Backcountry Review Issue No. 10

Backcountry Review

This issue of Backcountry Review is dedicated to John Preston Smith and Douglas Unrein.

Springfield High School’s Miller Integrated Nature Experience (MINE) gives students a look at Oregon they may never see otherwise. The program combines nature writing, Oregon geography, leadership, and journalism while providing a foundation for environmental consciousness and stewardship.

Send all inquiries to ivan.miller@springfield.k12.or.us or 875 7th Street Springfield, OR 97477

Cover Photo by Ami Vitale

Editors-in-Chief

Carly Bramhall

Jay Bramhall

Yuriana Espino Sosa

Managing Editors

Kevin Gustafson

Hannah Holman

Copy Editor

Drew Campbell Writers

Hollander Bishoff

Courtney Brown

Mia Mathews

Caden Trieu

Jericho Truett

Henry Valencia

Creative Director

Juniper Wollock

Graphic Designers

Emely Castanada-Rivera

Elijah Lowder

Natalee Ness

Trevor Pasquali

Grace Paugh

Vanessa Smith

Digital Artist

Koda Mihm

Photographers

Madison Blaine

Brysseida Roblero Morales

Advertising Manager

Lucas Paugh

MINE Director

Kayla Unrein Adviser

Ivan Miller

Photo by Ami Vitale

Brysseida Roblero Morales

finding a voice

An editor-in-chief reflects on the writing exercise that exonerated her fear.

Yuriana Espino Sosa

Journalism adviser Ivan Miller likes to assign “sit spots” every once in a while. This involves going outside and sitting for up to 45 minutes, then reflecting on whatever thoughts come to mind. My very first sit-spot came during the first week of class, and I honestly did not go outside or actually want to do it, for the thought of sharing my thoughts in front of the group scared me. Instead, I sat in my room and wrote about what I did that morning.

Most of the students had been there a couple years. They knew each other and knew what was going on. Once the first student read their sit-spot I was speechless. I was surrounded by people that I had never talked to before, but their stories were so personal and my stomach sank, nerves taking over.

“What if my story is not good enough,” I thought to myself.

Near panic, my mind started racing. Smiling, Miller gave me the “it’s your turn” look. I suddenly forgot how to speak English altogether. I fumbled through some words and others I made up, at some point I was just improvising. Finishing my face turned red, my hands shaking, then everyone started snapping their fingers and Miller said something positive about what I wrote.

It takes a lot for me to come out of my comfort zone, which has made it really hard for me to make friends, or keep them in general. I get nervous around people and I never know how to start a conversation, or how to keep it going. In a way, I have always been better at writing what I feel or think. Writing has been my escape for everything. It’s just me and my pencil. When I wrote my first story, Finding A Sense of Place, exploring my journey moving from one country to another, everything changed. I was scared to even share it with Miller, my story, my life. Then two other people read it, then four, and six.

From that moment on, I started slowly punching holes through what I thought was my comfort zone. Towards the end of the year, Miller started talking about a “big trip,” insisting I come. I lived on a ranch for half of my life when I lived in Mexico so I didn’t mind the outdoors. I was carrying a backpack twice my size, and wearing boots two sizes too big, and I had no idea what to expect.

I didn’t know what to make of the crazy teacher talking

about “adventure time.” After a couple miles of carrying my backpack, I was ready to give up, but I kept walking. We sat around the fire, played games, laughed, and even made Miller dance. It was amazing. I felt safe, like I fit in. I was so caught up in the moment that the bubble suddenly popped completely. We wrote a sitspot but this time, I wasn’t nervous, I was excited to share.

The Miller Integrated Nature Experience (MINE) has a lot to offer, but to me it is not about the field trips, the backpack trips, or the magazine. To me it’s about the community it builds. You cannot do it with just one person, it takes a team to build a meaningful publication. Everyone takes on a role, and the connections you build mean a lot. We operate in magazine cycles, designing, taking pictures, editing profiles, or learning the art of storytelling. Sometimes I stay after school to get more work done, and those are moments I cherish. We’re all in our own world, but together we work as a team. MINE brings people closer, regardless of their backgrounds, and becomes “MINE.” I reached out to a couple of old editors-in-chief during the initial transition into Covid in 2020 and asked about what MINE meant to them.

Kindra Roy said: “Everyone takes something different out of MINE, and I think that is what is so great about it. For some, it’s a creative outlet, a way to get involved, to try a new skill like photography or graphic design. For others, like me, it was a home away from home. It was a place to challenge myself and to be able to lean on others without any shame. I was barely keeping my head above water in my personal life but the program was an escape where I could just let go. It helped build my confidence and prove my resilience and those two things were really integral to my development.”

Trevor Palmer said: “What I needed was a life-preserver, something to hold onto while my life was sinking. MINE meant forming connections with people when I was terrified to let anyone into my life. It meant breaking down the walls that I had worked so hard to build. It forced me to be vulnerable, which is far from what I wanted. MINE meant the world to me, and it was the first step towards building a life where I feel genuinely connected to what I’m doing and the people I am with.”

MINE has changed the lives of a lot of people over the past decade. Miller created the program with the hope of breaking down the walls of the education system and taking kids outside. The dream of making a book, instead of a magazine, started four years ago. Then we went into Covid. This year we made a book, but more importantly we found a community. MINE will always be in my heart and if I ever made a good decision in life it was writing that first sit spot.

SEEKING myth

The legend of Bigfoot is one of the most recognizable examples of cryptozoology in the modern western world. Stories of Bigfoot hunters—crazed cryptid-enthusiasts hellbent on finding and documenting the elusive creatures of the woods—are frequently a source of laughter and ridicule. Of course, there is no such thing as Bigfoot, right?

Pseudoscience and conspiracy theories run rampant in our society. Whether it be fears of vaccination, the belief that all the world’s governments are run by a secret society, or even the simple belief in the supernatural. These ideas are regularly shared, and oftentimes dismissed. Without hard substantial evidence of these theories, shrugging them off as lunacy isn’t exactly stupid. Alongside the spark of pseudoscience, increasing trust in the scientific method and factual evidence has accompanied it—perhaps the rise of conspiracy theories is a desperate protest against this reaction. Pondering the existence of mythical creatures simply does not fit into the modern shifts of western culture, and yet, Bigfoot, the legend of the Sasquatch, is still a tale that lives, and it lives strong.

The story of Bigfoot dates well over a hundred years back. In 1904, settlers in the Sixes River area in Washington reported seeing a hairy “wild man.” Similar accounts of hairy, apelike human-

oids were reported back in 1924 by miners near Mt. St. Helens. Oddly enough, the area is no stranger to tales of “ape men” at all. Settlers in the area reported seeing massive footprints at times, and even the indigenous peoples of the area had tales of “mountain devils.” The men reported 7-foot tall “gorilla men” assaulting them with large boulders—the location of the attack is now lovingly named “Ape Canyon.” In their story, they claimed they were no more than eight miles off Spirit Lake when they encountered four of the bipedal primates moving with “human-like strides.” The Oregonian reported the men’s descriptions, mentioning long black hair, ears that shot straight up measuring at four inches, and only four stubby toes on each foot. They estimated the beasts to have weighed approximately 400 pounds. The tale was soon dismissed by rangers, who stated that the boulders they had been attacked with were likely placed there by the miners themselves.

The likelihood of there really being giant ape creatures in the woods is slim. The worst you’ll find out there is an angry bear, or maybe a deranged mountain lion. And yet, the collective human conscience constantly aims to invent mythological beings and insert them into reality. Whether concentrated on superstitious or more

A columnist examines the role of mythology in the human experience via a big-footed cryptid.

Drew Campbell Koda Mihm

reality-focused concerns and considerations, our brains come up with stories, scenarios, and characters whether we want to or not. I wonder if it’s related to survival instinct. When humanity still hunted and gathered to survive, the ability to exaggerate potential threats could have its uses in avoiding predators—the rustling in the bushes could be something that wants to eat us, right?

It’s humbling to think of that possibility. As a species, we often place ourselves above the life around us. We want to rationalize our intelligence and accomplishments as the natural result of being a higher form of life.

Along with species elitism, we frequently aim to humanize existence around us. The idea that we are alone in our languages, cultures, and technological advancement is both the basis for superiority, and an insurmountable amount of fear. The world does not operate the way the human mind does. Mother nature is not caught up in the “indomitable human spirit,” and she is not caught up in the materialism birthed by humanity. The deer does not worry about how much it is worth. The deer only wishes to survive. Perhaps this is why humanity has created entities with humanlike motives and intelligence. The famous Sasquatch is no exception. He’s commonly characterized as a protector figure: a guardian of the forest. Many cultures had stories of Bigfoot-like creatures. The Ojibway people of the Northern Plains talked about the “Rugaru” who showed up in times of danger, and other nations agreed the hairy creature was a messenger, telling people to alter their ways.

The idea of a sapient creature (or creatures) stalking the woods to save humanity from its own doings is fascinating in relation to the sense of human superiority. It’s as though we require an “other” to personify the victims of our wrongdoings. When we destroy millions of acres of land in the name of capitalism and advancement, we destroy the natural homes of

creatures we can’t possibly relate to. The mind of a squirrel is not that of our own, and thus, we cannot truly understand it. But, the mind of Bigfoot, although characterized as more animalistic than our own, is somehow understood. Sasquatch is a creature that wishes to guard the woods and live undisturbed—its motives are beyond the natural cycle of survival.

The natural cycle of life is something humanity wishes desperately to distance itself from. We want to be above it, to control it. Whether it’s God appointing us the stewards of the Earth, or the pantheon of ancient Greek gods entertaining human efforts above all, human mythology always revolves around us. It always places us above the rest as the chosen beings on this planet.

This idea of spiritual importance goes handin-hand with the capitalist-centric idea of enlightenment that echoes throughout culture despite the large awakening of a more humble acceptance of the natural world. Creatures like Bigfoot are just a byproduct of the ever-changing nature of human understanding. Almost a century ago, the miners near Mt. St. Helens told false tales of rabid ape men—an important tale when analyzed further than just the ramblings of the deranged. It’s possible that they understood that using the land for their own gain in the gold rush was an abuse of the natural world and sought to clear their consciousness with a personification of the very land they mined. I believe the legend of Bigfoot symbolizes this very idea at its core: the creature represents the guilty conscience of humanity. We destroy forests, we deface mountainsides, we displace wildlife, and we cause mass extinction. Perhaps humanizing the victims of said wrath helps us deal with our collective guilt. So maybe folklore and mythology are not all negative. It’s easy to fall into the pit of nihilistic belief without something to hold onto. Bigfoot may just be a hoax, a creature that simply does not exist, but maybe we should pretend it does.

Summit dreams

Escapism has always played an important role in society, especially to those who dare scale mountains.

Kevin Gustafson Scott Serfas

Why do we climb? Maybe it hearkens back to our innate desire to conquer the world around us—to climb the tallest tree, to slay the biggest beast. We can only speculate. But one thing is for certain: climbing offers an escape from the daily toil of the layman, a conduit to lands untouched by human hands.

Many associate the word “escapism” with negative connotations—something only the lazy and uninspired would engage in. For climbers, escapism means more than sitting on the couch, slouched over, forfeiting precious time to some menial distraction. To them, climbing is more than a means to an end.

According to Mark and Mike Anderson’s The Rock Climber’s Training Manual: A Guide to Continuous Improvement, humanity’s insatiable lust to discover what lies upon a domineering summit stems as far back as 12,000 years. Rock paintings recovered from the Tassili n’Ajjer region of Algeria depict humanoid figures ascending rock faces with ropes and climbing equipment, something people continue to master. This goes to show that climbing is not simply a modern endeavor, rather we are naturally driven to the mountains. Climbers understand the dangers associated with the sport, yet they overlook them in pursuit of adventure.

According to the Alpine Journal, the first compe-

tition was held on August 23, 1902, in Bardonecchia, Italy, where as many as 10,000 onlookers gathered to witness the spectacle. Only 12 competed, with the goal of ascending the wall of stone within the shortest amount of time.

Luigi Boninsegni ultimately took the win, and though this remains a historical achievement, it is not often mentioned today. Traditionalist critics berated the event, saying it was an affront to the spirit of climbing, as previously the sport was seen as more of a personal challenge than a competition. Whatever public opinion was at the time, events like this paved the way for future climbers.

One such climber who embodied the original, free spirit of the sport was Marc-André Leclerc. After his first climbing experience at a rock wall in a shopping mall, he felt compelled to join a climbing gym in Abbotsford. Viewing climbing as a way to challenge himself, he took to the Harrison Bluffs in British Columbia at only 13, teaching himself to climb mountains. From that point forward, he was willing to face any danger head-on, fully enthralled with the sport.

