MIDDLEBURY GEOGRAPHIC
EDITOR’S NOTE
What if we thought of Middlebury Geographic as more of a society? This was the question I asked myself last school year one evening as I fervently scribbled a new vision for the organization.
I believe the most important function of student organizations at Middlebury is to engender social connection. Since I joined Middlebury Geographic in the fall of 2021, the club has always had a strong focus on its seeming core objective: publishing the magazine. Over the years, I’ve had an inkling that Middlebury Geographic can be so much more. I’ve yearned for a sense of community. As we enter our fifteenth year of publishing here at Middlebury Geographic, we’re excited not only about the amazing stories we’ve brought to fruition over the years, but also about the strong sense of belonging we have weaved together.
This fall is my last semester at Middlebury, and it has been a true pleasure to give back by bringing forth a new generation of Midd Geo creators, one rooted in both our legacy and a commitment to constant innovation. People often mistake Middlebury Geographic as simply a publishing organization. In actuality, the magazine is only a product of a truer thing, one that is much more beautiful. It’s not just a magazine. It’s a community. We are a passionate collective of creators brought together by shared values, driven to share them with each other and inspire broader conversations. By focusing first and foremost on building a strong social core, not only have we produced a fantastic 15th anniversary edition, we’ve come together to build a thriving new culture.
Student organizations famously ebb and flow at Middlebury. This year, I am proud to say Middlebury Geographic has seen a resurgence. After welcoming twelve new members to the editorial board, we’ve envisioned exciting new directions while celebrating the themes that empower us—place, belonging, and adventure. I can only dream of what the future holds for our club, but with the community we have built over this semester, my hope is strong. Here’s to fifteen more!
Cheers, Brett Gilman ‘24.5 President & Editor-in-Chief
Matteo Moretti ‘21
MIDDLEBURY GEOGRAPHIC
23RD EDITION - FALL 2024
years
Celebrating
Aidan Brennan ‘26
FROM THE ARCHIVE | Middlebury | Editorial Board
BWINDI | Uganda | Max Zeltsar
HANDS OF THE WEAVER | Ireland | Tasha Deen
LANDSCAPES FOR CHANGE | Europe and US | Brett Gilman
FAST FREEDOM | Minnesota | Tyler Stark
AROUND THE SIERRA NEVADA | California | Idanesi Ojior
SNAPSHOTS FROM NEPAL | Nepal | Alistair Nalle
FALLING INTO FALL | Europe | Inga Wójciechowska
HYENA | South Africa | Erin Pomfret
SNOWBOUND IN ICELAND’S WESTFJORDS | Iceland | Lucas Nerbonne
Aidan Brennan ‘26
CONTRIBUTORS
MAX ZELTSAR ‘24.5
Max is from Boxford, Massachusetts. As a conservation biologist, he has a deep curiosity for studying wildlife and enjoys spending as much time in nature as possible. He uses photography as a way of personally connecting with the outdoors as well as a means for storytelling and science communication.
TASHA DEEN ‘25
Tasha Deen was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. She studies literature with a concentration in short fiction. Outside of academics, Tasha loves long meandering walks while listening to Everything But the Girl or Saint Étienne.
TYLER STARK ‘27
Tyler is a sophomore Architectural Studies and Philosophy double major with an interest in sustainable building practices and planning. Hailing from Duluth, Minnesota, he’s a passionate runner, backpacker, kayaker, and skier, and lives for enormous adventures followed by enormous Proc dinners.
BRETT GILMAN ‘24.5
As an Independent Scholar in Socio-Ecological Studies of Landscape Architecture, Brett pursues studies at the intersection of conservation biology, art history, environmental policy, and design. Passionate about econaturalistic landscapes, Brett enjoys gardening, photography, skiing, reading, travel, and building community.
IDANESI OJIOR ‘27
Idanesi is a sophomore from Los Angeles majoring in Psychology. In his free time, he can be found drinking tea, shooting film, or yapping over Vermont radio.
ALISTAIR NALLE ‘26.5
Alistair is a junior feb from Dobbs Ferry, New York who majors in International and Global Studies with a minor in Religion. He has studied Arabic for two years and is looking forward to spending the spring in Amman, Jordan. He always enjoys exploring the Maine wilderness, playing music with his friends, and going on long walks in the woods with his dog, Navy.
ERIN POMFRET ‘28
Erin is a first-year student and wildlife photographer from Natick, Massachusetts. She has shot all over the world including South Africa, the United States, and the Netherlands. Outside of photography, she loves sports, coding, and the outdoors. She is majoring in physics and applied math, and plans on going into aerospace engineering, as well as continuing wildlife photography.
INGA WOJCIECHOWSKA
Inga is an exchange student from Freie Universitaet Berlin. She enjoys her political science readings, hiking, swimming, biking, and is passionate about learning and teaching foreign languages. She is proud to be from Central Poland.
LUCAS NERBONNE ‘25.5
Lucas is a Geology and Geography student from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Some of his interests include skiing, pottery, taking pictures, and hiking up the same mountains over and over expecting different results.
Lucas Nerbonne ‘25.5
Lucas Nerbonne ‘25.5
FROM THE ARCHIVE: 15 YEARS OF STORYTELLING HAPPY ANNIVERSARY
Reflecting on what Midd Geo means to us
MIDDLEBURY GEO GRAPHIC
Jake Gilbert, Spring
Since our first edition in 2009, Middlebury Geographic has featured a little bit of just about everything: academic research papers and long-form essays, photo essays, poems, collages, artwork, snapshots, articles, and maps. Some subjects have been oft-repeated favorites, like narratives of study abroad, life on campus, and wilderness adventure. Others have been one of a kind: ripping legendary powder turns down Grand Teton, learning to read English in post-9/11 Kabul, and walking 4,000 miles across fifteen states.
Long after each edition has been published and each chapter has been closed, what endures is the core spirit that brings us together in community. As an editorial board, it’s a love for the process that keeps us coming back. To honor the legacy of fifteen years of deeply fulfilling work, we have collected a selection of photographs (one from each past edition) that continue to make us go ‘wow’ and spark a feeling of awe. While the published
magazine is often the public face of our community, we also feel it is important to bring to light the personal narratives that motivate us to be a part of Middlebury Geographic. Inspired by a new generation of the editorial board, we’ve invited four of our newest members to share their journeys in joining Middlebury Geographic and what the club means to them through the words outlined in their initial applications.
Bringing together the archive and the membership, we hope to pause in gratitude for the amazing opportunity that is this student organization, to celebrate our
community, and to inspire a new generation of creators that will continue to innovate and empower our mission.
Emily Strasburg, Spring ‘20 Harper Harper, Fall ‘22
Irememberlistening to a seminar once about how we live on a tiny blue dot —the Earth. On that tiny blue dot, in a blob of a country –the U.S.– in a sliver of a state called Vermont, in a small town called Middlebury, there is a college, and all of us are small moving specs within that place. It feels scary to think of it like that, but at the same time, we, those little specs, can have such a profound impact on each other and the greater world. Middlebury Geographic is empowering for everyone involved: the reader, the contributors, and the editors. For the reader, students can learn and appreciate their peers’ lives. The contributors have the opportunity to spread narratives and vignettes about their accomplishments.
As an editor, I enjoy seeing the wider world through engaging with stories, photos, and projects.
As a new member, the chance to learn and engage through storytelling is uplifting. Being a part of Middlebury Geographic feels like a shared experience, a shared narrative, and a shared love for the outdoors, and the people that make the world and Middlebury special. I love writing, and I want to share this passion with the world. When I thought about the activities that I wanted to get involved in, I was looking for a way to shed light on what makes people and places unique. College is a scary place and has been a big adjustment for me, so finding a community that prioritizes this sense of place and belonging is really important, and becoming involved has likewise been very grounding.
