The Blind Naturalist

Shannon Columb’s (B.S. Resource Management - Environmental Education and Interpretation ‘20) relationship with nature started when she was a child exploring her parent’s farm. She enjoyed galloping through the pastures on her stick horse, climbing on hay bales, riding her bike through mud puddles, and walking through the woods with her dogs.

Shannon was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) at an early age, a degenerative eye condition characterized by night blindness and limited peripheral vision. The disease affects people differently. Some lose their sight rapidly, while others’ vision slowly degrades. In addition to night blindness and limited peripheral vision, Shannon also lost depth perception, has light sensitivity, and difficulty seeing detail.

This diagnosis did not impede her love of the natural world. She attended summer camps for the blind, received her first guide dog at 17, and adapted to her vision loss. She vowed to maintain a positive attitude despite the limitations RP presents. Immersing herself in nature was one of the ways she found helped her stay positive.

Her passion for the outdoors led her to complete a degree in Environmental Education and Interpretation from UW-Stevens Point. As one of the few students in her program with a disability, she felt isolated at times, but her professors were passionate about diversifying the field and ignited her desire to make outdoor education accessible to under-served communities, particularly for blind or visually impaired individuals.

After graduation, Shannon moved to southwest Wisconsin, the Driftless Area. The region, untouched by glaciers and filled with bluffs and winding rivers, is an ideal setting for her first foray into reaching those under-served communities by creating an accessible website, The Blind Naturalist (www.theblindnaturalist.com). Shannon hopes the website will serve as an educational resource, providing tools to make the outdoors more accessible for all. From five weeks in Europe with a guide dog to a trip to Isle Royale with friends, she shares her adventures and ways she has adapted to be able to continue traversing the outdoors.

Shannon also works as an AmeriCorps Naturalist for WisCorps in La Crosse, her second 1700-hour term with them. She leads various environmental education programs, from day camps to community programs, and has also developed curricula for some of their programs.