In Matt Skenazy’s article, “The Last Days of Marc-André Leclerc,” Leclerc recalls thinking, “in North America, people like to push the difficulty of climbing without pushing the risk. The danger aspect of going into

the mountains is discouraged.” For Leclerc, however, the perilous nature of climbing allowed for a temporary escape from the monotony of life.

By 2012, he was documenting his adventures on a personal blog. He was not well known, nor did he care to be. Leclerc simply saw the internet as an avenue for self-expression.

In “The Dreaded First Blog Post,” Leclerc tells the public, “so after two years of living and climbing in Squamish, I have decided to start a blog, sharing some of my thoughts and adventures.” He goes on about his living situation at the time, mentioning how he lived on an air mattress under a stairwell: “It may not be the most glamorous sleeping arrangement, however, rent is cheap, and I use my money for more important things such as beer, ice cream, cookies, and sometimes rock climbing.”

Nextflix’s The Alpinist, a documentary about Leclerc, offers more vivid insight into the reclusive climber’s lifestyle and what he thought about climbing

on a philosophical level.

Straight out of high school, Leclerc quickly ingrained himself in the British Columbia climbing community, making an immediate impact.

“My first memory of Marc-André was seeing him come running out of the forest in Squamish, barefoot with no shirt. Just broke my speed record on the Grand Wall. And I was like, ‘Who is that guy?’” says climber Alex Honnold in The Alpinist.

Despite this accomplishment, Leclerc insisted he simply “soloed the route regularly,” and “one time, [he] decided to see how long it would take [him], and then [he] got to the top and checked the time, and [he] was like, “oh, it’s two or three minutes faster than the established record.’”

In the film, Honnold reflects on his experiences with Leclerc, explaining, “Marc is a very, very driven climber, but he doesn’t care about accolades… But he definitely cares about… the experience in the mountains, and the journey, and just wants to have a good

time while he’s out there.”

Leclerc then expands on his perspective, saying, “When I’m soloing rock climbs, I don’t really like to feel like I’m pushing myself… That’s not the reason for soloing rock for me. I don’t like to feel like I’m doing something intense or scary.”

The grandiose challenge soloing offers ensures climbers feel like the arbiters of their own fate. It’s one of the truest forms of escapism, as solo climbers ascend to places where they feel fully immersed in life, without any restrictions.

By 2014, Leclerc had already free soloed the Navigator Wall of Mt. Slesse in BC, Canada, which is a Grade IV 5.10+. And by 2016, Leclerc had made history, completing the first solo winter ascent of Torre Egger’s East Pillar in Patagonia. With that under his belt, in 2017, he completed the first free solo ascent of Pinko on Rim Wall in the Canadian Rockies. With these major accomplishments and 13 other notable ascents, he had proven his commitment to the sport was

absolute.

At only 25 years old, Leclerc established himself as a humble inspiration for alpinists, having completed the first ascent of the north face of the Main Mendenhall Tower with fellow climber Ryan Johnson. Unfortunately, they never made it back down. Like many before him, Leclerc perished doing what he loved, leaving behind only his legacy. Leclerc opted for the purest form of escapism possible. Though soloing offers many dangers, it also affords many benefits to those who participate.

In 1980, fellow climber David Roberts wrote in his memoir, Moments of Doubt, “over the years, quite a few of my climbing acquaintances were killed in the mountains, including five close friends. Each death was deeply unsettling, tempting me to doubt all over again the worth of the enterprise.”

He recalls how he nearly died due to a simple rappelling mistake: “Had that botched rappel been my demise, no friends would have seen my end as meaningful: instead, a ‘stupid,’ ‘pointless,’ ‘who-wouldhave-thought?’ kind of death… Yet in the long run, trying to answer my own question, ‘Is it worth it?’… I come back to gut-level affirmation, however sentimental, however selfish.”

Throughout the memoir, Roberts remembers many instances of disaster and the mourning that followed, yet he always comes back to climbing. He gracefully concludes, “some of the worst moments of my life have taken place in the mountains… But nowhere else on Earth, not even in the harbors of reciprocal love, have I felt pure happiness take hold of me and shake me like a puppy, compelling me, and the conspirators I had arrived there with, to stand on some perch of rock or snow, the uncertain struggle below us, and bawl our pagan vaunts to the very sky. It was worth it then.”

That same happiness is what drovew Leclerc, and it’s sure to inspire thousands more. It’s what forces us to break the chains of comfort and try something unassured, with no guarantee of success. Despite the saddening conclusion of his story, that same happiness is what made it worth it for Leclerc. He wouldn’t have had it any other way, preferring to succumb to the dangers of an adventurous lifestyle and do what he loved in the place he loved the most rather than waste away in a state of dwindling potential. His style reeked of youthful optimism, something lacking in the world as of late.

head in the stars

Astronomer Dr. Scott Fisher witnesses the beauty of space through telescopes, pondering our place among the cosmos.

Courtney Brown

The infinite void of the sky is without a doubt one of the most terrifying and amazing things any of us will ever see. Looking up to see the whole universe complete with constellations and planets dotted across the night sky has captured the attention of humans throughout our existence. The stars have been mapped and recorded by nearly every culture across the globe and have guided the way to new places and back home again.

Even though Dr. Scott Fisher was a self described “sciencey kid,” he never imagined he would be an astronomer. He wanted to build things, to be an engineer. When Fisher was a child he built a dam in the creek behind his grandparents’ house. It worked so well that it flooded the backyard and he had to tear it down. Fisher says he did things like that all the time, he couldn’t help himself. His desire for discovery has always taken precedence.

During his last year of college, his friend convinced him to take an astronomy course, claiming it was supposed to be an easy class. Fisher explains, “it was like my brain exploded.”

He ended up staying an additional year and added a second major, astronomy, on top of physics. Dr. Fisher realized he “could study physics, but in a really interesting sort of way and apply it to the

sky and on top of that you get to build telescopes and cameras and things like that.”

In grad school, while working to get a PhD in astronomy, Dr. Fisher and a team of peers built Oscar, an infrared camera meant to be used with telescopes. Oscar was the first camera to see some of the discs around nearby stars that our solar system emerged from. They also saw young stars and infant solar systems. Fisher and team traveled the globe to experiment on the biggest telescopes with Oscar, visiting places like Chile, Spain, and Hawaii.

Fisher says about their discoveries, “[it] was pretty cool to be the first human being to be able to see those things.”

After graduating from the University of Florida, where he spent both his undergrad and graduate years, Dr. Fisher found a job in Hilo, Hawaii, home of the north half of the Gemini Observatory (the southern half is located in Chile). Built in 1999, each location has a 8.1-meter telescope, earning them the places of 12th and 13th largest telescopes in the world. Dr. Fisher describes them as “monster telescopes.” During his 12-year stay at Gemini, Fisher began speaking to groups of people about astronomy. This sparked an interest in

public outreach about science that has helped to guide Dr. Fisher’s career.

After Gemini, Dr. Fisher accepted a temporary position at the National Science Foundation in Washington DC, where he had $15 million in grant money, funding various astronomy projects and education-related scholarships. As he was getting ready to move back to Hilo, Fisher saw that there was an open position at the University of Oregon. He now teaches 100 level astronomy courses and is the director at the Pine Mountain Observatory.

Dr. Fisher says,“that to me is just the perfect combo. Do some teaching and student development, but also get to work with telescopes and hands-on stuff.”

Pine Mountain Observatory is located about 30 miles east of Bend in the Deschutes National Forest, at an altitude of 6,300 feet, perfect for observation of the sky. The observatory was established in 1967 and it’s one of the last observatories connected to a university in the United States. Its first telescope was built in 1952, and

Dr. Fisher says, “it’s an antique, honest to God, antique. And we have it working, even better than it did back in the fifties.”

Dr. Fisher loves taking his students up to the observatory to work on various projects and observe the stars as they twinkle in the vast, dark sky. His favorite project involves looking at the light curves of asteroids that orbit our solar system between Mars and Jupiter. Looking at the way light reflects off the rocks allows for the size to be calculated.

“The sunlight goes out, hits the rock, and then comes back and hits and reflects into our telescope,” says Fisher. “We can sort of measure how the brightness of these asteroids change. And we call that a light curve.”

Asteroids come in a variety of shapes and sizes and are constantly spinning and tumbling around in space. Dr. Fisher described them by saying “they’re actually shaped a little bit more like potatoes and some of them [are] even peanut shaped or look like a leg bone or something, you know, they’re not spheres.” He

Madison Blaine

Enjoying an Autumn day, Dr. Fisher shifts his gaze from the stars to the camera.

has his students analyze the images and then he sends the data to the University of Kobe in Japan. The university has a special software that will look at the light curves and create a 3D image of the asteroid. A recent asteroid he observed was about 30 miles across. Fisher described it as “a rock as big as two times Mount Hood and 200 million miles away.”

Similar to the asteroid project, Dr. Fisher uses light to learn about exoplanets. As the planets orbit their solar system, the amount of light the star gives off as the planet passes in front of it can be measured.

“If a little planet orbited right in front of it, it makes the star look a little dimmer and smaller,” Fisher explained. To observe the brightness of the star, they take one picture every minute and watch as it changes. This allows them to discover things like size and shape, orbiting patterns, and how far away the planet is from its star.

Another project he and his students are working on, the Pine Mountain Deep Field, uses one

of the telescopes to observe the center of a galaxy cluster. A picture taken by the Hubble telescope shows over 1,500 galaxies in various stages of development. Dr. Fisher and his students have observed the same spot for over nine hours. So far they have detected, in Fisher’s words “400 Milky Ways in just this one picture.” Considering the telescope they’re working with is significantly smaller than one of NASA’s prized telescopes, this is an impressive feat.

Dr. Fisher says, “I feel that the direct connection with the universe is extremely important. It’s a presence in all our lives.” He admits astronomy is a “quirky subject,” something so embedded in our lives that in some ways we are all astronomers. “It’s really easy to feel tiny and insignificant when you study the stars. They’re so far away and so big and so much grander than we are. But at the same time, we are connected to the universe in extremely strong ways.”

Stephanie Foote

The urban birder

David Lindo uses birding in an urban environment as a means to connect people to nature.

Hollander Bishoff

When people think of birding they often think of going out into rural areas—perhaps a reservoir, forest or other natural area—to view birds in their habitat. What they often don’t realize is how much birds have adapted to urbanization and how easy it is for them to bird right outside their homes. During the course of the Covid-19 pandemic the hobby of bird watching increased drastically as over 1.4 million people downloaded the Merlin Bird ID app in 2020, with a 20.7% increase in bird sightings during the months of May 2019 and May 2020.

As a broadcaster, writer, speaker, tour leader and educator, David Lindo’s mission is to engage city folk around the world with the environment through the medium of birds. To do this he created The Urban Birder World, a group dedicated to sharing the lifestyle of birding with others.

“I see myself as a bridge, people often gain an interest through listening to me or…seeing something that I’ve done and then they explore that interest and develop [it],” says Lindo.

Well known among the birding community, Lindo has been an influential figure in the scene. Recently named the 7th most influential person by BBC Wildlife Magazine, Lindo’s work to accomplish his goal with The Urban Birder World has paid off.

“I’ve got a good grassroots following,” says Lindo. “A lot of people identify with me because…I like to… put out there that it’s okay to make mistakes.”

Lindo had no background in conservation or bi-

ology; in fact, his background is in sales and marketing, something that offered him no knowledge of conservation or birds. But Lindo feels that this has helped him the most. “I think that’s actually helped me more than anything else… I come from a background in which you understand the fact that you need to sell ideas,” he says.

Selling ideas is exactly what Lindo did. In 2014, Lindo launched a campaign to find Britain’s national bird, something Lindo originally wanted to do as a kid. “Britain’s National Bird Campaign,” the official name of the project, attracted many people.

“It was rewarding, I managed to get…a quarter of a million people to vote,” says Lindo.

The official winner of the campaign—the robin—was not officially ratified as Britain’s national bird, however, Lindo still considers the Campaign a success, saying, “60 percent of those [who voted] were not members of any wildlife conservation organization, which was great because the reason why I did this campaign was not so much to get Britain’s national bird but to get people talking about birds who never normally speak about them.”

Lindo’s fascination with birds began very early on. “I’ve always been interested in natural history… I just had an inborn, inbuilt interest,” he says.

Lindo often jokes that his love for birds began even before his birth, saying “I was a puma [in a

David Lindo uses a spotting scope for birding as the sun sets.

previous life] and I used to chase after birds, and one day I missed one, and I thought, wow, that’s amazing. So I started watching birds as a puma.”