Langan Garrett ‘28
Hannah Napier,
Isabel Shaw, Spring ‘12
Ethan Demaio, Spring ‘21
Inthe fall of 2022, ahead of college applications, I was struggling to come up with a good topic for my Common App Essay. I couldn’t land on a singular topic that I felt impassioned enough to write about, let alone in 650 words. After writing, rewriting, and deleting essays about karate, dogs, and a myriad of other topics, feeling stuck and uninspired, I turned to my dad.
After mulling over my dilemma for a while, he came back to me with a question: “What is the one topic you could talk about forever?”
I thought for a moment, and with great excitement, replied, “Maps! No...people’s personal geographies.”
As I processed this new realization, I remembered the maps of the world that adorned the walls of my childhood bedroom, the stuffed globe I slept with every night when I was younger, and the subway system shower curtain that still hangs in my bathroom.
I am the person who, when meeting you for the first time, will briefly ask for your name and enthusiastically ask where you’re from as an immediate follow-up. No matter what city you say, I will respond with a slew of excited questions and comments wondering what it was like growing up there or recalling stories from the last time I may have visited. I love collaborating with others and learning about anywhere and everywhere in the world. For me, one of the greatest joys is getting to meet new people from all corners and to hear their stories.
Turning space into place inspires me. I have long felt that if you can connect with people about where they’re from, grounded in your interest and knowledge, you can connect with them about almost anything. A conversation with me is not complete until we have discussed at least a little bit about how your geography has shaped you.
Catherine Heckler
‘27.5
Liam Fowler, Spring ‘17
Olivia Weisel, Winter ‘19
Burnham, Spring ‘13
Eliza Smallwood, Fall ‘17
Micheal Ohara, Fall ‘16
Christian Johansen, Spring ‘15
Thisspring, my last spring of high school, I founded a cheese club. It was only four of us, all friendly but not friends, and all brought together by our love for cheese. At first, I would nervously clean my house before our meetings. I would make elaborate boards with prosciutto and candied nuts I had picked up from Whole Foods. I didn’t really know these people yet, but I found that we could all exclaim in delight at an artfully aged gouda or cringe at the metallic taste of Wensleydale. Then, something magical began to happen: our meetings got longer and longer. I felt a renewed gratitude for the feeling of making real, lasting connections. I had thought that by the end of senior year my new friend tokens had been all used up, but no! Cheese Club painted my spring with an air of excitement and comfort: our weekly meetings were little
pockets of peace where we could sit on a porch swing under the pink twilight sky, admiring the blooming trees while talking, eating, and laughing. For me, Cheese Club was a reminder of the power of stinky brie to bring people together and about the importance of being open and genuine.
The spirit of Cheese Club is much like the spirit of Middlebury Geographic. We come together to share a special slice of our lives, creating and expanding our community to include new voices telling new stories. Midd Geo centers on storytelling as a form of connection, building across continents, languages, and cultures.
Kyra Dybas ‘28
Zach Doleac, Fall ‘12
Jiffy Lesica, Fall ‘21
Anthea von Viragh, Fall ‘13
“The day is done. Gone the sun. From the lakes, from the hills, from the skies.”
My fellow “Woodstockers” and I have sung these words each and every night that we have spent at Camp Woodstock: a simple yet beautiful place I have been able to call a home for the past twelve years. In a space like camp, the sense of belonging and community as well as the ability to embrace one’s most meaningful and personal identity, is fostered by the people that share the space. At Camp Woodstock, it’s the legacy of those who showed each of us that we belong – our counselors, the counselors before them, and those before them – that remains in the spirit of us, those who occupy the space now. Even with tangible change, whether that of the physical environment at camp or the shift to new counselors and campers, everyone past and present gets to share this identity of a “Woodstocker” – a person who loves and embraces themselves and those around them. I can only hope that as I finally depart this space, I get to leave a legacy with “Woodstockers” as much as their legacy remains with me now. It is with an enormous sense of pride that I get to translate, in the context of my peers who make up this great Middlebury community, what I know and love about my camp experience. Through Middlebury Geographic, we get to honor the legacy of the many identities that exist here at Middlebury to form one unified identity as Midd kids, no matter what changes we face or places we go.
Will Hinkle ‘26
Wolf Moller, Spring ‘22
Matteo Moretti, Fall 2020
PL ACE
What is it that makes place different from space? Many contributors have engaged this central question by exploring how it is that a seemingly random geography comes to be infused with deep personal meaning. Bringing forth the variety of ways in which we experience our surroundings, they tease apart this distinction between space and place, denoting the critical interplay of place, embodied experience, emplaced intelligence, and personal identity. Often writing about the formative environments and locales that continue to live so vividly in our minds, authors of place have made clear the ways in which our attachments to space are not merely physical, visual, or sequestered to a moment. Place becomes a part of who we are. Middlebury Geographic is a strong believer that understanding our surroundings is integral to understanding our own place in the world.
Photo by Brett Gilman ‘24.5
BWINDI
The sun has just risen over the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in Uganda. The air is cool and still. The silhouette of the verdant rainforest is emerging in the early morning light. Alongside a handful of other tourists, I stand in front of four rangers from the Uganda Wildlife Authority, listening intently as they brief us on the plan for the day. As closely as I am listening, it is impossible to stop my mind from wandering off into the trees behind them. My hands are shaking a bit and the goosebumps along my arms tell me that it is from excitement—not the cold. My anticipation for this day, for this moment, has been building over the past several months. I have traveled some 7,000 miles with the hopes of seeing one of the world’s most endangered animals, the mountain gorilla.
As we set off into the forest, the scenery takes my breath away. I have been lucky enough to witness the raging waterfalls of Iceland and the regal sequoia forests of California, but this landscape is something else entirely. Massive trees with sprawling canopies loom over rolling hills. Mist still clings to the valleys as the sun starts to rise higher into the sky. Overcome with awe, I momentarily forget that I came here to see mountain gorillas. I also forget to watch where I am walking and am jolted back to reality as I stumble across a root. Gathering my footing, I remember that somewhere within this otherworldly landscape, a family of mountain gorillas is waking up for the day.
The rangers lead us along an overgrown path, deeper into the jungle. As they round the corner ahead of us, the first ranger freezes so suddenly that the other three almost crash into him. The tour group and I all glance around excitedly as we too stop. We all seem to have come to the same conclusion: we must be getting close to the gorillas. A couple of the tourists start to pull out their cameras and I decide that I should do the same.
I am just finishing attaching my lens when the lead ranger points to a large tree across the valley from where we are standing. He says that he has seen a couple of gorillas climb up the tree. I look as hard as I can, but even with my ability to use my camera as a telescope, I can see nothing. No one else can either. Collectively we turn around, ready to continue walking in hopes of getting a better view. As we are about to continue onwards, we hear the swishing of leaves and turn around just in time to see one of the branches on the tree dip. I can barely make out the silhouette of a gorilla before it swings back into the canopy, but this quick glance has left quite an impression.
The wonderment of the group is almost as impressive to witness as the gorilla itself. An excited murmur washes across our group as we process what we have just seen. The rangers tell us that we are going to continue onwards so that we can get closer but most of the group seems hesitant to move a muscle, afraid that if we leave this spot, the magic of the moment may leave too.
A baby gorilla examines me as it rides by on the back of its mother.
