved the second from a breech birth by “massaging it’s head around until it faced the birth canal, then caught it in a mud hut and cut the umbilical cord with a raw razor blade.”

After the Peace Corps, Brooke returned to the States, did a year of Americorps at her old college and subsequently pursued her masters in environmental education in an unusual way. “It was a traveling school bus called the Audubon Expedition Institute and each semester was in a different region. It was all outdoors and all experiential, so in the Northwest semester you studied all environmental issues that were relevant to the Northwest—logging, dams, nuclear energy, salmon—and you spent the whole time camping. Instead of reading about an issue you learned about logging by meeting with Weyerhaeuser, meeting with the Earth First! activists, meeting with the Forest Service, and camping with loggers on their land for a week. It was really a cool spectrum.” She wanted to apply what she was learning to guiding and so she centered her special projects on how she could continue to combine her passions in ecotourism. “Environmental education did seem like it had a home in guiding. Essentially, lots of people choosing a vacation now want to learn as you go.”

Soon Brooke found her way up to Alaska and found her home—not an address, per se, but her landscape. “The second I stepped off the plane in Alaska I was like Oh! This is it! It was like Washington times a thousand. Bigger mountains, and bigger waters, and less people and people living off the land.” Alaskan summers became a cornerstone in her migrational life and she soon developed a summer routine of guiding seven to twelve-day natural and cultural history trips deep into the wilderness for Alaska Wildland Adventures, based out of Cooper landing. She sandwiched that gig between teaching semesters for the Audubon in places like the Bahamas and the Southwest. “Travel is continuing education. It keeps my mind engaged and constantly opening to new possibilities and fresh outlooks on life. The challenges that are presented by logistics being constantly thwarted by acts of nature are a chance to solve an ever-evolving and pertinent life crossword puzzle.” Ecotourism, at least theoretically, promotes an organic appreciation for a place by finding an economic edge that works unobtrusively within the landscape. Regardless, Brooke unquestionably found such an edge in her own life, by pursuing a career that blends people and wilderness in harmony with her personal landscape. In the Peace Corps, she taught locals to use the tools they already had to improve the sustainability of their communities. In guiding, she does exactly the same thing on an individual level. Brooke encourages people to discover their own fertile nature and germinate that which already exists inside of them. From there, people may reap the rewards in unforeseen ways—even Brooke.

The accidental professional

It was only a matter of time before Alaska engaged this energetic twenty-something year-round. “Alaska just made sense to me. There’s a whole field called eco-psychology and it’s, like, the places that speak to your soul and this is definitely it.” Soon Brooke traded Audubon for winters in the snowiest town in Alaska managing Valdez Heli Ski Guides. Surrounded by the founders of big mountain skiing, she was initially a self-described tomboy intimidated in a boy’s world. “I didn’t have those female mentors until later in life and especially coming to Alaska I’ve realized how important it was to me to be taken under the wing of, like, Kirsten Kramer, who was the only female guide at Valdez Heli Ski Guides when I moved there. She just showed me that I could do it, too, so I’ve really tried to pay that forward.” Although Brooke eventually resigned from Valdez Heli Ski Guides, she has continued to develop into a leader in the Alaskan ski industry. Not surprisingly, much of that is infused with women empowerment:

Huckin’ it above the clouds

“I feel like it’s become a super important piece of my passion to figure out how to pay that forward. Whether that’s being the cool auntie to little girls in town, or running the girls’ day off programs just to try to get girls out there in full force in tutus and fairy wings learning to ski backwards or do a spread eagle for the first time. It’s all really empowering. Women being goofballs together, being themselves, being strong, being powerful, and then helping others access those goods.”

One such inspiring program is Backcountry Babes, for which Brooke helps run steeps camps. “Women a lot of times have the ability within themselves but they don’t believe it. It’s really cool for me to be that person that’s really just coaching them there, making it okay for them to take that risk, and giving them a safe place to engage in their own abilities within that to dive right in. Then they just sing.”

Through her enthusiasm, Brooke has become a rep for two ski gear companies, RAMP (Riders Artists Musician Project), a Park City based company that designs bamboo skis, snowboards, and stand-up paddle boards, and Flylow, a Colorado-based activewear company that has grown exponentially since she first heard of them. “To get free stuff you don’t have to be good at something you have to talk about it a lot. I think I’m just one of those personalities that’s a cheerleader and if there’s something I believe in I rave about it, and I think companies recognize that.” Although Brooke has skied a plethora of planks, RAMP are hands-down her favorite.

As the seasons ticked on, Brooke “accidentally” worked her way up the ladder to managing Alaska Wildland Adventures. This position allowed her to flex-time her work in the winter and teach tele and alpine skiing at Alyeska Resort in Girdwood, Alaska where she bought a “little hippie shack in the woods.” She had a year-round job, benefits, flexibility to ski, and a home; for many this is the seasonal grand slam. Despite the praiseworthy aspects of her life, however, she realized that more money wasn’t buying happiness. “It just made me sad that I’d gotten away from guiding. The further up the ladder I moved in traditional success the more I got away from the seasonal lifestyle. I opted to pass that baton off and go back to the living paycheck to paycheck and go back to more time and less money and guide.”

Most people’s fear about entering the seasonal lifestyle, especially when they have an established career, is about abandoning the known for the unknown. Similarly, Brooke was embarking on unstable ground with no idea of what to expect, but two weeks later she had a job guiding in Antarctica for three months followed up by a position with Chugach Powder Guides in her home ski town of Girdwood. Over time, Brooke has learned to “throw [myself] out there and trust the blank slate.” This unwavering trust was about to lead her on her greatest adventure.

“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.” Richard Bach

Read about Brooke’s growth in leadership and her segue into guiding in Antarctica in part 2!

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