In an interview with best-selling author Robert Macfarlane, Lindo talked about how he wanted to be a veterinarian as a child. “I remember going to the careers teacher with my mom and they said to me, ‘well what do you want to do David?’ and I said, ‘well, I’d actually like to be a vet.’ And he said, ‘A vet…I think you should be a bricklayer or a carpenter.’”

This was not the only time Lindo felt a negative impact regarding his education. In fact a lack of encouragement and help from his teachers left him feeling unintelligent. In the same interview Lindo said, “it stunted my kind of development to the point that I didn’t actually read much.”

Even with a lack of support from teachers this didn’t stop Lindo from doing what he wanted to do. Before Lindo fully committed to The Urban Birder World he first was a DJ. “When I was at school…Saturday Night Fever just came out, and… I sold all my punk records and bought disco, 12 inches, and started going to clubs.”

Lindo worked as a DJ in the early 2000s, and he was playing in five to six residencies in central London. “[I got] to a point where I could have actually crossed over and been a DJ but then one day I was at a club… I got home at six [in the morning] and then basically I just turned around and went straight out birding.”

Moving into full-time birding, he began to write and became the author of multiple books about birding: The Urban Birder, Tales From Concrete Jungles, #Urban Birding, How To Be An Urban Birder and The Extraordinary World of Birds. As his fame grew so did his opportunities. In 2020, Lindo was shortlisted for the Professional Publishers Association (PPA) Columnist of the year award. Lindo was also on the 2021 judging panel of the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the year award and judged both the Bird Photographer of the Year and the British Wildlife Photography Awards.

Lindo continues to grow the birding community and share it with those who have not yet had the opportunity to be a part of it. Anyone can be an Urban Birder, they must first always remember to #LookUp.

Rubén Cebrián

Suspended Above fear

Facing terrifying heights, slacklining and highlining champion Mia Noblet finds connection and peace within herself.

Douglas Noblet Jericho Truettett

On August 3, 2022, Mia Noblet and seven other fearless athletes broke the world record for the longest slackline walk and the longest highline, 8,943 feet long and 965 feet high respectively. Though she’s broken eight records, for Noblet, it’s not about the records but finding connection and peace. She says, “I think it teaches you how to recognize fear and know where it comes from and why it’s there.”

Noblet grew up in British Columbia where she participated in hiking, camping, and skiing in the outdoorsy town of Nelson. At age 8, she saw a Patagonia poster of Dean Potter, a well-known free climber, alpinist, base jumper, and highliner who passed away in 2015 due to a wingsuit flying accident. This sparked her interest in highlining. Growing up, she enjoyed figure and short-track speed skating but became tired of indoor sports. When she moved to Vancouver to pursue more skating, she met the local Squamish/Vancouver outdoor community, including Spencer Seabrooke.

“People like Spencer and others in my local community became people I looked up to and inspired me to highline even more,” says Noblet. “It’s quite a dangerous sport, and it takes a bit of time to trust the material, the gear, know how to use it, and to trust yourself.”

Participating in such a dangerous sport, fear can come in many forms. Fear can cause issues

with the immune system, poor quality of sleep, obsessive-compulsive thoughts, and even dissociation from oneself. Noblet has grown very efficient at processing fear by immersing herself in highlining, distinguishing which emotions matter and which don’t to be fully aware of the current situation she’s in. Having this awareness can lead to a calm mind, and in turn lead to a clearer comprehension of one’s current experience, doing away with any unnecessary mental drama.

“It’s a quick process of identifying the fear, knowing why it’s there, and letting it go if it’s not necessary and not helping you in remaining safe, and then moving on. I think that process takes a lot longer when you first start,” says Noblet.

In a classical definition of fear and stress, fear is the emotional response to a real or perceived imminent threat, whereas stress is the individual’s reaction to fear. Threatening stimuli activates a biological defensive mechanism, triggering physiological stress responses, including adrenaline being released throughout the body. This stress response is due to a challenge to the body’s homeostasis.

Homeostasis is the automated process by which an organism’s biological systems maintain stability, all working together while adjusting to the changing world. An essential part of homeostasis is that a human’s internal environment is held within a goal-seeking system, the same environ-

Mia Noblet treacherously slacklines over a winter stream.

ment in which our perception lies. This is why living a safe daily routine brings familiarity, making it easy to seek peace and happiness through predictability and routine.

Usually, it’s easiest to function with a routine, but breaking that routine can bring one back to the forefront of perception, allowing us to see with new eyes. Routine can be good for productivity, but staying inside and spending too much time on electronics is detrimental to stress levels and homeostasis.

“These little screens we carry around with us are absorbing part of our spirit or our soul, whatever you wanna call it, and it’s definitely more noticeable after spending a lot of time in nature,” says Noblet.

In a study in Mind, 95 percent of those interviewed said their mood improved after spending time outside, changing from depressed and stressed to calm and balanced. By taking that step into the unknown, people are more likely to step into a flow state. The hardest part is to find this equilibrium, being fully aware of one’s experience: as day-to-day life in the city can pull one more into survival mode.

“Dealing with fear on a daily basis functions on a similar level. Fear of failure, rejection, and death— these can all be overcome by centering oneself in the moment. The majority of the appeal to [slacklining] is becoming capable of putting that fear in the backseat. It’s definitely a challenge of being very present in the moment.” says Noblet

Many people seem like they are in constant fight or flight mode, musing about the past and future, scrolling through endless feeds, watching a 24/7 stream of divisive news, or doing whatever makes one feel like they have a handle on what is happening within the modern world.

Noblet says, “highlining brings you to a place where you’re very centered, very present in that moment, and I think nowadays, with big highline projects, what I like the most is that presence that it brings you.”

For Noblet, peace comes with going out into nature and being mindful of life, moment by moment.

“Once you find something that you can spend hours doing with no one around, no phones, no pictures or nothing, you’re gonna find this sense of calm and quiet and you don’t need anything or anyone around you to do that thing because it just fulfills you for you.”

Braving the wild

Coyote Peterson, the “King of Stings,” brings ingenuity to the next generation of animal enthusiasts.

“I’m Coyote Peterson, and I’m about to take on the bullet ant challenge,” says an anxious and lightheaded Coyote Peterson to his YouTube audience, as he holds an insect that is infamous for having the most painful sting in the entire animal kingdom, the bullet ant (Paraponera clavata), its legs dangling between a pair of tweezers, perhaps preparing for retaliation.

“Are you ready?” he asks his co-host and filmmaker Mark Vins, who replies with an enthusiastic, “let’s do it.”

Peterson, whose nerves appear shaken, slowly brings forth the famous bullet ant’s incredibly dangerous mandibles closer to his forearm. He prepares for what is thought to be the worst insect sting in the world. But for Peterson, this proves an ordinary day of work, a chosen career path. No doubt, he has taken more venom than your average Joe.

ter sting, Peterson had been climbing his way up the infamous “Schmidt Sting Pain Index,” which lists, in order, the stings of dangerous insects from the least painful (that being the red ant) to the most painful. The only three insects that have earned a four-point rating on Schmidt’s 4-point scale are the tarantula hawk, the warrior wasp, and the bullet ant. Naturally, everyone watching this Indiana Jones-esque man writhing in agony on the ground for a large Internet audience poses the question: “Why would anyone willingly do this?”

Peterson’s career path has long been in the making with his childhood foreshadowing his career.

“I grew up in the country, so most of my childhood was spent playing in the woods behind my house with my neighborhood friends catching frogs, turtles, and snakes,” he says.

Peterson later attended Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin High School, a college prep school, and upon graduation, he further pursued his interests.

“When I got to college, I got a degree in screenwriting, producing, and directing,” he says. “So once I was out of school, I sort of saw this opportunity to combine my love for filmmaking with the world of animals.”

Peterson has purposely absorbed various stings and bites, including an executioner wasp, a velvet ant, a Gila monster, an alligator, and many more. His Youtube channel posts often go viral. On December 20, 2016, he uploaded his bullet ant sting, which has amassed over 59 million views. Sting af-

Peterson was inspired by childhood icons–Steve Irwin, Jeff Corwin, Austin Stevens, Marty Staufferwhich. “If there was somebody making animal adventure content, and it was either on TV or on a VHS tape, I was all over that stuff,” he says. “So as a kid, I was constantly embarking upon my own ad-

Mia Mathews Contributed

ventures. In my mind, I was a wildlife adventure show host, so it didn’t all come together until I was out of college. It was just [the] right place, [the] right time for me to be able to combine all of my passions together. The want to share animals with the world is the true underlying purpose for everything that we do.”

His show Brave Wilderness holds the tagline “Be Brave, Stay Wild,” which appeals heavily to a younger audience. Peterson says that being the world’s largest video and entertainment encyclopedia for the natural world is his main mission.

“It’s very much about telling the story of an animal,” says Peterson. “If you can actually go as far as saying that you’re getting somebody to love an animal, you have a lot more passion and the need to be compassionate or care or donate or want to share the story if it’s something that you hold near and dear to your heart.”

Peterson believes the most important aspect of his brand comes in the form of education.

“The ultimate message that we want people to take away from Brave Wilderness is our planet is an incredible place,” he says. “And if you’ve only got a few minutes to learn about one single subject matter within that animal kingdom, well great.”

how many production companies or networks basically told us, ‘Yeah guys, that’s cute. You can catch animals and teach people about ‘em. That was kind of the old thing.’”

Peterson decided to take the YouTube route. Since then, Peterson’s YouTube channel Brave Wilderness has amassed a total of 20.7 million subscribers and a grand total of 4.8 billion views. And that does not account for his other wildly popular social media channels. He has also hosted his own Animal Planet series titled “Coyote Peterson: Brave the Wild,” which premiered in February of 2020.

With a bevy of behind-the-scenes struggles, Brave Wilderness deals with another modern-day issue that big content creators have: staying relevant. “So there used to be this phrase, 15 minutes of fame, which was more of a television, movie, and music industry type compartmentalization. But in the internet world, it’s 15 seconds, if that, of fame,” says Peterson.

When it comes to goals, Peterson revels in his many accomplishments, but he’s more interested in the potential long-lasting impacts that Brave Wilderness can have for the environment. “We won some awards, but at the end of the day, I’d say that the thing that we’re most proud about is the stories that we get to do about specific animals.”

Peterson began his journey on YouTube in September 2014 after several years of envisioning it with his business partner, Mark Vins. Originally, Peterson believed that Brave Wilderness would make a great television series. He says, “it was kind of Steve Irwin mixed with Bear Grylls from Man vs. Wild in a new generation.”

Coyote shares his struggles with the envisioned brand of Brave Wilderness before it became what we know today. “I can’t tell you

No matter what, Peterson will stand by his brand’s purpose: education and entertainment. With the majority of Brave Wilderness’ audience being children and teens, he hopes to inspire future generations of wildlife explorers. “Be bold, be brave, get out there, be wild,” he says. “Just like our tagline, Be brave. Stay wild. You have to be brave enough to start. Everybody has an idea. There are very few people who actually execute on those. Take a pen, put it to paper… Create an outline for yourself, set goals, and go out and start knocking them down.”

Rooted in spirit

In her books, Jessica Mehta explores self-realization, cultural pride, and what it means to be an indigenous woman, but the ultimate goal of her stories is to spread awareness and educate non-indigenous people about native culture and history, which unfortunately society tried to erase for many years.

The Cherokee language was the first indigenous American language to have a written form. This syllabary was created by Sequoyah in 1809 and took 12 years to complete. But before written language was invented, native people relied on their verbal language and storytelling traditions to pass customs, legends, and history from one generation to the next. For Mehta, writing and poetry is an extension of Cherokee syllabary and traditional oral storytelling, providing a way to preserve and share native culture. Throughout history, many indigenous people have lost their oral stories and Mehta has found that writing creates a sense of permanency.

Mehta is a poet and novelist, yogi, and outdoor enthusiast from Central Point, Oregon. Growing up as a Native American girl in a small town in the 1980s, she did not experience much diversity. Spending summers on the Cherokee Nation as a kid, she relished

spending time with people she could relate with. Eventually, she left home at 15 by herself, relocating to Portland. Mehta attended Portland State University, which had a strong native community.

A person’s environment has a tremendous impact on one’s mental state. Research by the Finnish Forest Research Institute has even shown that just 45 minutes spent outside a day can increase a person’s mood by 20 percent compared to others who choose to remain in the confines of industrial cities. As a native Oregonian, Mehta feels lucky to be surrounded by nature all the time.

“The outdoors is an integral part of daily life for spiritual health, physical health… it’s where I usually get ideas for my creative practice,” she says.

Mehta used reading and writing as an escape during rough times in her childhood and now primarily writes poetry, publishing 15 books, including When We Talk of Stolen Sisters, which won three Human Relation Indie Book Awards, Selected Poems: 20002020 which won the Meadowlark Birdy Prize, and Savagery which won the Reader Views Literary Award for “most innovative poetry collection.”