Another half an hour’s worth of hiking goes by and the rangers stop again, this time not so suddenly. They turn to us and announce that we are now very close to the gorillas. They give us rules for how we should behave around them: don’t move too suddenly, don’t get too close, don’t wave at them, and so on. This time my mind is not wandering. As excited as I am, I have no intention of startling, angering, or annoying a 300-pound wild animal with superhuman strength. The briefing ends and we take a minute to prepare ourselves to sit with the family of gorillas.
The rangers have us follow them 15 more feet through the undergrowth. The lead ranger pushes some brush out of the way and nudges his head silently forward urging me to walk ahead. As I step past the ranger I hear a loud snap as a branch breaks somewhere to my right. I turn my head slowly to follow the sound and there, no more than 30 feet in front of me, is the family of gorillas that I had traveled all this way to see.
As I looked around at the gorillas, I glanced briefly below at one young adult lying just downhill from me. The rangers had warned us not to make eye contact with the gorillas since it could be taken as a sign of aggression, but for a brief moment, both of us stopped and stared at each other. I have come face to face with many different animals, and have seen all sorts of intelligence, curiosity, and emotion reflected in their eyes, but what I saw in this moment was something entirely different. These eyes were familiar, almost human. Photos and words don’t quite do justice to the fleeting moment of holding eye contact with a gorilla, but it is the closest I have ever felt to an animal. In that moment there was a real, tangible, recognition of the other being in a way I have only ever experienced with humans.
The eye contact lasted a second at most but I have spent hours replaying the memory in my head since. It has not lost any of its power or vividness, but in all my time spent reminiscing about my encounter with the gorillas of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, there is another thought that sits alongside my memories. Something is missing from the experience I have recounted, a set of details that I cannot ignore.
A baby gorilla practices its climbing skills as it feeds on the leaves of a small tree.
Around 40 years ago, that missing element was almost the gorillas themselves. Over the previous century, their populations had dwindled dangerously low as a result of poaching, habitat loss, and human-wildlife conflict (largely due to British colonization). By the 1980s, it was estimated that their populations were as low as just 250 individuals. One of humankind’s closest living relatives was on the verge of extinction, largely due to our own impact.
Fortunately, scientists who were monitoring the mountain gorilla populations intervened just in time. Local and foreign scientists and policymakers made a concerted effort to protect the remaining individuals in a remarkable feat of conservation. The countries of Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo worked to designate protected areas and resources to save the mountain gorilla as a species. Bwindi Impenetrable Forest is one of those protected areas.
The effort that was made has not been in vain. Mountain gorilla populations have almost doubled as a result of these conservation efforts. Ongoing intensive monitoring helps to
ensure that this trajectory continues. While their survival is not guaranteed, the outlook for them is more promising than ever. There is, however, another fundamental element of this landscape that is absent. Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, where I was lucky enough to encounter the mountain gorillas, was not designated as protected land until 1991. Before that, the rainforests were home to a group of people known as the Batwa. As a part of establishing the conservation area, the Ugandan government forcibly evicted the Batwa people from their homeland. To do so, foreign conservationists and the Ugandan government wrongly villainized the Batwa people, claiming that they were the cause of the gorilla population decline. While these claims were not rooted in fact, they were used as justification for excluding the Batwa people from their ancestral home. In the three decades since their eviction, the Batwa people have been provided little aid from the government and are largely ignored by nongovernmental organizations and public media. Mountain gorilla populations in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest are indeed recovering but at the expense of the Batwa people.
The abrupt transition between Bwindi Impenetrable Forest and human development. One of the places where the Batwa people live.
An adult mountain gorilla stares at the other members of my group as it pauses in front of me.
Two Batwa men show off a shelter that they have built.
The story of the Batwa people cannot be separated from the story of mountain gorilla conservation. The two histories are and always have been, intertwined. The events that the Batwa people have been forced to endure should be acknowledged, reported, and reconciled. A handful of sources from tourist companies, news articles, and scientific reports discuss the problematic nature of the existence of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, but these are frequently buried under countless travel articles from sources like National Geographic and UNESCO that fail to acknowledge the existence of the Batwa people. In the scramble to put gorillas in the spotlight, the Batwa people continue to be largely ignored and marginalized. Most tourists arrive at Bwindi Impenetrable Forest knowing little to none about the Batwa people, and many of them leave the same way. Even a brief and unofficial poll of my group and a handful of other tourists proved that only one of the roughly twenty people I was speaking with had ever heard of the Batwa people.
The erasure of the Batwa people’s story is unacceptable. So long as this continues to occur, the recovery of mountain gorilla populations cannot be perceived as a successful conservation effort as it is so often portrayed. This story is one example of a larger pattern of a colonial approach known as “fortress conservation”, where natural spaces are partitioned from human activity as an alleged way of protecting them. Conservation cannot be predicated on the idea of isolating humans from wildlife. Ultimately, this approach to conservation, which unjustly traded the future of the Batwa for the future of the gorillas, is unsustainable and unethical. This method of so-called conservation polarizes the relationship between the Batwa people and mountain gorillas. It fosters the belief that for one to succeed the other must be removed.
This philosophy is fundamentally flawed. Both the Batwa people and mountain gorillas belong in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. One does not have to leave for the other to thrive or even survive. For mountain gorilla conservation to be truly successful and self-sustaining, the Batwa people must be included. The forced exclusion from Bwindi Impenetrable Forest must end and reconciliation for the decades of mistreatment that the Batwa people were forced to undergo must occur in a manner that they agree upon. This responsibility falls on tourists and public media as well. The complete history of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest should be common knowledge for every person who travels there. Lastly, the approach to conservation must shift to foster coexistence between the Batwa people and mountain gorillas and develop sustainable practices that allow both to thrive. It is only then that this can progress forward as a successful conservation story.
As a foreign tourist to this issue, this is an incredibly difficult story to grapple with. As a conservation biologist, I desperately want to work towards more sustainable ways of saving biodiversity. I want to do everything in my power, including sharing my experiences, to advocate for and effect positive change. At the same time, the experience of the Batwa people is not my own, and I have only been a brief visitor to these events. It is important to remember that the story of the Batwa people is representative of a larger issue in conservation practice. I share this experience both to bring awareness to the problematic history of mountain gorilla conservation as well as to reflect on what it means to conserve wildlife in a just and sustainable manner. Doing so is no easy task and does not have one concrete answer. I hope that the story of the Batwa people can help to inspire thought about how to work towards a more equitable approach to addressing environmental issues; both in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest and beyond.
Getting to spend time with mountain gorillas in their natural habitat was one of the most memorable experiences that I have ever had. The gorillas, like all wildlife, are deserving of conservation, attention, and admiration. I hope that their populations continue to recover and that people continue to have the opportunity to observe them in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. The ability to engage with the natural world firsthand is one of the most powerful tools that we have for developing support for conservation and raising awareness of the perilous state of biodiversity globally. That being said, I hope that nobody gets to see the gorillas the way that I did. Instead, I hope that people see them in a new way — a way where the Batwa people have been compensated for the removal that they were forced to experience. A way where the history of the Batwa people is intertwined with the story of gorilla conservation. A way where both the mountain gorillas and the Batwa people thrive.
I would like to thank the Climate Action Fellowship as well as Minna Brown for providing the funding and support to make this project possible.
A Batwa elder stands with the canopy of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, her ancestral home, behind her.
Hands
Weaver
Hands of the Weaver
Tasha Deen ‘25
The grass rolls over itself. Long spines curl, etching the grey overhead. Their wispy tails carry secrets hushed across whispering valleys; this is how they carry their history.