Hannah Holman

Jessica Mehta

Jessica Mehta connects with her ancestors and spreads awareness of their history through a spiritual lifestyle.

Writing has provided a sense of self-identity, proving a driving force in her life.

“[Writing] is my best form of communication. I need to write, it’s not a hobby. It’s my way of engaging, it’s my natural language,” says Mehta.

As a child, Mehta’s father taught her about their history as well as stories about growing up in an Indian boarding school. When her father passed away in her mid-20s, Mehta desperately yearned for more stories. Presently, she attends monthly meetings with a Cherokee Nation satellite community called the Mount Hood Cherokees where she can talk to elders from her tribe and connect with others from the eastern band of Cherokees in Oklahoma. Writing about new discoveries of her ancestral lineage has allowed Mehta to heal from past traumas in her life.

Writing is not the only way Mehta connects with her indigenous background. She is also a registered yoga instructor and has practiced since college, but she first took it seriously while living in Costa Rica in 2012. Unhappy with her metro lifestyle, unable to connect with nature, she dug into her practice, undergoing a 200-hour yoga instructor training.

“It’s a transformative experience to be that immersed and in that much of a remote area with just your core group of people,” says Mehta.

Yoga is an ancient practice that began over 5,000 years ago in Northern India, but Native American communities have been incorporating meditation and other spiritual practices into their lives via the natural world for centuries. For Native Americans, environmental connection has always been analogous with spirituality. It wasn’t until the early 19th century that Americans began to recognize nature as a vehicle toward some higher enlightenment. Transcendentalists such as Henry David Thoreau worked to change the

stigma that the natural world was full of sin, as many previous philosophers and religious leaders believed. But many of these ancient nature-influencers took credit from the real founders of nature-based spiritualism in America. They failed to recognize that these meditation practices originated from indigenous peoples on the same land before colonization in America.

“As wonderful and inter-religious and transnational as it is to have Eastern religious traditions provide a lens onto the Sierra Nevada, it amplifies a problem. It reflects the inability to perceive the presence of the indigenous people who have lived here for millennia,” explains professor Devin Zuber in an article with Outside magazine titled “How to Practice Nature-Based Spirituality Responsibly.” Even though colonialism tried to minimize traditional healing and mindfulness practices throughout western indigenous culture, many have found modern day yoga to be a pathway for native people to connect with the spiritual practices of their ancestors, including Mehta, who describes it as a “life-saving force,” helping her heal from childhood trauma, family death, and an eating disorder.

“I was at a yoga class and during savasana the teacher asked us to think of three things we loved about ourselves, and I couldn’t think of one. So that was the catalyst for being serious about getting help,” says Mehta.

To support people with similar struggles, Mehta founded a non-profit called Mehtananda which offers free yoga classes to people who either do not have access to or do not feel comfortable in traditional yoga studios. She believes that yoga can help anyone no matter where they are in life, even if they are a beginner.

Mehta feels that if connecting with nature and spirituality can save her daily, it can save others as well.

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reviving the lost

Wildlife biologist and Extinct or Alive host Forrest Galante works to find species previously thought to be extinct.

In the western periphery of the Galapagos Archipelago stands one of the youngest and most pristine sub-tropical islands in the world: Fernandina Island. Despite its sought-after biodiversity, Fernandina Island appears barren due to the island’s sporadic volcanic activity, which results in scarce vegetation. Regardless of the island’s appearance, volcanic activity plays a substantial role in shaping its rugged landscape and adaptive ecosystem. A few of the rugged features that have been adopted by the ecosystem are lava fields and volcanic caves, utilized by lava lizards who thrive in rocky environments, and flightless cormorants who use caves for shelter. Fernandina Island’s terrain has made it difficult for human settlement, which has allowed its ecosystem to remain largely undisturbed, making it a unique destination for scientists and conservationists.

Among these experts is Forrest Galante, a wildlife biologist who revolutionized the search for animals believed to be extinct through his television series Extinct or Alive. In 2019, during the second season premiere, Galante and his crew collaborated with three

experts–Washington Tapia Aguilera, a Galápagos native with extensive experience in reptiles; Jeffreys Málaga, a ranger who is familiar with the unique region of the Galapagos Islands; and Cale Rodriguez, a local biologist who had been discussing clues for years that pointed to the possibility that the Fernandina Tortoise (Chelonoidis niger phantasticus) may have been wrongfully deemed extinct.

Their goal: uncover evidence that might suggest that the elusive Fernandina tortoise was in fact not extinct. This subspecies of Galápagos tortoise had not been seen since an expedition in 1906. However, significant findings were made in 1964 by Ross Keister, a scientist who captured photographic evidence of bite marks on a cactus that was too high to be from an iguana, as well as feces that appeared to be from a tortoise. In 2014, Málaga had a similar experience and found feces but was unable to sample it due to permit issues. These experiences led to funding from Animal Planet, allowing the crew to embark on an arduous journey to Fernandina Island.

On the third day of filming Galante met

Henry Valencia Contributed

Málaga and Aguilera, who would assist him throughout the expedition. They embarked on a treacherous trek up a lava field mountain, facing 113-degree heat while carrying heavy scientific equipment. Málaga led the team to the spot where he had found feces four years prior. The team then split up into two groups, with the Galante and film crew in one, and Aguilera and Málaga in the other. The latter group discovered footprints and searched for the tortoise’s food source to track it down.

They used a drone to locate prickly pear cactus, which was a long hike away. Aguilera and Málaga then led the crew back to camp, but Galante tried to locate the cactus found by the drone. After hiking for four hours back to camp in 120-degree heat, Galante made an incredible discovery, discovering a piece of fossilized tortoise shell on the island, more genetic evidence that could be studied.

On the fifth day of filming, during a hike to explore a patch of vegetation, Galante discovered scat that provided genetic proof of a live tortoise on the island. Galante also found a flattened bush that appeared to be from a giant tortoise shell. Suddenly, Aguilera and Málaga stumbled upon a tortoise bedding area, their hearts skipping beats, as they realized the tortoise could be nearby.

After a few tense moments, they spotted the tortoise just a few feet away. “We found the Fernandina Tortoise!” exclaimed Galante, barely containing his excitement while holding the live specimen. The team took measurements and a blood sample, fully aware that this was the only known specimen in existence. Galante and his team then faced a dilemma. As biologists, they believe that this animal belongs in its natural habitat and should not be taken to a facility. On the other hand, the conservationist side of them wanted to transfer the undersized tor-

toise to a facility in the hopes of restoring the species to a healthy population. Sending a dingy, the crew safely transferred the tortoise back to the boat. The next day they arrived onshore with the help of Galapagos National Park representatives and carefully transported the tortoise to the Fausto Llerena Breeding Center, placing the tortoise in the hands of experts.

Galante graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2009 with a degree in biology, specializing in herpetology and marine biology. His fascination for wildlife and conservation wasn’t acquired unexpectedly. Galante says, “there’s certainly no specific moment that made me realize I wanted to work in wildlife. That’s been my entire life.”

Born in California, Galante moved to Harare, Zimbabwe, where he spent the majority of his childhood. As a kid, Galante became accustomed to helping maintain his parent’s farm, grasping an understanding of the farm industry. Galante and his sister explored remote parts of Zimbabwe with their mother, Jacaranda Summerfield, who was one of Africa’s first female bush pilots and safari guides, her exploits rubbing off on Galante.

When Galante was 14, he was the youngest person ever to lead an international canoe safari down the Zambezi River. Unfortunately, Galante’s connection to the African wilderness and its beautiful landscape was stripped away in 2001. In an effort to re-

Forrest Galante poses with the thought to be extinct Fernandina tortoise.

settle impoverished black farmers, Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe orchestrated a plan to seize 804 farms, predominantly owned by white farmers. The Galante family promptly fled the country after being threatened at gunpoint and watching neighbors get mercilessly slaughtered. His family returned to California and moved into the small town of Cayucos, with a suitcase each and a couple of hundred dollars, however, Galante worked hard to integrate himself into this new way of life, and with time, he found himself forming strong bonds with the freediving and spearfishing communities. Galante’s passion for spearfishing took him to various countries, where he participated in numerous events and continues to hold six pole spear world records.

During that period in his life, Galante got certified as a SCUBA dive master, a 100ton ship captain, and an emergency medical technician. These varied achievements, including his biology degree, allowed Galante to set sail and explore 46 countries the year following his college graduation, diving with white sharks, wrestling with alligators, and navigating other perilous positions.

Upon his return, Galante continued his high-risk wildlife biology fieldwork and starred in Discovery’s hit show Naked and Afraid in 2014. This opened a lot of doors, but hoped to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather, who was part of the team that proved the existence of the coelacanth—a fish species believed to be extinct 60 million years ago. This historical moment, inspired Galante to host his own show, Extinct or Alive, a television series attempting to prove the existence of species that were wrongfully deemed extinct, which has resulted in the rediscovery of 11 animals. Galante hopes to expand the conservation conversation. He says, “the public doesn’t have a very good

idea of what conservation on the ground really is at all… the complexity… is people think that there are singular conservation solutions.”

Galante adds, “there’s no such thing as a blanket conservation program” and companies advertise this because “conservation is a little bit of a rat race, and a lot of people are just competing for money, and they care less about the animals and more about their reputation and funding.” His success stems from expanding conversation through the show’s content.

This success has followed Galante onto social media.

“ [I get] hundreds of messages every single day on social media… of people being like, ‘oh, I changed my major to study biology… I’m volunteering at a Wildlife Rehab and volunteering at an animal sanctuary,’” says Galante. “‘I’m 97 years old, but I’ve decided to leave my inheritance, my fortune, to conservation.’ That, for me, is sort of the pinnacle if we can inspire the next generation of people to be more interested and more in tune with nature.”

Galante continues to lead expeditions, while studying all types of wildlife. His dedication to conservation and his goals as an educator have allowed him to garner an audience through numerous conservation organizations and media outlets such as Extinct or Alive, the Ivan Carter Wildlife Conservation Alliance, The Joe Rogan Experience, other in-person interviews, and even led to his own book Still Alive: A Wild Life of Rediscovery, which have established him as a leading voice in the wildlife field. The rediscovery of the Fernandina Tortoise provides hope for the future of endangered species worldwide and serves as a reminder of the critical importance of preserving our planet’s rich biodiversity.

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multitude of narratives

Ami Vitale travels the globe capturing images of nature and humanity for National Geographic.

Kayla Unrein Ami Vitale

In 2009, on a cold December day, snow fell in the village outside of the capital city of Czech Republic, Prague. National Geographic photographer Ami Vitale traveled across the world to visit the Dvür Králové Zoo in hopes of meeting Sudan, one of the last two living male northern white rhinos left on the planet. Vitale had heard about a plan to airlift Sudan, along with the three remaining northern white rhinos, to Africa in what looked like a “storyline for a Disney film, but in reality” was a last chance effort to save the species. Vitale followed the “gentle, hulking creatures” to Kenya. Less than ten years later, Sudan sadly passed away at the age of 45. When Vitale met Sudan, there were a total of seven northern white rhinos left, all of them held in captivity. Now there are only two, Najin and Fatu, a mother and daughter, both held at Ol Pejeta Conservatory in Kenya.

Vitale along with the company Media Storm recently released a short film, Remembering Sudan, documenting the heartbreaking crisis of the northern white rhino and the keepers who helped protect what is left of these creatures after years of illegal hunting for the animals’ horns. Vitale started this story with Sudan 14 years ago, realizing that when we lose species’ like the northern white rhino, we’re not only losing them, but we are slowly losing ourselves. It was at this moment that Vitale “truly understood how connected we all are to one another and to all of life on this planet.”

“Our fate is linked to the fate of animals,” says Vitale. “Without rhinos and elephants and other wildlife

we suffer more than loss of ecosystem health. We suffer a loss of imagination, a loss of wonder, a loss of beautiful possibilities.”

slow down and truly capture peoples’ stories.

Vitale has learned to master this and often chooses to stay in the same communities for more than a decade to work on stories, making strong bonds and connections with her subjects.

“By taking time, I am able to hear and share a multitude of narratives,” says Vitale. “There is a universal truth and if you get beyond the headlines, if you peek under the veil, and truly take time to understand each other’s stories, you are transformed.”

As a young woman, Vitale dreamt of becoming a photographer, but sometimes her introverted personality made it difficult to find a place in the photography world. Yet, everytime she picked up a camera it felt like magic, the little black box giving her the courage she never had, creating a passport that allowed her to engage with the world around her like she never had before. The traditionally male-dominated environment of photography wasn’t always inviting, and Vitale felt pigeonholed and stuck for years, but she refused to give up on her dream. And her perceived setbacks soon turned into strengths. For instance, her quiet nature made it that much easier to listen and truly understand others’ stories.