Lost along cliff’s edges; a tale of unweaving narratives. In a humorous tone, I ask, where this leaves the weaver.
The wind throws my words back to me, raveling into them. I land on the pillowing comforts of unknowing.
The grass creeps around, growing on my body, the hands of the weaver roll against my skin. It is here, where I fall to rest.
Lying in the billowing Brí, along the meadows of Moher.
LANDSCAPES FOR CHANGE
Brett Gilman ‘24.5
Gardening is an act of dreaming, imagining, becoming. It helps us make sense of our place in the natural world and connect with our social and ecological community. Practices of place-making, such as gardening, shape who we are as much as we shape the spaces we create. I believe that our surroundings and the way we think are connected. I want to explore how we can leverage this socioecological dynamic through design to inspire new approaches to our relationship with nature. Motivated by a clear persuasion that our very existence is intertwined with ecological systems, I aim to interweave everyday spaces with wildness.
Growing up, I spent my time bouncing between organic farm, wilderness preserve, urban park, and suburban living. Always with a fierce fascination for the outdoors, I developed an interest in protecting threatened native pollinators and wildflowers. At Middlebury, this interest blossomed into my passion for forward-thinking landscape design, a world I got to physically immerse myself in in the summer of 2023. Following a 7-week study abroad program in Copenhagen, I flew to Hanover, Germany to begin a trip that had long lived large in my imagination. Over the course of ten August days with my younger brother, we traveled by train West from Hanover through Germany’s post-industrial Ruhr valley and then into the Netherlands, exploring a key collection of naturalistic designed landscapes.
Since I was young, I have made annual pilgrimages to the Highline, a 1.5 mile elevated rail line turned New York City park. Designed by superstar Dutch plantsman Piet Oudolf, the Highline is a shining icon of a new kind of gardening, one that aims to bring the essence of nature to the city. In Europe, I finally had the chance to discover a whole series of Piet Oudolf’s works, to experience the parks and gardens of which I had, up to now, only seen the same few pictures. With the summer peaking and fall approaching, we traced the evolution of Piet Oudolf’s early career, his journey to become a leading international plantsman, and I got to see and feel the dynamics of these dreamscapes unfold, first in a wastewater treatment plant transformed into a park.
At Bernepark, what was once a sedimentation tank had been drained, renovated, and planted into a meadow-inspired garden. As I descended into the terraced space, I found myself enveloped in drifts of galloping golden grasses punctuated by clouds of burgundy haze, lavender poofs, and little black seed heads standing in columns. A sense of process enlivened this amphitheater-like atmosphere. Next, at Vlinderhof, a community-driven butterfly garden in Utrecht, I finally found
Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord - Latz + Partner (1991) | Duisburg, DEU
Located in the Ruhr Valley, this once abandoned and severely polluted coal production plant is now a dynamic and lively park. Visitors can ascend to the top of the towering blast furnaces, rock climb on the concrete walls, and even scuba dive in an old gas tank.
Vlinderhof, Máximapark - Piet Oudolf (2014) | Utrecht, NLD
The Highline - Piet Oudolf, James Corner Field Operations (2009-2014) | New York City
myself in my favorite Piet Oudolf project, one that I dreamt of every evening since my passion for eco-naturalistic planting design had first emerged. Vlinderhof is special to me because the design incorporates many of the enchanting wildflowers native to the few preserved meadows that remain in my hometown. The neon orange umbels of Butterfly Weed were brought together alongside purple towers of seven-foot Joe Pye Weed, the king of the summer meadow. The awe I had felt upon finding the small pockets of these flowers still persisting in the wild was here brought forth in greater magnitude through design. My brother and I spent the afternoon at Vlinderhof, and as the hours ticked by, I waited eagerly for the hope of rain, which I knew would bring out the impact of the garden in full force. As the timestamp marked on our schedule for departure approached, the sun’s glare was finally blocked by hefty, gray rain clouds. In that last hour, I raced among the planting beds with my camera, exhilarated by the softer light in which the colors of Vlinderhof came forth in magnificence.
Dreamscape and landscape had merged, and I felt a sense of joyful, fulfilling inspiration.
Our journey featured several fascinating design projects like Vlinderhof, many of which were eye-opening in new and exciting ways. Oudolf’s Garden at the Vitra Design Campus, one of his newest projects, provided a glimpse into the public’s experience of these new wave gardens. As I watched people reading books next to the rill, children playing among the winding paths, or young adults like me laying down in a moment of pure relaxation, I realized that gardens must be spaces of interaction rather than abstracted viewing. At Maximilian Park,
the Oudolf garden was abutted by a playground, and my brother and I, for the first time in years, took to the swings, ropes, and slides to enjoy what was truly one of the best playgrounds of our lives. Laying across a cargo net to photograph the river of blooms, I realized that gardens should include spaces of play, of activity, within their bounds. At one of the non-Oudolf projects on our travels, Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord, my brother and I entered into an industrial ironworks that now hosts a new kind of green space, one that is neither park nor garden in the traditional sense. As we climbed the towering blast furnaces and peeked through rusted structures, we explored the more than 700 plant species that now call them home. From the top of this plant-launched dystopian takeover, I realized that designed landscapes could offer spaces for tangibly imagining what a post-fossil fuel future can look like.
Our ten-day trip was truly a sprint that packed in as many projects as possible. Our time in each garden lasted never more than a few hours as we were always soon off again on foot or on rail to the next stop. At the end of the trip, I found myself back in the Connecticut suburbs, with Vlinderhof now accessible only in memory. I realized that my photographic attempts to bottle up the magical feeling of the garden and package it away for home fell short. No series of snapshots could amount to the sense of belonging I yearned to create through gardens of my own and the groundedness to place that designed landscapes offer. It was a foundational experience for me to translate my academic learning into real-world adventure. However, I ultimately realized that I strive to exist within these places and to create them, not simply to observe them. This motivated an empowering vision: gardens should be lived in.
Maximilian Park | Hamm, DEU | Former coal wasteland now bustling park.
Vlinderhof, Máximapark - Piet Oudolf (2014) | Utrecht, NLD
Think of your typical understanding of a garden. It probably involves beds of flowers, it probably involves walls, it probably involves an experience of coming and going with the goal of visual consumption. This is not all that gardens can be. Designed landscapes should be integrated into everyday space. Interwoven into our cities and streets, intentionally crafted into the landscapes of home, gardens should offer spaces of play, learning, and living in which the very stuff of our lives unfold. The gardens of Oudolf continue to be my driving inspiration. But learning about the importance of selecting plants for ecological regeneration, seeing city gardens right outside people’s front doors, and experiencing landscapes that center plant-people interaction, my dreams have been written anew. I see a new vision for backyards, where people can feel within everyday space the transformative sense of connection brought by eco-naturalistic gardens. I imagine intricate meadow blends like those of Vlinderhof punctuated by spaces of activity—a firepit, playground, or dining table
encircled by a meadow garden that dances in the wind, dotted with buzzing bumblebees, swooping, singing birds, and happy, connected people. It is an atmosphere that enables both humans and wildlife to thrive.
Naturalistic gardening is a stylistic approach that emphasizes creating legible, enthralling impressions of idealized meadows through wild, non-traditional garden plants such as perennials and grasses.
Forward-thinking garden design is becoming mainstream. From native plant articles in the New York Times to perennial garden profiles in Vogue, a new kind of gardening has been bubbling to the surface to replace the age of precisely manicured, pesticide-filled, and altogether artificial, lifeless landscape. The Highline is perhaps the most well-known of such projects; its groundbreaking fusion of repurposed industrial infrastructure and radical new planting became an instant icon when it opened in 2009 and now attracts some 8 million visitors annually. But this is by no means the only example. The last decade has seen an explosion of forward-thinking projects, with numerous worldwide commissions and practitioners setting forth unique designs on a gradient from gardened to wild. Across the world, people are
Vlinderhof
raving about the concurrent emergence of two powerful new garden movements: the ecological garden and the naturalistic garden.
Naturalistic gardening is a stylistic approach that emphasizes creating legible, enthralling impressions of idealized meadows through wild, non-traditional garden plants such as perennials and grasses. Oudolf’s projects, which feature carefully designed pairings of prairie plants, provide prime examples of this captivating, new-wave planting style. On the other hand, rooted in science, ecological gardening offers an ethic for regenerating plant, insect, and wildlife biodiversity through gardening. Contending that backyards and cities are key landscapes for rekindling ecological processes, ecological gardeners emphasize that the garden can and should function as habitat. Delaware’s Mount Cuba Center may look wild, but is actually a carefully crafted gardenscape, demonstrating how ecological approaches often blur the boundary between wilderness and human-dominated landscapes. These projects
On the other hand, rooted in science, ecological gardening offers an ethic for regenerating plant, insect, and wildlife biodiversity through gardening.
diverge greatly from the traditional ornamental gardens we are so used to—the neat rows of boxwoods surrounded by a small group of likely invasive flowering species in an ocean of the environmental wasteland known as lawn. The undulating drifts of the forward-thinking garden—its seasonal themes of structural perennials, environmentally-beneficial plants, and matrix of tall meadow grasses—are unlike anything you have seen before. They capture something deep in the soul, engage both wildlife and people, and transform our everyday spaces to become quiet but important changemakers.
Within the ecological versus naturalistic conversation, there are opportunities for considering deeper questions about the fate of nature in an epoch when humans are the driving force in shaping our planet for the first time in Earth’s geologic history. Landscape is at the center of conversations about the role humans should take in either restoring, preserving, reconfiguring, or reinventing nature. I approach this debate with a set of larger questions. Can landscape architecture bring
Mt. Cuba Center | Hockessin, DE
Oudolf Garten at Vitra - Piet Oudolf (2020) | Weil am Rhein, DEU
Bernepark - Piet Oudolf, DTP (2012) | Bottrop Ebel, DEU
together ethical and stylistic concerns, make explicit our undeniable bonds to our surroundings, and become politically consequential in a moment of global transformation? How can our everyday landscapes become an active force for socio-environmental change? With naturalistic and ecological gardening as my inspiration, I have explored a wide range of critical lenses with the goal of articulating a new paradigm for landscape architecture, a concept I call the ‘socio-ecological garden.’ Bringing together people and biodiversity, this new theory offers a way of activating landscape in the context of our current moment.
Forward-thinking landscape design can incorporate social and ecological infrastructure to create lively, functional, and regenerative spaces. Our everyday landscapes can offer critical habitat needed to support local ecosystems. By rethinking our lawns and shifting emphasis towards plants that support a great abundance and diversity of life, we can reconnect our landscapes with biodiversity, build corridors that break down the separation between nature and culture, and reimplicate ourselves in the systems of wildness with which we are inextricably intertwined.
With their intricate and evocative style, econaturalistic gardens reframe wild plants (and nature more generally) through a new atmospheric aesthetic. Our current way of being engages landscape in a mode of distanced, visual consumption. But landscape is an embodied experience of place, one that becomes embedded and implicated within cultural and political frameworks. From the rational gardens of Enlightenment France to the 1970s guerilla gardens of NYC, history reveals an understanding of landscape as an embodiment of a philosophy, as power, and as a kind of language that illuminates cultural metaphors, memories, and iconographies. Landscape is a process of social and cultural identity formation. These understandings bring to light a simple truth: the way we shape landscape and the way we think are connected. Grounded in this truth, forward-thinking projects offer a profoundly different experience of landscape, one that creates an affective moment of embodiment, energy, and connection filled with transformative potential.
Designed landscapes are spaces of imagination and envisioning uniquely positioned to help us reckon with profound cultural and environmental change and to help us together enact the seeds of a new future. All landscapes embody a philosophy. They communicate and reinforce ways of being and systems of power through design. Forward-thinking landscape design, which makes tangible our common environmental and social linkages, is an incredibly salient political act with quietly subversive
Oudolf Garten at Vitra
An Easter Tiger Swallowtail butterfly (Papilio glaucus) draws nourishment from New York Ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis) at a protected wild meadow in CT hometown
inspiration
a Connecticut
restored over 20 years ago.
The
of the wild: I found this delightful combination of rare native plants thriving in
meaodw
City Garden Kempkensberg - Baljon Landscape Architects (2014) | Groningen, NLD
A meadowy public planting that functions as lively urban space and wildlife corridor.
Bo01 “City of Tomorrow” - Klas Tham (2001) | Malmö, SWE Gardens are woven into the fabric of the neighborhood, an early model for ecological urbanism.
Designer James Golden's private garden, 'Federal Twist,' at his home in western NJ.
Faced with poor soil conditions, Golden eschewed the tradition of adding disruptive amendments. By instead selecting plant species ecologically suited to the heavy clay, Golden demonstrates that beauty and functionality can abound when working with nature rather than against it .
but dramatic possibilities. By re-enchanting an experience of landscape grounded in place, community, and ecology, gardens can shift our cultural understanding of the relationship between humans and nature from being transactional and materialistic to being relational and co-creative.
It’s high time that our surroundings encourage, rather than hinder, the personal and cultural shifts we need in order to grapple with the underlying roots of environmental crisis. Landscape is not passive. Our everyday spaces are emotionally charged atmospheres that intimately affect how we engage with the world. They structure the realm of the possible. By encouraging attunement to the interconnectedness between people and their surroundings, design can open pathways for growing environmental consciousness.
In the future of landscape, gardens will recover the roles they have played for centuries: as sites of refuge, democratic idea exchange, and community, as symbols of resistance and freedom, and as sites for crafting and monumentalizing subversive political action. But these dynamics will now be structured by the understanding that the fate of humans and the fate of nature are intertwined. By bringing together social and ecological communities, new designed landscapes will be sites of healing and imagining, of envisioning and enacting, of
regeneration and resilience, of profound cultural transformation and political possibility. These dynamics are already being brought to life by gardeners worldwide who are engaging with forward-thinking practices. By planting for wildlife, building ecological gardening alliances, and sharing land care knowledge within their neighborhoods, gardening is providing a pathway for building social and ecological wholeness. Inspired by these movements, I urge you to consider the garden, and landscape at large, an agent of cultural and environmental change. In order to safeguard the systems of the wild, I believe we must restore a sense of community grounded in a connection to the land and work to renew a perspective that sees humanity as part of the interconnected web of all things, tasked with the duty of regeneration. Landscape architecture is uniquely positioned to answer this call.
This article represents my work from my Independent Scholar Thesis as well as my thesis exhibition presented in the Johnson Memorial Building Cahlrion Gallery, spring 2024.
Tåsinge Plads - GHB Landscape Architects (2015-19) Østerbro, Copenhagen, DK
In an age of environmental crisis and crumbling social bonds, the garden must become an active force for change. By regenerating ecological functionality and building community, the socio-ecological garden can inspire new ways of being.