“Even though my dreams were dismissed, I knew I had to try,” says Vitale. “Even if I failed, this was part of my journey and I would never regret trying.”

She began her career in the late 1990’s, covering “war and horrors of the world.” When first starting journalism, she was told to “parachute in” and bring in the big story, then leave, but she realized by doing this she was missing the true stories. She decided to

She not only uses photography to not only make human connections, but connections with animals as well, evident in one of her more challenging stories, the panda project. Vitale traveled to China on multiple occasions, doing immense research to learn all she could about the Giant Panda. There are fewer than 2,000 Giant Pandas left in the wild due to their mysterious breeding secrets and the bamboo forest they call home slowly deteriorating. Places like the Wolong Nature Reserve in China have been working on ways to breed and release pandas back into the wild, and after numerous years of conducting research they are finally finding some success, releasing pandas that were once captive back into the wild.

“Today, my work is not just about people,” says Vitale, “...it’s about how the destiny of both people and wildlife are intertwined and how small and deeply interconnected our world is.”

Vitale has made many connections, forming deep relationships, with communities around the world. There are many tragic stories like Sudan’s, but people like Vitale have an important role, sharing stories that help instigate change.

RUNNING ON PASSION

Carly Bramhall Lauren Anderson

Professional barrel racer and public speaker Amberley Snyder overcomes a traumatic wreck that left her paralyzed from the waist down.

Amberley Snyder rides with her horses Legacy and Princess Penny.

Amberley Snyder was 3 years old when she found her passion for horseback riding. Following her father’s retirement from professional baseball, her family moved to Utah. She claimed that she would only go if she got a barrel racing horse upon arrival. At 17, Snyder began her rodeo career with her new horse, as promised. Her family encouraged her to be competitive in barrel racing, pole bending, breakaway roping, and goat tying. Snyder did not disappoint. In 2009, she qualified for the National High School Rodeo Finals in pole bending and was awarded the National Little Britches Rodeo Association All-Around Cowgirl World title at 18. She was also highly involved in Future Farmers of America and was elected as Utah’s FFA state president. She had big goals to compete in college rodeo and eventually compete professionally.

On January 10, 2010, she jumped into her truck at 4:30 a.m. and started driving from Logan, Utah to Denver, Colorado. After a few hours of driving she stopped at McDonald’s in Evanston, Wyoming and then again in Rawlins, Wyoming for gas. Her stomach aching, Snyder went to buckle her seatbelt again and hesitated, so she kept it off with the intention of putting it back on later. Just a few miles down the road in Sinclair, Wyoming, she grabbed her map and looked down at it for a few seconds. Looking up, she had faded over into the other lane and was now heading towards a mile marker on the other side of the road. She grabbed the wheel to correct the truck and slid across the highway. With two hands on the wheel, she briefly guided her truck straight. Then her truck fishtailed and flipped, and at 75 mph she started to roll. She closed her eyes and accepted what seemed like imminent death as her truck lifted off the

ground. She slammed through the driver’s side window and felt herself hit something. She did not know it at the time, but when she was ejected she hit a post. She opened her eyes, and was sitting on the side of the road in a snowbank, staring at her truck.

When Snyder later woke up in the hospital she was told that she broke her back, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down. The doctors gave her a slim chance to walk again, and riding was completely out of the picture. She went back to her room and cried. She would not be able to haul her horses if she could not drive a truck. The next morning Snyder told her physical and occupational therapists that she wanted all of their efforts put towards helping her drive her truck. Every session was spent gaining strength and practicing pulling herself in and out of her truck. The goal of Snyder’s recovery was always to be able to compete on her horses and she decided that no matter what it took, she would ride again. Getting back in her truck was the first step in gaining her independence and allowing her to haul her horses.

Countless physical therapy appointments and creative adaptations to her routine were key, and just four short months later she got back in the saddle. After that first ride, she realized that riding would never be the same. Everything was different, especially her balance. Her goal was still to ride competitively, so they got creative. The process to find the best and safest way to ride post accident was trial and error. Snyder now relies on a seat belt and leg straps attached to the saddle, along with a cushioned seat to keep balanced and reduce pressure sores, and rubber bands to keep her feet in the stirrups. Her legs used to be a key aid while riding but now she can only rely on her hands and her voice. The

work was worth it for Snyder for her to get back to some sort of normalcy in her riding career.

About 18 months after her accident, Snyder entered her first rodeo. She did the time only, a sector of the race designed to see how well you do against the clock. People stuck around as she cruised through the first run. Onlookers were clapping and cheering and crying, but she told them to wait. She turned her horse Power around and went again, but this time they were running at full speed. They ended up with a time just one second off of what they had been running before the accident.

Despite the obstacles, Snyder didn’t just want to race again, she wanted to compete at the highest level. Before her accident, she had won over 70 buckles. It took her six years, but she eventually earned her first buckle in barrel racing without the use of her legs. She was the 1D Champion at the Legacy barrel race, proving Snyder had the potential to race at the level she had strived to be at her whole career.

Barrel racing is a team sport between horse and rider. Snyder attributes her pro rodeo accomplishments largely to her horse Legacy, aka “Legs.” He was the first horse she trained after her accident, and is still one of her main competition horses. At first, Legacy only knew how to stop and spin. She had to teach him everything he needed to know in order to be successful on the barrel pattern. He was naturally more athletic, smart and willing, than any horse she had ever owned.

It was important that he was a good teammate for Snyder. She explains, “some horses recognize that my legs don’t work and are fine with it and they still want to do their best job, versus

other horses [they] recognize that my legs don’t work and they take advantage of it.”

Legacy never took advantage of Snyder’s disability, and their connection and skill grew as they competed on the road. Rodeo after rodeo, they improved.

Snyder says, “it was fun that we could still do what I wanted to do. You know, I didn’t know what to expect. If I was going to be able to train another one or even ride another one. And I would say we were just on the climb.”

In 2017, they took a fall at a rodeo that left Snyder with a broken leg, an accident that would have lasting mental effects on her and Legacy. She rode differently, even though she didn’t think she would, and to this day, Legacy is way more careful. If he isn’t sure that the ground is safe he slows way down. He doesn’t fully understand that he is participating in a speed sport, he just knows he needs to protect her, and he never takes that responsibility lightly.

“On occasion it’s frustrating,” says Snyder. “That shifted us a lot but it also put a lot of trust between me and him that when he does that I know he does it for a reason and that he’s gonna go out there and take care of me is the bottom line.”

points in the Women’s Pro Rodeo Association. These rodeos are mentally and physically exhausting for anyone, but for Snyder she has to battle her body’s inability to keep up with everything she wants to do. She has to be conscious that she doesn’t stay in the saddle for too long or she will develop pressure sores and she has to plan for downtime and breaks because getting sick or injured can keep her out of the game a lot longer than her competitors.

Before a rodeo, Snyder has to prepare her horses for a race differently than other competitors. For her, all the prep work is done before they get to the event. If her horse were to turn too tight, or slow down on the way home, things that could be fixed with leg pressure, her run could be jeopardized. Tuning up and training her horses at home is essential for success. Along with that, Snyder’s horses have to be just as mentally ready to run as they are physically. Barrel racing is a speed sport so if her horses are not mentally prepared to run fast, then there is nothing she can do about it.

“My horses are probably a little more amped up in the alleyway than others,” says Snyder. “But I do that because I need them to run hard”.

Snyder doesn’t have the convenience of independence. While it is true that she can do most everything to get herself and her horses ready to run at a rodeo, it is unrealistic for her to do it alone. She travels to the rodeo road with her good friend Emmy Peterson, who helps her as they compete for money and

An intense passion for horses has always coursed through Snyder’s veins, but her passion for public speaking sparked after her injury. Exactly three months after her accident, Snyder gave a motivational speech that she had written before the accident. She has now

spoken in 42 states, with the goal of making her way to all 50. Inspiring people with her story has become an opportunity that she is grateful for. She also has a YouTube channel and social media presence that blew up through her series Wheelchair Wednesdays, where she shares things that have become more challenging after her accident, and how she navigates them.

With over 430,000 Instagram followers and 35,200 subscribers on YouTube, she has fans wherever she goes, her successes and failures always on display. Now at every rodeo, no matter the size, the stands are filled with inspired young cowgirls with their cameras out. The pressure that pro rodeos put on athletes is already immense with the list of rules and penalty fees, as well as the hope of making the travel and preparation for the race worth it. That is only amplified for the riders with a large following. Whether or not she is running at a finals rodeo, or a local jackpot, she feels the pressure to be present for her fans.

“I go out there and I can make the worst run I’ve ever made and there’s still people that want to take pictures and want to meet me and want to spend time on any of that,” says Snyder. “And I think that learning how to be present for those people is a skill that I’ve had to learn.”

In addition to her fans, she has an amazing family that has supported her throughout, standing by her every step of the way after the accident. She considers Peterson and her rodeo coach, Stacy Glause, a part of that support system. Her parents instilled hard work and perseverance early in her riding career which has been vital to her recovery. Her brothers have especially been her rock and have carried her

metaphorically and physically throughout her life. With the help of what she calls her army, she has continued doing what she loves.

In 2015, after her success in the American Rodeo, a production company approached her about making a movie about her experience. She initially declined the offer because she did not want to make her family relive such a traumatic experience. They had been through hospital stays, physical therapy appointments, and most of all, the fear of losing Snyder. Her parents insisted she do it. In March of 2019, Walk. Ride. Rodeo. was released on Netflix. Spencer Lock was chosen to play Snyder, and under her conditions, Snyder played her post accident stunt double. Before filming started, Lock went out to Snyder’s property to learn the basics of riding horses and being in a wheelchair. For the riding scenes of the movie, pre accident, Snyder’s sister played Lock’s stunt double. Snyder was on set for every scene until the wreck scene.

She originally thought that she would be able to handle reliving that traumatic moment, but then the director sat her down, explaining that they would recreate her truck rolling, pulling off a serious stunt, and that after the shot people would be cheering. She decided not to attend, hesitant to relive that experience again. Aside from that, she watched her entire experience unfold on set.

Snyder lived through a horrific, life-altering wreck. Instead of throwing in the towel, she faced her trauma head on, getting back in the truck and on the horse. Snyder may not have her legs to carry her, but her drive and passion has taken her farther than she ever thought possible.

Astride her horse, Amberley Snyder leaves her wheelchair in the dust.

friends not food

In the fall of 1997, freshly graduated from high school in June, Mike Coots was enjoying the start of the surf season. For Coots, this was just another day catching waves on the stunning coast of Kaui, Hawaii.

Coots was off the shore in about 30 feet of water, bodyboarding with his friends. He waited patiently for the right wave to come in. As a suitable wave approached, Coots began to paddle, but he was interrupted by a sudden explosion from beneath him.

Unbeknownst to Coots, a large tiger shark had been lurking beneath the shadows of the waves watching the surface as he bodyboarded. Coots was thrashed through the water by the shark which had a grip on his right leg. As instincts kicked in, Coots reflexively attempted to pry its jaws open with his right hand to no avail, only splitting his finger on the shark’s razor-sharp teeth. With his left hand, Coots began to punch the shark in the snout, a few punches connecting before the shark finally let go.

Coots remounted his board, but began to

feel a twitching pain in his leg. He looked back expecting to see the tiger shark back to finish him, only to see that his leg had been bitten off, the bite so clean, as if a surgeon had amputated his leg. His leg spewed blood with each painful twitch, but Coots had no time for fear as a wave pushed him back to the shore.

Everything felt surreal, almost as if he was “watching it happen to somebody else.” Given that there was no sign of an impending attack, Coots had no cause for alarm, and throughout the attack—which lasted about five seconds— Coots never felt an ounce of fear as the clear water turned red with blood.

“I didn’t see a fin breach,” recalls Coots. “On the surface, there was nothing. I was completely blindsided. So it was completely unexpected. So I didn’t really have time to get scared. It just happened. It wasn’t painful, which is kind of crazy to think, but I didn’t feel any pain… I thought I was gonna die, but it wasn’t scary.”

Luckily, his quick-thinking friends made a makeshift tourniquet out of the leash from his

Shark attack survivor, surfer, and adventure photographer Mike Coots advocates for the protection of sharks.

Caden Trieu Mike Coots

bodyboard that would later prove to save him from bleeding out. They said a prayer for him before loading him into the back of a truck, where he was raced to the emergency room as everything started to blur.