The Highline
BELONGING
Stemming from our intrinsic aspirations for relatedness as human beings, stories of belonging help us situate ourselves within a social context. Often rooted in place, these narratives center around connectedness, community, and identity. They explore what it means to find oneself accepted and acknowledged by fellow people and even by an environment itself. At the same time, the formation of belonging often results in simultaneous disbelonging. Attuned to this reality, some contributors have grappled with interpersonal, sociopolitical, and historical relations. Inherently philosophical, experiencing a sense of
belonging often proves to be a profoundly transformative moment, one that gives meaning to life itself. Whether it is to land, institution, social group, team, political community, or transcendent force, these stories bring forth the process of building self-understanding centered around values. At their core, stories of belonging all seem to revolve around a set of words that begin with the latin prefix ‘con,’ meaning ‘with’ or ‘together.’ Ultimately, they provide unique insights into the emotions and movements that unite us.
Photo by John Schurer ‘21
Fast Freedom:
Four Days on the Superior Hiking Trail
Words by Tyler Stark ‘27
Photos by Lucas Nerbonne ‘25.5
Whenever somebody asks me if I liked growing up in northern Minnesota, my answer is the same: “My heart belongs to Lake Superior.” Truthfully, Lake Superior is more sea than lake. Though fresh and clear, its waters stretch beyond the eye or even the imagination. When the wind is still, it glints in the sun like a sheet of diamonds. When the wind is rough, its freezing waves reach up tall cliffs as if trying to pull the terrestrial world into its embrace.
For those who prefer to travel by foot, the Superior Hiking Trail is one of the best ways to experience the lake. The 310-mile footpath parallels Lake Superior’s northwest shoreline, winding through
dense, sun-dappled conifer forests and over windblown outcroppings that cap billion-year-old volcanic ridges.
As June and July came and went, I felt an unsatisfied craving for one memorable summer adventure. Fastpacking the northern third of the Superior Hiking Trail fit the bill perfectly. For those unfamiliar, fastpacking is a combination of ultralight backpacking and trail running. Each day, I would push myself to move swiftly with minimal stops before resting and preparing for the next. I cannot say for certain why I am drawn to such things, but for me, four days of running in the woods carrying just the barest of essentials was exactly what I needed.
Day 1 // 26.3 Miles
As I set off from Temperance River State Park, I got used to what I would be doing for the next four days: jogging when the trail’s gradient and obstacles allowed, and when that was impossible, walking with my poles driving purposefully behind me.
The forest offered me peace. A sense of solitude gave way to listening to the chatter of the birds and the rustling of the trees. For a short while, the anxious striving of life faded. I felt like a child.
At the end of the day, I met a babbling stream and three kind strangers in a cool, shaded valley. Though my legs and feet felt strong, the middle of my back and the tops of my shoulders were in excruciating pain.
My pack was only twenty-five pounds when fully loaded, but its relentless jostling on my shoulders would eventually lead to a nasty heat rash and many days of soreness. Still, my condition was well within the medicinal scope of a pile of Oreos and a piping-hot, rehydrated, salt-and-fat-loaded stroganoff. I went to bed with the contentment that only long days on trail can provide.
Day 2 // 26.6 Miles
Iwoke up shivering and wet thanks to my coffin-like tent’s inadequate ventilation, which allowed for excess moisture to collect and rain down on me. I vowed to stake it out better the next night and quickly got going.
Foot travel offered complete simplicity. While it was physically challenging, I never had to think about anything besides what lay directly in front of me. The automaticity of my legs’ movement was second only to my breath. With a steady stream of endorphins slightly blurring my vision and enhancing my perception of my limbs, I was fully embodied.
Thanks to an early start and few stops, it was only 2:30 when I arrived at my campsite on the Devil Track River. I gratefully peeled off my socks and shoes and went for a swim in the freezing water before hanging up my clothes, tent, and sleeping bag to dry. By 6:00, as I waited for water to boil, I was on the verge of falling asleep on the log where I sat; it would be an early night. So as the canyon surrounding my site darkened with late afternoon shadows, I climbed into my sleeping bag and tried to not think about the next day.
Day 3 // 26.3 Miles
Imust have gotten nearly eleven hours of sleep that night, and I was relieved to be warm and dry(ish) in the morning. However, I was dismayed when I realized that my left ankle was in significant pain, and my shoulders, legs, and back were rightfully stiff as well. The stiffness was a given, but with a potential sprain, I felt unsure about my ability to finish the long day that lay ahead.
The physical effort gave me a space to practice equanimity. The world around me took form in the aperture of consciousness, in the comings and goings of sensations in my body. My state of wellbeing was independent from the aches of my legs; I was fortunate and delighted to be exactly where I was. Eventually, the pain in my ankle dissipated. My path crossed private lands and State Parks, bubbling rivers, and a pebble beach that felt like the seaside. From there, the trail departed from the lake and traveled inland.
Towards the end of the day I ran through a marshy, grassy, and exposed section of trail, and I found myself worrying about finding water. I eventually made it to a surprisingly dry and pleasant campsite, elevated on a small rise. I was completely wiped and my feet were blistered, but I managed to hobble to a nearby trickle to fill up my bottles with some questionable water. Thankfully, several hundred calories worth of Oreos gave me the wherewithal to take care of my gear and prepare some real food.
I went to bed knowing that the hardest sections of the trail were behind me.
Iwoke up feeling ready to finish. My body was starting to break down, and I was ready to talk to another human being. My left leg continued to be problematic; though my ankle had stopped complaining, the muscle on top of my shin began to feel really tight and bothersome. Still, I wish I had enjoyed these last miles more than I did.
Around noon, when I reached the 270-degree overlook that marked the northern terminus of the Superior Hiking Trail, I could see winding rivers making their way to Lake Superior and the ridge of hills that would continue to the Canadian border and beyond.
As I left the North Woods and prepared to go to Vermont, I had an immense feeling of gratitude to have a (reasonably) healthy body and a (sufficiently) sound mind. For four days, my life had consisted of three layered cadences: the rhythm of day and night, of running and walking, and of left and right footfalls. My path was arbitrary, and my goal was achieved, and I was alive. I hope to return soon.
Day 4 // 18. 8 Miles
Idanesi Ojior ‘27
Sierra Nevada Around the
With summer coming to a close, the desire to get away, and the whole of California to our disposal, my mother planned a last minute road trip to Lake Tahoe and Sequoia National Park for our Nigerian Family of twelve. I knew I would want to photograph the sites we would be visiting, particularly on film. There is a lovely feeling of taking photos on film, of making sure every shot counts before pressing down on the shutter. The iconic ‘click’ is followed by the joy of seeing the finished frames come to life during development. Unfortunately, I had no film whatsoever. Now on
the road and with a late start to our expedition, there was no time to start venturing around Los Angeles for film (the one photo lab that had film available was selling it for three times the price of my local lab – obvious scam). Thankfully on the way to the first stop, Lone Pine, I found three rolls of reliable Fuji 400 for the good price of twenty dollars. Thank you, Walmart.
From there, the journey truly began. On Highway 395, located on the east side of the Sierra Nevada mountains, we chased the sun from Lone Pine up to Tahoe. On our way, we made multiple pit stops, one being Erick Schat’s bakery where we tried the fluffy famed delicacy “Sheepherder’s Bread” brought to the city of Bishop by Basque immigrants in the early 1900s. We also stopped by one of the oldest lakes in North America, Mono Lake, which is renowned as a “soda lake” with striking natural limestone formations known as “tufas.” We stayed until sunset amongst an Italian
tour group, looking in awe at the birds of the lake and the sunset over the eastern side of Yosemite National Park. Once the sun disappeared, we booked it to Tahoe. We knew we were approaching the lake as we drove up Kingsbury Grade. An eleven mile road that was historically a footpath for the Forty-Niners during the California Gold Rush, we gained 2500 feet in elevation. Safely making it to Stateline, Nevada at midnight, we were disappointed after the lovely long drive as we arrived to a booking where my mother, cousin, brother, and I had no room to sleep in.