About 24 hours later Coot’s eyes flickered open, a movie-like brightness filling his vision as he was surrounded by his emotional family. As he began to process his new state, a wave of realization washed over him; the dream-like events that had occurred were in fact a reality, but Coots remained optimistic. “I wasn’t sad that my leg was gone because I was just happy to be breathing and to have my family around me. I wasn’t in any pain and I just felt grateful to be alive.”

Post surgery, Coots lost the lower part of his right leg around low calf. After a few days in the hospital, Coots was released back to his home where he attempted to adjust to life with only one leg.

While recovering, Coots began questioning why he was attacked. “Was it the tide? I smelled something stinky that day. Was it that smell? Was it the moon phase?” With limited sources for information, the answers to his questions would have to wait.

A month and a half later after the attack, Coots was fitted with a prosthetic allowing him to return to what felt like a normal life again. One of the first things Coots did was get back in the water, and to many’s surprise he had no fear of doing so. For Coots, the month-and-a-half from the water was the longest he had been out of the water, and the hardest part of the entire ordeal.

Once again mobile, Coots scoured libraries for books on shark attacks. Despite extensive research, none of the answers satisfied his questions.

Shortly after the attack, Coots relocated some 2,500 miles to attend the University of

California in Santa Barbara, California, majoring in art and photography. After graduating college, Coots commenced a professional photography career.

Some years later in 2009, still without satisfying answers to his shark attack, Coots received a call from a fellow shark attack survivor named Debbie Salomone. Salomone herself was attacked in 2004 while wading in waist high water where she was left with a severed Achilles tendon. At the time of the attack, Salamone had been working for the Orlando Sentinel as a reporter who specialized in environmental reporting. Believing her attack was a turning point in her life to help the environment, Salomone left her journalist job of 21 years and pursued a degree in environmental science and policies in hopes of finding a solution to the mass finning of sharks.

Salamones goal was to collect a group of shark attack survivors and go to the US congress and attempt to close loopholes regarding a bill on finning. Believing that shark attack survivors “would be the ultimate spokespeople for sharks,” Salamone composed a team of survivors from all around the world to join her movement.

Though, there was a large problem for Coots. He knew nothing about sharks, let alone shark conservation.

“Up to that point, I knew a lot of what sharks were doing to humans,” says Coots. “I almost died from one. I had no idea of their importance in our oceans and importance on our planet and what was happening with their demise and shark fin soup.”

Coots only knew what sharks were doing to humans, but Salamone offered a long sought answer to his questions. An answer that contained valuable information, information that would greatly alter his life. That answer was

Mike Coots doest not allow his prosthetic to prevent him from enjoying the waves.

Harvesting shark fins is often a brutal and destructive process with quite a complex history. Similar to turkey on Thanksgiving for Northern Americans, the consumption of shark fins in Asian countries are mainly for special occasions such as weddings and banquets. Shark fin soup has a history leading back to some thousand years ago to the Chinese Sung Dynasty. However, it was not popular until the Ming dynasty when it was only served to the imperial family and nobles as the soup resembled a sign of luxury and delicacy. With the shark’s resilience to disease, it is believed that consuming the shark’s fins would pass on its qi (or energy) and its resilience to fight off old age, cancer, amongst other diseases.

As dynasties fell and new ones took over, shark fin soup slowly gained popularity and found its way to the masses. However, as the modern Chinese Communist Party (CCP) came to power in 1949, its popularity began to decline as the CCP believed that shark fin soup was an unnecessary luxury. As awareness regarding sharks increased in the 21st century, the Chinese government eventually banned shark fin soup from wedding banquets in 2012. With the ban, China’s consumption of shark fin soup decreased by 80 percent, but neighboring countries–Taiwan, Hongkong, Thailand, and Vietnam–in Southeast Asia saw a dramatic increase.

No longer just for the rich, the shark finning industry saw a boom, and according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium of California, annually pulls in an estimated $400 million. With the value of shark fins, fishermen all over the world are trying to get a hold of the profit for themselves, but in a blind craze for profit, these fishermen attribute to the degradation of the environment.

The brutal process of getting the fins that caused

a documentary by Rob Stewart called Shark Water, covering the gruesome finning of sharks.

the death of sharks in mass has become engraved in Coots’ mind nearly a decade later. According to Sharkwater at the time of its production, there were over 70,000,000 sharks killed a year for their fins.

“Just, that number alone, I thought that was a typo,” says Coots. “I had no idea. And I think most people in the world have no idea what’s happening with sharks and their important role as an apex predator and a keystone species. I love the ocean… I never had any hatred for sharks… to help protect them, it’s just a little way of giving back for how much the ocean has given me.”

Although the original species of sharks have been long extinct, species of modern day sharks, such as the goblin shark, have been around for nearly 125 million years.

Since the beginning of their existence, sharks have served as a keystone species of the ocean. Keystone species are of crucial importance, meaning that if they were to be wiped out, the ecosystem that it supports would be severely damaged or wiped out itself.

Sharks, as apex predators in most food chains, play a key role in keeping the population of fish and other marine species from overpopulating. In a scenario

where sharks were wiped out, or severely reduced, there would be a sharp increase in fish and other marine species, which could result in the increased consumption of coral, algae, krill, plankton and other marine foods, perhaps leading to a large domino effect, one in which some marine foods completely disappear.

As the situation of sharks became more clear to him, something clicked in Coots. The decline of sharks means an exponential decline of ocean health and balance. And with the ocean being closest to his heart, Coots was empowered with a new resolve. Despite the loss of his leg, Coots wanted to advocate for the well being of sharks and the ocean.

Having more than a decade of professional photography under his belt, Coots didn’t have to resort to any unconventional ways of spreading his message, instead, he used the “most powerful weapon in the world,” his camera. Already having several years of underwater photography experience, all Coots had to do was to dive with sharks, and his first choice of species of shark to swim with was the very species that he lost his leg to, the tiger shark.

Tiger sharks which live in tropical to subtropical

waters, are one of the largest species of shark and are typically around 10-14 feet and weigh up to 1,400 pounds. Coots’ choice of location was at Tiger Beach located in the Bahamas. Originally known as “Dry Bar,” Tiger Beach consists of several shallow reefs and sandbars, and got its name from the large collection of tiger sharks that gather there.

Being his first time seeing a tiger shark after the attack, Coots admits that he “was a little nervous at first.” Some 20 miles offshore from West End, Grand Bahama, Coots grew tense as he watched tiger, reef, and lemon sharks circle his boat. But to his surprise it was just the opposite.

“When I got underwater I was just kind of like completely engrossed by the moment… you’re just in awe that these animals are so big and so powerful, but they also seem so intelligent. And that’s what I saw.”

Coots adds, “they know you’re there, they’re not being aggressive. And it was really beautiful. After about half an hour… you’re just in a trance… everything is mesmerizing and beautiful.”

sharks, rather humans are taught to fear sharks.

Furthermore, Hancock says the fear of sharks is rather emotional. The likelihood of a human being attacked, or killed by one is extremely rare. The fear of being mauled by a hippo is most likely not as dreadful as being attacked by a shark, however, according to BBC news, there’s an average of 500 people killed by hippos compared to just nine shark fatalities.

Likewise, Coots says that the image of sharks is exploited for views. Whether it’s the suspense built by the dramatic music, camera angles, and gruesome screen effects, the negative portrayal of sharks is all to “sell product.”

“People are glued to the TV when sharks come on,” says Coots. “The more menacing, the more scary they can make it look, the more dramatic, whether it’s shark reenactments, whether it’s dramatic music, whether it’s only clips of sharks attacking something with their eyes rolled back gets people stuck and glued to their screens. The media loves to portray that Hollywood myth, that sharks are these mindless, crazy animals that’ll kill you [given the chance].”

With his awe-inspiring photos, and his conversation starter that is a prosthetic, Coots hopes to slowly break the stigma of sharks as bloodthirsty creatures one photo and conservation project at a time. He recently released his first book, Shark Portraits, a 240-page photo book that captures the beautiful brawn of sharks.

Coots believes the unrealistic fear of sharks was first created by Hollywood, referring to the “Jaws effect.” Steven Spielberg’s movie sold hundreds of millions of tickets in 1975 when introduced to the box office. Now an iconic and timeless franchise, Jaws has left quite the impact, especially on the environment.

The “Jaws effect” was a term first created by University of Sydney senior lecturer Dr. Christopher Pepin-Neff. The belief is that sharks are a threat to humans, intentionally attacking them, and therefore sharks should be killed.

According to psychologist Gabriella Hancock, this fear of sharks is not innate. Hancock states that humans are not born with the innate fear of

With a quickly expanding number of sharks dying each year–estimated to be over 100 million–more notoriety is the last thing they need, so Coots hopes that his story will inspire others to start their own conservation journey. According to Coots, with marine ecosystems already suffering from increased temperatures and bleached reefs, losing sharks is the last thing we need.

“Without our oceans, humans will not be able to live on this planet,” he says. “Sharks really are an integral part of the health of our planet. And to be able to shift that narrative… the ocean, it’s much more scary without sharks than with sharks in them. And as a storyteller, I feel [like] sharing that message.”

Sitting on the ocean floor, Mike Coots photographs nearby tiger, lemon, and reef sharks.

Dragons and forests and rage, oh my!

Through loss and grief, Jay Bramhall reminisces on a childhood fantasy while questioning humanity’s destructive habits.

“Story” is a fairytale word for a substantive so painfully real. Stories trace the ridges of history, flow through the streams of collective consciousness, and find truth in the roots of our souls. They’re the baseline of humanity—the maps of our history and diagrams of our future. There’s a sickening inevitableness to life dictated through a narrative. That our lives are doomed to play out regardless of our participation, like Battlestar Galactica’s famed, “all of this has happened before. All of this will happen again.” We are all just actors in a predetermined show; the world’s a stage marked blue with masking tape telling us where to stand.

There is also a beauty in playing our part on the stage. Donning our costumes, powdering our faces to appear natural under the blaring lights of the stage. The script written without our guidance or input, prejudices of civilization highlighting our lines on the page. With inevitability comes innocence. If life is inevitable, it is not our fault what we become.

Or maybe we’re the writers instead, and the ink of our ending has not yet dried on the page. We can smudge the words, blur the final paragraphs into something illegible but our own. Not precise, focused, or decided, but still different than what we were supposed to be, still something we can pretend to control.

There are gray spaces between these dichotomies. A nuance to understanding human nature and fate as two separate entities with shared consequences that are often conflated to their extremes. The balance be-

tween nature versus nurture, between the fallacies of “pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps” and a “selfmade” millionaire suckling fortune from a golden spoon, the difference between impossible and improbable. But writer or actor, villain or hero, knight or dragon, the action producer or the acted-upon— stories are the cornerstone of our humanity. Cave paintings, shards of broken pottery, and centuries of oral narration have proven that throughout history the one defining trait remaining true is our storytelling. Humans have always been human.

I’ve always believed in dragons. Tales of fearsome beasts and inquisitive creatures saw me through adolescence. Raised in a valley within a valley, the surrounding foothills were reminders of the clandestine nature of the wilderness. I knew mountain lions slunk through the wildgrasses, but I never saw one. Who’s to say dragons could not have the same reticence? My parents indulged in me, pointing out rocks along the coast resembling a sharp spine and mountains toting horns. Regular trips to my grandparents on the coast meant regular visits to the eccentric seashell-studded shops that always displayed dragon sculptures. Every visit, a look through my granpar large windows to the backyard welcomed a dragon wind spinner my grandfather placed specially for me, a tradition spanning a decade. I hoarded “dracology” guides and memorized the difference between a wyvern and traditionally four-legged dragons of the West. I practiced ceremonies with aluminum foil and cups of soap and drug

Jay Bramhall Sherri Hubs

home stuffed dragon after stuffed dragon.

I remember one moment of fascination in particular. Driving home from the movie theater, my sister and I were delineating between truth and fantasy. Though old enough to know better, I fiercely defended my position that dragons existed, us mere humans just were not clever enough to find them. It went something like, “Dragons aren’t real!” and “Dragons are real!” and so on and so forth. Until my dad said something so profound it broke through the fog of twin tantruming and indignant imagination: “You can’t prove something isn’t real.” I think about that phrase a lot. The understanding that our knowledge is limited and therefore incomplete. We can’t say something doesn’t exist because proof requires evidence, and in the complete absence of evidence all we have is what we know does exist. The City University of New York’s article “The Burden of Proof” states, “the source of the fallacy is the assumption that something is true unless proven otherwise. The person making a negative claim cannot logically prove nonexistence. And here’s why: to know that a X does not exist would require a perfect knowledge of all things (omniscience).” What a gift science has given us. The ability to believe in something because the only alternative is unprovable disbelief.

biosis saved the lives of the rest of my family, both those infected by the disease and those hardened to it. A.A. is a deceptively spiritual program, inciting God and Him, but the program welcomes anyone with a desire not to drink. And really, this higher power is but a well understood metaphor for simply believing in something bigger than yourself. “This power may lie within some person’s religious beliefs, or it can be completely separate from any religion. For example, one member looks at the sea and accepts that it is a power greater than him,” states an A.A. publication.