Thankfully on the way to the first stop, Lone Pine, I found three rolls of reliable Fuji 400 for the good price of twenty dollars. Thank you, Walmart.
Located on the southern coast of Lake Tahoe, we set out for Camp Richardson Beach in the morning unaware that everyone else in California was also having a beach day. It was crowded, but it didn’t stop us from having a little picnic. Behind us, a live band was playing at a beach bar playing alt-rock classics such as “Friday I’m in Love” and “1979,” creating the perfect vibes for a summer beach day. We retreated to Emerald Bay where we spotted a viking inspired castle on Fannette Island and a huge rock that we climbed to take photos amongst the green mountains surrounding the bay. After admiring our scenery, we decided to go to Baldwin Beach, a quiet, serene waterfront where we were able to catch the final rays of the day.
After Tahoe, Sequoia was next on the list and was probably the longest part of the trip, involving a four hour drive through the flat and unexciting Central Valley of California. The only thing to toot about this place is the cheap and cheerful food. Besides that, Rema and Asake’s recent albums on repeat were the only thing keeping the family sane.
The morning after arriving at our accommodation in farm county, we drove two hours to Sequoia and up 7000 feet with an unfathomable number of hairpin turns. When we finally made it to the Giant Forest, it felt like Disneyland. The forest is home to the largest known living tree on Earth, General Sherman, which attracts
audiences worldwide. Everywhere you turned in the park there were Giant Sequoia trees of immense wisdom, the oldest having been present to see the turn of the Iron Age. The shortest of the full grown sequoias reach up to 160 feet, which is taller than the tallest building in Vermont.
As the day was ending in Sequoia, I was more than certain that I had to enter some sort of body of water — a lake, a stream, anything and anywhere to cool off. I went on a quest to ask the park staff and rangers where their preferred swimming hole was and landed on a part of the Kaweah River under a bridge where the water was waist level, crisp, and calm. I dipped into it the second I saw it and spent the next hour convincing the rest of my family to join me. As you can tell from the photos, they didn’t regret it. Oh, and did I mention my mother planned this trip with ChatGPT?
ADVENTURE
From fly fishing and biking to wilderness exploration and urban discovery, adventure is at the heart of Middlebury Geographic. With a spotlight on the outdoor activities at the center of our passions, adventure stories have been a mainstay of our publication. They encourage us to become avid thrill seekers, and in doing so, remind us of the importance of stretching our limits and breaking past our preconceived notions. Challenge and perseverance are key underlying themes, as Emily Munson (Winter ‘16) wrote, “misadventure is part of the journey.” Understanding this fundamental fact, meeting the moment, and learning is the process of exploration that motivates us.
Over the past fifteen years, an important subset of contributors have approached their adventures with a critical lens. By bringing to light underlying themes, engaging contrasting perspectives, and seeking to understand and connect us with faraway, unfamiliar, or unknown terrain, these stories interrogate the nature of experience itself.
Photo by Connor Wood ‘11
SNAPSHOTS FROM NEPAL
Itook this photo in November 2022, twenty miles south of the Langtang Valley—a popular trek for hikers around the globe. Looking West, you can see Manaslu and Annapurna I, the eighth and tenth highest peaks on Earth, respectively. During the quiet hours leading to dinner, I captured the campsite, shared between my group and the Tamang porters who helped us along the way.
An urban perspective from my time in Nepal during Tihar, the festival of lights. Families decorate their doorways to welcome Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity, and guide her through their homes. Here, a family friend adds the final touches to the garnished path, bridging the road to her doorstep.
Photo by Juliet Holmboe, October, 2022.
The ‘Little Niagara Falls of Europe’ with the Laufen Castle Panorama: Rheinfall, Germany.
Falling into Fall
Inga Wójciechowska
At the hill of the Nonnberg Abbey: Salzburg, Austria.
Would you believe it if I told you that I have not heard the phrase ‘fall foliage’ prior to coming to Middlebury? Well, just like you, I too am in disbelief, but the fact is that such a phrase does not exist in my native language of Polish. I can only describe this breathtaking process, my favourite season of the year, with verbs: the leaves are falling, shining, rustling. Each and every year, fall is nature’s final farewell before
the winter stagnation astounds me to the same extent! Where else, outside of Vermont, do I find autumn delightful? With the exception of Poland, there are few such places, but the Alps are definitely one of them. All of the photographs that you are about to see were taken in October of 2023, on a trip that would most likely never have happened had I not been lucky enough to win a European Interrail Pass.
My journey starts at the train station in Spandau, one of Berlin’s largest public transportation hubs. Thinking about the days that were to come, I board my train and start looking out of the window. After roughly seven and a half hours, a conductor announces that, due to a delay, my train will stop in Basel at the German station Basel Bad instead of crossing the border to Switzerland. Yet, my subsequent connection to Lucerne leaves from the Swiss station, Basel
SBB, which is not the German one. So I ran through the city between the stations. The next day, Brugg, a small town located in the proximity of the Aargau Jura Park, becomes my safe harbour. Leaving the city rush behind, there is no need to run! Hiking to see Brugg from above, I take my time and gradually immerse myself in the world of all the vivid colors that surrounding trees present, from intense tones of scarlet to subdued shades of bronze.
Around the grape fields: Brugg, Switzerland.
If someone asked me what the most enjoyable of the 33 train rides of my interrail travel were, it would not take me more than two seconds to shout out “Bernina Express”! The route from the Swiss picturesque town of Chur, via the renowned resort of St. Moritz to the Italian municipality of Tirano, is the steepest railway track in the world. Indisputably, it is also one of the most magnificent routes. The views are simply breathtaking, an opinion shared by the UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee. While I keep imagining what life
looks like during the four seasons for residents of the little houses that the train passes, a kid sitting on the opposite side of my carriage yells at his sister: “Sag mal: Haben hier vor Jahren Dinosaurier gelebt!!??” (German, “Tell me: Did dinosaurs live here years ago?”) Pondering this thoughtful question, I come to the conclusion that the landscape would indeed be a great scenery for dinosaurs, but, in the modern era, we have to content ourselves with the view of cows. Seemingly unmoved by the charm of the countryside and disturbing visitors like me, the cows keep on chewing impressive quantities of fine Alpine grass.
On board the transnational Rhaetian Railway train: Between Chur, Switzerland and Tirano, Italy.
At the very end of my trip, I am back in the city of Mozart. On a foggy morning in the centre of Salzburg, I am waiting at a bus stop for my ride to Hallstatt, which was supposed to arrive two minutes ago. Accustomed to Swiss punctuality, I begin to get nervous, so I ask an older lady sitting nearby whether there are chances that the bus is on its way with a delay. Approximately a quarter of an hour and a couple of good pieces of advice later, I get on the right bus, but with a completely different plan. Today, “A może by tak rzucić wszystko i wyjechać w Bieszczady!” (Polish, “Or perhaps everything could be left behind by departing to the Bieszczady [the country’s most remote mountain range]!”) Polish proverb that
I tend to overuse, particularly appropriate! With two minor corrections: First, it is excitement, not resignation, that prompts me to act spontaneously; second, I am in the Salzkammergut Mountain Range instead of the Bieszczady! With a bike that I rent in St. Gilgen, the town of Mozart’s mother, I manage to find the bike paths that bring me to viewpoints at the Wolfgangsee, Mondsee, and Attersee Mountains. Even though nature looks as fresh as if it were spring, I discover that the area was a place of inspiration for Gustav Klimt, one of my favourite painters whose painting “The Kiss” reminds me of autumn.
Kreuzstein am Mondsee, Austria.
On the way to Vaduz,
It has been a year since these stories occurred. So much has happened that it remains barely possible to believe it was only last fall. Now is just the right time to stop and reflect: What memories of this autumn will you cherish in a year? Even though November might still surprise me, I am confident what my answer would be: hikes at the peak of the Vermont fall foliage, apple picking, and walking around flowers at the Knoll.
Hyena
Erin Pomfret ‘28
Kruger National Park comes with so many surprises...
After spending three months in South Africa completing a wildlife photography internship, one thing I learned is that every sighting is unexpected, yet welcomed. Nothing is guaranteed out in the bush.
My very first trip to Kruger National Park taught me just this.
It was about six in the morning, and a chill was in the air. We entered the Phalaborwa gate into the park in the game viewer, and excitement rushed through my veins. The open car design made everything feel tangible; we were unprotected from the elements. South Africa was just coming out of winter so branches were thin and the grass was a pale shade of yellow. I looked out into the vast landscape to assess the savannah, searching for wildlife. Any movement or flash of color could not go unnoticed when game viewing.
All of a sudden the vehicle stopped. My heart skipped a beat, and I looked around searching for the cause of the abrupt stop. Quickly, my eyes honed in on the source.
A baby Hyena.
Its tiny snout was poking out of the grass, sniffing the air for our scent. I immediately pulled out my camera and focused on the small creature. The cub emerged from the bush and took in the sight of our game viewer. I relentlessly attempted to capture the hyena’s every frame of movement, wanting to preserve this in my memory forever. A mutual curiosity filled the both of us and we were connected. The cub’s mother was nearby, keeping a watchful eye on her baby. They eventually made their way deep into the bush and out of sight.
I smiled wide as I looked at my photos through my lens, beaming, my love for the art affirmed. With a sense of ongoing wonder, I am grateful towards Kruger. I had the chance to take my favorite photo ever and experienced feelings of connection that will live only in my memory forever.
S N OW B OUND IN
WE STFJO RDS IC EL AND ’S
Oneof the first things you learn about Iceland is that life revolves around the weather. From the moment you step off the plane to the moment you step back on the weather is always doing something, and rarely is it doing it halfway. It’s either really gorgeous or really miserable, with very little space between.
I took my first step off the plane to begin my semester in Iceland into, fittingly, a snowstorm. It was late February and within a week the driving snow had briskly changed to a sunny 40 degrees. Signs went up in windows around the country:
Það er lokað hjá okkur, farðu út.
We are closed, go out.
In a country where the skies are cloudy 77% of the time and roads are regularly closed because a car was blown off the road, gorgeous days are taken very seriously. Winter storms are taken equally seriously; many locals I met refused to schedule anything more than a few days in advance, because ‘you never know if you’re going to be able to get there’.
Where there are good days there are also bad ones, and a month into my time in Iceland I was lucky enough to experience some historically miserable weather, along with a handful of gorgeous days thrown in.
In the middle of March, my group and I were supposed to spend the week in one of the few lodges on the Hornstrandir peninsula, an uninhabited wildlife preserve that is usually only accessible in the summer months when the winds (slightly) die down. Despite a halfway-decent-looking forecast, our chartered fishing boat bailed on the trip the day before we were supposed to depart, telling us that with the upcoming storm, it would be too dangerous to take the 30-minute trip across the fjord. We were baffled; there didn’t seem to be any indication that we shouldn’t be able to travel. Scrambling, we pivoted to a guesthouse in the next fjord over and booked a one-night stay.
The morning of our trip dawned bright and clear without a cloud in the sky as we drove through the 6km
one-way tunnel drilled underneath the mountains that bordered Skutulsfjörður, the fjord that we were calling home for the month. Our guesthouse, Holt, sat at the foot of a massive chain of mountains that stretched along the fjord westwards to the sea. We quickly dropped off our bags and trekked into the valley behind the house. Clouds were beginning to form at the eastern edge of the valley and throughout the afternoon they gradually grew, covering the sun and sending us jumping and sliding back down the mountain. The four walls of Holt provided the safety of a fireplace and assurances of not being crushed in an avalanche. Wind howled outside and snow began to build under the eaves, blissfully shut out by sturdy windows and stout walls.
As we slept, the snow picked up pace. By the time we woke up two feet had fallen with no obvious end in sight. Sustained 60-mile-an-hour wind piled snow wherever there was something to stall the neverending rush of air, piling snow 6 feet deep in the lee of the house and partially burying the front door. Going outside felt like a constant battle for every step; moving into the wind forced you to lean so far forward that it seemed you might topple over, even as the wind tried its damndest to push you the other direction.
By the time the storm was over we’d been stuck in Holt for three days, kept from home by avalanches that had buried the road heading back to the tunnel. The world outside was COVERED in white, with 8-foot drifts covering roads and trapping cars, which would have to slowly be freed over the coming week with front-end loaders and backhoes. The so-called ‘Easter Blizzard’ dropped 6 feet of snow over the course of two days as a part of the largest storm the Westfijords had seen in decades. I felt lucky to be a part of it, both fighting my way outside for pictures and tucked away and warm behind a double-paned window. Growing up in Minnesota I’ve lived through my fair share of blizzards but this one was like no other. The pure power of the storm was something to behold, a giant reminder that I was a long way from home.
As my plane lifted off the runway, I felt the echo of that storm—a quiet reminder that, for those few days, this place had held a fierce strength that few get to witness.
In both the days after the storm and in the months that followed, the impact of those days of snow and wind stuck with me. I was reminded of them through the tail end of the winter months and into the slow arrival of spring, heralded by a sun that decided it was tired of setting and hung close to the horizon. Leaves on the trees finally poked out in the last week of May as we were packing our bags, and the landscape felt like a far cry from the driving wind of those few days back in March. Despite feeling like a different world, the steep walls of the mountains that are omnipresent along
the Icelandic coast brought back reminders of the driving snow that slowly covered them in white back in March. The memory of the potential power that the landscape held for me during those days is now an integral part of the Icelandic landscape for me, inseparable from the green that blankets the mountains in the summer or the gold that creeps through the fjords in the fall. As my plane lifted off the runway, I felt the echo of that storm—a quiet reminder that, for those few days, this place had held a fierce strength that few get to witness.
Editorial Board
President & Editor-In-Chief Brett Gilman ‘24.5
Treasurer Ryan Reynolds ‘27
Secretary Ruby Salisbury ‘27
Lead Copy Editor Paige Theodosopoulos ‘25
Copy Editors
Alivia Hartz ‘26
Eliza Tiles ‘27.5
Langan Garrett ‘28
Seth Dugan ‘27
Lead Layout Designer Natalia C Smith ‘25
Photo Editors
Jiffy Lesica ‘25
Lucas Nerbonne ‘25.5
Will Hinkle ‘26
Yasmine Salha ‘28
Designers
Catherine Heckler ‘27.5
Egan Turner ‘27
Henry Ellwein ‘28
Kyra Dybas ‘28
Lily Larsen ‘28
On the Front: Brett Gilman ‘24.5
Section Intros: Brett Gilman ‘24.5
On The Back: Lucas Nerbonne ‘25.5
Special Thanks to our Advisor, Professor Bill Hegman. We wish you all the best on your retirement.
15 years, 23 editions, so many stories brought to life! Help us write our next chapter.
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Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland
Photo by Lucas Nerbonne ‘25.5