When my grandfather died, my grieving felt wrong. It still feels wrong.

The closest I felt to proper grief was April 14, two days after my grandfathers’ death, on his 81st birthday. My family came together and held an A.A. meeting in my grandma’s living room. My grandfather’s friend led the meeting, my aunt read the 12 concepts and my dad the “How it Works” chapter. My mom spoke first, and I second to last.

God had never been a comfort to me, whether I believed in him or not. But my grandfather had been, still is, and I believed in him. Maybe he was the only higher power I needed, someone who had gone through the worst of the world and came out the other side kinder. To care so much where those care so little takes a bravery few understand and even fewer can accomplish. If I can believe in dragons, I can try to believe in hope.

My grandfather died recently, as in less than a month ago from writing this. His death should have been expected, the man had 13 stents in his heart. Immortals aren’t supposed to die. He spent around three weeks in the hospital, with a few days of respite at home in between. The first stint, we learned he had kicked cancer’s ass into remission. Less than a year ago he’d been diagnosed with lymphoma and agreed to a trial treatment, my whole family was relieved it allowed him to keep his brilliant white hair. Our beacon of light in the dark.

His blood, his heart, his pancreas and prostate. All deadly sentences erased and rewritten. We didn’t expect it to come from his lungs.

Born Italian and Catholic, my grandfather’s alcoholism played off like a cruel cliche. Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.)saved his life, and through sym-

A couple of days before his death, my grandmother made his favorite pineapple upside down cake, and he insisted she bring an additional piece for his nurse. She did, and he waited to eat until the nurse had enough time to eat with him. That’s the man who raised us on A.A., honesty and humility in abundance. When we were little, my sister and I would totter around in life jackets catching salmon from the hatchery pools of the Willamette Valley while my dad and grandfather observed. As I grew, my interest in fishing shrank. My attention span could not even follow the flash of the line, and I didn’t like the taste of most fish. So when my grandfather informed me we would be going ocean fishing along North Bend’s balmy coast, I plastered a smile on my face. I could tolerate the stench of chum for my grandfather. I’ve spent my whole life swimming on the Oregon coast, exploring tide pools, sand boarding, watching for scales and wings in the spray of sea foam—and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve traversed it on boat. Despite my lack of seafaring experience, I felt no sea-

sickness, though my legs were nowhere near as steady as my seasalt slicked grandfather’s. Donning his red Alaska Ship sweatshirt, I caught more fish aboard the Betty Kay than anyone else that day. The sprawl of the ocean on each side of us felt bigger than me that day. My grandfather felt bigger than me that day.

Hearing everyone’s stories, I understood then that maybe I had been grieving for a long time, that when you spend your life in a state of lamentation, the final collapse feels like serenity.

Just as the hypothetical member of A.A. looked at the sea and saw something greater than himself, I looked at the earth around me and saw a loss greater than death. Aging amongst the depredation of the planet was a laden practice in grieving.

Now that I’m 18, I’ve finally begun exploring the elusive landscapes I’d spent my childhood watching for scaled wings and smokey nostrils. Now, I still try to believe in dragons, and I yearn for their presence in the ever-diminishing forests of my youth.

The land surrounding the Mohawk Valley is largely owned by the Bureau of Land Management, with whatever is left claimed by Weyerhaeuser. A large company boasting nearly 12,400,000 acres of timberland, Weyerhaeuser determines the landscape. It decides what direction the trees lean and what bark is allowed.

Where the roots take hold are the predilections of a benevolent god sitting in suspenders drinking a tin cup of piss-brown coffee.

I’ve familiarized myself with the winding back roads cataloged by numbers, dashes, and dots. I can tell who owns the land purely by the spread of the trees (Weyerhaeuser’s trees are either clearcut or packed tight enough together to be claustrophobic). I’ve climbed hillsides of basalt and drove along trails of loose gravel. I’ve gazed through the furrowed fir and scratched hemlock canopies towering over the roads. I’ve (lightly) trespassed and found a stunning view of the checkerboarded landscape for my troubles. I’ve given my time to the forest and in return have been granted a look back in time. I can see early settlers letting their sheep loose over the bald, overgrazing the vegetation and grasslands of Horse Rock Ridge. The ghost stumps of ancient trees sprouting new saplings display the past, present, and future. The stories of forests rests in the rings in their stumps, the scratches on their bark, and the vibrance of their undergrowth. The dragons are notably missing.

These woods are a comfort, and these woods need comforting. They’ve taken the role of a dementia-riddled loved one lost to the whims of those left behind.

Confused, dazed by the sprawling world that was

decided without their regard. Saws echo in the hollow space where centuries of growth once stood. “If a tree falls in the forest with no ears to hear, does it make a sound?” is a pointless query because someone always hears it. If not the logger, the bird. If not the bird, the deer. If not the deer, the small child sitting in their yard hearing the sagging cry of life becoming limber. If not the child, then surely the stump.

My exploits into this “wilderness” are the product of an endeavor to document the history of old growth forests in the Mohawk Valley, to tell the story of a land worn by generations of settlement. There aren’t many old growth stands left. Most (if not all) have been cut at least once while the surrounding woods were hacked apart an upwards of three times in recent recorded history. Old growth (or primary, virgin, late seral, primeval, first-growth) forests are characterized by their lack of significant disturbance, great age, and resulting large size and ecological diversity. These forests are oftentimes habitats for critical species who depend on the ancient trees. The northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) is one such species. In the 90’s, biologist Eric Foresman linked the destruction of old growth stands to the owl’s plummeting population size, and thus began the famed battle between state

and federal organizations and science. In 1994, the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) was a compromise on both ends, drafted to protect endangered species and economic growth throughout the region. A strong first step in conservation efforts, the NWFP’s standards for logging regulations define the bare minimum for protecting forests and their surrounding ecosystems. The plan created better regulations, but that doesn’t make them efficient. In Stephanie Haugen’s 2017 article “State Forests To Tighten Logging Rules Near Streams,” Mary Scurlock of the Oregon Stream Protection Coalition states on the matter of new stream buffer zones, “the new rule is still inadequate, it’s just less bad than the current rule, it’s carelessly close.”

I am cataloging the effects of the “carelessly close” on the Mohawk Valley. I’ve interviewed experts (some one with a mustache to rival that of Colonel Sanders) and explored old newspapers. I’ve discovered a local historian who found hundreds of photos of the area from a century ago. Black and white stills of an old Civilian Conservation Corps camp demonstrate that people cared. A grainy image showing a man putting his ratty cowboy hat on his horse’s stocky head reminds me that people laughed. Shots of massive trees with canopies arching stories overhead shows that the wilderness was

once wild. Thousands of words and pictures and details recounting weddings and deaths and disasters and miracles prove that stories are our humanity.

I have captured film of dead undergrowth in clearcuts and polluted streams full of uprooted logs. I have pointed the lens towards uninhabitable plantations and tire tracks of a land ravaged. I’ve also filmed grand arching awning maws of needle and leaf. Along its trail, the Mohawk Natural Research Area houses “The Giant,” a tree around 300 years old. The surrounding trees’ branches obscuring the view of his crown did nothing to disguise him as king of the forest. It’s an easy image, the kind ruler gazing down on his subjects, tips dipped in white snow, the color of my grandfather’s hair. No one else having risen to his level, he remains exposed to the wind, taking the wind’s blows unfettered by the solidarity of foreign branches.

Further down the path appeared a felled tree. Not one touched by saw or drill, but pulled from the ground up. A wind storm the day before gutted the beast, belly vulnerable to the sky. A hollow several feet high remained where the roots did not. Scrambling down the side, I approached the tree’s core. Roots wriggled out thicker than my forearm, wrapped around dirt and soil, even in death. A natural death proved more awe inspiring than a simple stump. It told a story of more weight than production. The hollow would make a nice home for some small mammal, a fox or skunk perhaps. The fallen leaves would rot and decay, fertilizer for the next generation. Growth, life, death, rebirth, some more death—and so on and so forth until the end. The tree didn’t resent its falling, but it’s time had come and so it would give in death just as it had been given in life.

My investigations have pushed me closer to the wilderness I’ve long admired from a distance, urged me towards the land I have always cherished but feared getting too close to. And the savage truth of it is that familiarizing and opening myself to the forests which I love means familiarizing myself with that which seeks to destroy them.

Primal intimacy is the root of my ambitions towards the project. I’ve long considered myself an angry person. A vengeful one. Not of a physical sort, my fists have never met flesh, but of deep simmering resentment sort. I’ve ranted and raved on the state of the political climate, on the unfairness of a government geared toward profit over people. The way we’re taught their money is our motif, and that their gain isn’t our loss.

The list of disparities doesn’t end, and I used to think of this list as proof of my pessimism. I told myself that pessimists were realists and that optimists were naive and blind to the inequity of it all. But the point of my anger was often misdirected, my moral compass’ true north lost amongst the polar chaos of a world decomposing.

Logging is not an inherently evil entity, nor is it an extraneous one. The history of Oregon is the history of logging. Generations of rural inhabitants have logged the forests, just as they’ve protected it. They’ve traversed it more intimately than most, witnessed the death of old giants and the rebirth of saplings in plantations. There is no one villain in this story, nothing so simple as a greedy king to be overthrown.

I had been turned against my own people by those who wish to tell our stories as nothing more than backdrops to their glory. My list of disparities shouldn’t have been centered around the creatures who use the working class like playthings. It was meant to be about people. Real people who live real lives and whose existence proved that we could be more, that our stories can belong to us.

Reawoken, I am coming to terms with the fact that I care deeply. That my anger is so endless and consuming its seeds can only of been sown in the soil of hopeless desire.

My grandfather taught me of this love, how it often turns to a double-edged sword but still we whisper kindness into its metal and hope its sharpened point finds the shoulder of a new knight instead of the heart of a dragon.

When I lived in a world of dragons, my forests were infinite. On the other side of the foothills lay waterfalls and an endless expanse of wildlife, not freeways and condos. The woods were not fragmented and burned. The dragons had clean streams to drink from, caves untouched to sleep in, and trees more akin to behemoths than foliage to pounce through. A green face greeted me with spinning wings every visit to North Bend. Now my forests are products to be plucked from the shelf and foundations for McMansions with large windows and white couches. Indigenous people removed. Old farmers gentrified. Waterways blocked. Animals extinct. My grandfather is dead. My grief is not. The valley’s stories are not only being rewritten, but completely erased.

It’s time for me to find my dragons again.

Kelsi Miller

whispers from the wild

Ivan Miller reflects on his career in teaching and how nature experiences changed the trajectory of the MINE program.

Ivan Miller

Three days before commencing my first student teaching experience in Oregon, I met with my mentor teacher, a tall, bespectacled man who aggressively tugged and twirled at his beard. I sat awkwardly in an orange plastic chair, perspiring heavily in the final heat of summer, and was notified that I had to start the year with Homer’s The Odyssey. Having spent the summer preparing for a unit on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, I nodded my head in understanding.

I worked on new lessons in the early hours of the morning, my workspace covered in empty teacups, literature books, legal pads filled with scribbled notes. After a couple sleepless nights, I pieced together a unit that would surely rock the kids’ world, though I failed to address one small oversight. I was terrified of public speaking.

The night before my first day, I woke up in a sweat, panicked, and spent a couple hours staring at the ceiling, wondering what I was getting myself into. Devising a plan on the fly, in the car the next morning, I thought it best to come out in an authoritative manner, take a tough guy approach, set a tone, do a lot of jaw-clenching and muscle-flexing. Arriving with nine minutes to spare, I stared at the clock as the seconds ticked away. Luckily, my mentor teacher agreed to sort of disappear so I could figure things out on my own.

Ninth and tenth graders started filtering into class. Some tiptoed in, hoping not to be seen—others numbly entered and dropped lifeless bodies into desk

units, the kind where the chair had been welded to the desk so as if to make it impossible to escape. They immediately trained their eyes on the towering teacher pacing in the back of the room, my arms crossed and chest puffed. Like trained dogs, they all awaited my orders. One girl, crossed her arms back at me, smacking her gum like some backwoods creature chewing on a piece of fat.

Don’t say anything. Look tough. Wow… this one gal probably wishes she could gnaw at me like that stick of Juicy Fruit. Try not to make eye contact.

I instructed students to prepare for a “pre-assessment.” Dumfounded, they had no clue what I meant.

Speak English, you idiot. They are all looking at you. Do something…

Suddenly, I tripped over my mentor teacher’s bicycle, bumped my rear end into a vacant desk, and emitted an awkward and desperate sound—something like the last distressed cry from a small woodland animal overpowered by its prey. Spinning awkwardly and tumbling backwards, I slid across the floor, and laid there, arms splayed out at my side, eyes closed.

The horror.

I waited for a wave of laughter, took a deep breath, and opened my eyes. Silence. Concerned looks in every direction, save for gum girl, who raised an eyebrow and grunted, her face scrunched in disapproval.

“You okay, man?” asked a sophomore girl sitting near the front.

“That’s a loaded question,” I answered.

Everyone laughed, good laughter, like good joke, dude, laughter.

“Let’s scrap the pre-assessment,” I suggested as I picked up the bike and carefully placed it back upright. I had their attention.

In the first few weeks I came out and swung for the fence—hooting, hollering, leaping on desks—trying to inspire students. Confident, I arranged for students to take a multiple-choice quiz to check for understanding. In four classes, half the kids failed. In my mind, this equation did not add up, and the next day I lost it.

“What are you guys doing?” I said, holding a stack of quizzes in the air and hollering. “You have to take this seriously. This is your life!”

The kids collectively shook their heads in understanding. Unwilling to give up, I lectured on Books 10 and 11, covering Odysseus’ time with Circe, the hero living in opulence and lusting in his captive’s bed while his men waited around twiddling their thumbs for an entire year. I paused and asked myself: Why in the heck are we reading this?

Odysseus is kind of a jerk. And they hate reading it. This archaic exercise only perpetuates subservience, conformity, and robs students of the chance to actually create something meaningful.

I must have been under for a while, but a kid brought me back to reality.

“Mr. Miller, are you okay?” they asked.

“I don’t know why we are reading this,” I admitted.

Same kid: “Miller, you told us to.”

“No, that’s not what I mean,” I said shaking my head. “I cannot come up with a legitimate reason why we should read it. Do any of you like reading this?”

One boy who had not said a word the entire first month lead a rising chorus.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

The bell rung, and nobody moved.

“We’ll talk about this next time,” I promised.

The following week I made a deal with the kids: “If you guys work your butts off, I will do something

crazy, something out of the box, every week.

Just before finishing up graduate school, I found out about a teaching opportunity at an alternative outdoor school. I met with the principal and earned an informal interview. Answering questions from six staff members, I explained some of my ideas. One of the teachers, Charlie Wilshire, did not look impressed. Charlie was the elder statesmen at the school. Behind thin-framed glasses, he leaned forward and looked me in the eyes, his muscley shoulders hunching over the table.

“What do you do if a student calls you a douche bag?” he asked.

Dumbfounded, I fumbled through an answer. The following week I accepted the job to teach social studies and wilderness skills to at-risk teenagers. I was the fourth social studies teacher in the classroom that year—the students chewed up and spit out the two in between a loveable former National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) instructor who took a job elsewhere. Technically, I lacked the appropriate social studies endorsement altogether or any formal wilderness training, which is to suggest I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but I fully embraced the freedom to do whatever I wanted.

Nothing could have prepared me for the depth of collective student suffering. In need of mental health counseling and support, many kids had fallen through the cracks of public education. Now they sat in a dilapidated classroom, some forced to attend by parole officers, and saw absolutely no point in buying into anything I had to say.

Feeling somewhat out of my league, I settled for a more traditional teaching approach, printing chapters from a history textbook I picked up at a used book store. Page by page, the hum of the copy machine provided a haunting reminder that I was very much situating myself into the box I so hoped to

break out of.

A few weeks into the job, Charlie sized me up again. Having trained in a Master’s Track program in Eugene, he was still built like a sprinter and knew everything about wilderness survival. In his 30s, Charlie walked away from a successful contracting business to pursue a career in education. Before accepting the job at the outdoor school, he took a fourmonth mountaineering and sea kayaking course in Patagonia with NOLS. He earned the nickname huemul, after the iconic Andean deer known for scaling mountains. Having been pushed to the limits on that expedition, he had a sense that I might be ill prepared for any kind of wilderness survival, and decided to test me accordingly. After hosting an open house for parents, the two of us carried some food trays back into the cafeteria. I quickly rinsed off some of the dishes and stepped back out into the dark, empty cafeteria.

“Do you want to wrestle?” asked Charlie.

“No, I don’t want to wrestle,” I blurted a moment before Charlie charged me.

After some initial jostling, Charlie picked me up.

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked, trapped in an awkward bear hug, my feet helplessly dangling in the air.

Charlie started spinning me in circles until we both got so incredibly dizzy that we tumbled to the concrete floor, both of us laughing hysterically in the dark, everything still spinning.

The following month Charlie asked if I wanted to help “scout” a potential student backpack trip on the coast. I agreed. We settled on a 22-mile walk from Reedsport to Florence during spring break. Our walk commenced during the calm before the storm, the forest radiant and alive, but when we hit the coastline, heavy winds whipped at our back, propelling us forward. We moved north as the sky turned gray and dark clouds loomed on the horizon. As the heavens unleashed their fury, we set up camp in a wind-protected thicket and made dinner.

The next morning everything in sight dripped incessantly. Temperatures hovered somewhere around

Miller Integrated Nature Experience (MINE) students hike the Rogue River Trail. Ian Kerr

cold and colder and we soon found the makings of the Oregon Coast Trail, wading through calf-deep puddles, the rain never ceasing. We opted to throw on water shoes and followed what was left of the trail.

After several hours of hiking, my feet blistered and I started to mumble and shiver. I was about to receive a firsthand lesson in mild hypothermia. My fingers numb, I took a multitool from my pocket and used the pliers to manipulate the zipper on my rain jacket in order to get into the tent. That night we walked out into the storm, the wind ravaging everything in its path, settling into the chaos.

The next day, we plodded over and around sand dunes. Luckily, it was still pouring, hail occasionally blanketing the dunes, otherwise we would have been surrounded by various off-road vehicles, kicking up sand, motors reaching high-pitched squeals, something to the effect of hell on earth. But with the weather raging, we might as well have been traversing some alien planet.

As we sat in a restaurant in Florence, our mission complete, trip scouted, I envisioned students toting backpacks, practicing self-reliance. If kids could carry a backpack over some foreign landscape maybe they could find some greater meaning and purpose.

During the first day of the following school year, I passed out journals and asked my junior class to take out a writing utensil in order to contemplate the importance of having some historical understanding of the world. A couple of kids started muttering expletives.

Soon after, in the manner of some mindless prison movie scene, a self-nominated alpha rose like a grizzly bear from hibernation, agitated and bloodthirsty. Three times the size of any normal teenage boy’s hand, his enormous right paw completely covered, then palmed, and finally demolished his journal like a normal person might crumple a Post-It Note. Dark, brooding eyes looked bloodshot under a furrowed brow.

“I’m not F***ing doing that,” he barked. Sweaty and breathing heavily, he shoved what was left of the journal onto the floor.

All eyes shifted my way. Momentarily, I pondered if the creature might rip the limbs right off my body, then calmly pivoting on a heel, I strutted to the front of the class, sat in a rickety chair, and kicked my feet up on

my desk, never once making eye contact.

“I suggest you use that energy to write your prompt,” I said.

After a moment of uncomfortable silence, I added, “Would you like a new journal?”

Smiling, I tossed a new journal 20 feet across the classroom, a no-look pass from the hip just clearing another student’s head, the new journal plopping right in front of the massive paw.

He kicked the seat out from underneath him and screamed: “F*** you!”

All eyes on the raging beast. I sipped my tea and opened my laptop. His massive frame already blasting down the hall, he slammed the door so hard that it obliterated the threshold, wood strips splintering in all directions as if some elephant had lowered its rear end on top it.

All eyes on me.

After another “scout trip” with Charlie that fall, I took 14 kids on a four-day, 25-mile backpack trip through Oregon’s 984,602-acre Umpqua National Forest, climbing 4,000 feet in elevation, teaching basic survival skills. On the first day, Hunter Harrach walked through the forest barefoot, making sure all of his peers had their tents set up properly. Meanwhile, without telling any of the chaperones, Hunter peeled away from his tent group to set up his own shelter, which consisted of a flimsy sheet of clear plastic and some paracord. Overnight temperatures would hover just above freezing.

“Hunter, do you think that’s going to keep you warm enough tonight?” I asked.

“I know it will,” retorted Hunter, looking me dead in the eye. I understood, in that moment, he had survived much worse. So, I negotiated.

“I tell you what,” I said. “If you wear your boots the rest of the trip, you can sleep out.”

An ear-to-ear smile showed a chipped front tooth. I smiled in return and then waited for him to slip on his shoes.

Midway through the trip, we slowly trudged up Bohemia Mountain. At the summit, we marveled at the vast beauty of the mountains, standing above the clouds. Hunter was tall with long brown hair and vacant blue eyes, and though he was physically stronger than most of his peers he never appeared fully nourished. In monotone voice, he said it was one of the best

experiences of his life. Sporting a Columbia jacket two sizes two big and a giant bucket hat, he sat pensively for a long time, connecting in a way I had rarely seen before, only in myself. I did not rush him.

Hunter suffered from crippling separation anxiety growing up, never wanting to stray too far from his mother. Whenever separated a full-blown panic attack followed, but when Hunter joined the outdoor school, the fear subsided. It was on a backpack trip that he started to see beyond the dire straits of his childhood. He remembers growing up navigating heavy amounts of abuse and neglect. Considering the chaos that dominated his time in Springfield’s Rainbow Village Apartments, Hunter routinely escaped outside whenever possible, often climbing false cedars, tamaracks, and oak trees, tucking himself high into the leaves and imagining he was in some forest far from reality. In elementary school, Hunter’s father left forever. Meanwhile, he might as well have been invisible at school. No one had any idea of the depth of trauma he navigated. Hunter did well in my class, not in any traditional aca-

demic sense, his writing hovered just below average and he lagged behind in reading. But Hunter was the best outdoor leader I had, always taking charge. Working toward graduation, Hunter even helped his mom find a job. Then one day on her way to work, Tammy Glenn got off a bus and waited. As the walk symbol flashed, she crossed the street and was struck a by a vehicle, her feet and soul dislodged from the pavement.

“It was like my childhood fears all coming true,” said Hunter. “Two weeks before it happened, I had this overwhelming sense I was going to die. Apparently, my mom had talked to [my brother] and thought she was going to die… I had always been pretty filled with anger and hate toward the world and then that happens… I got pretty close to going out into the woods and starving myself to death.”

After the death of his mother, Hunter traveled to the island of St. John to work for his grandfather. Rather than hide in trees as he had grown accustomed, he met a pretty girl, Leeanne, and opened up about his past. From there, Hunter biked across Oregon barefoot, fol-

MINE adviser Ivan Miller (right) stands atop Bohemia Mountain with Hunter Harrach. Brian Miner

lowers clinging to him like Jesus disciples. One suggested he go visit a man in Alaska, where he learned to skin a bear and won a trail race, again barefoot. From there, he hitchhiked for six months through Central America, where he learned a new language, took up bouldering, and formulated an identity all his own. Later on, he took up horse archery, bareback on the run, and competed at the highest level in South Korea. Now living on a farm with Leeanne in Minnesota, Hunter’s still searching for answers.

Danyka struggled with the idea of spending eight hours a day preparing for a life she did not want. Impoverished of any evocative connection—a sense of community, purpose, or of self—Danyka, like so many other teens in the United States, fell into a state of depression.

As a sophomore at Springfield High School, Danyka Bratton noticed there was something unnerving, something she did not fully understand at the time, about spending more waking time in a school environment than with her family at home. At one point, Danyka begged her mother not to go, saying, “I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t feel like I’m doing anything that really means anything.”

Hearing that I had created the Miller Integrated Nature Experience (MINE) at Springfield, Danyka decided to try something new. She walked in the first week of her junior year wearing new black, three-inch platform heels, knee-high black socks, a white shirt with little pug faces, a red skirt, platinum blonde hair (almost grey), and designer red nails. Over the course of the day her shoes slowly obliterated the back of her heels. By the time we commenced preparation for a 27mile backpack trip into the Diamond Peak Wilderness, she worried that she could not complete the trip. I suggested Danyka simply trade the Tuck Footwear in for a sturdy pair of hiking boots, while promising to Duct Tape her heels every day. I added, “it’s all mental. Your feet will do what you tell them to do.”

Prior to departure, the contents of duffle bags, school backpacks, and garbage bags spilled onto the cement

Danyka Bratton (right) rests with her peers before summiting Warner Peak. Paola Lopez

floor of my classroom, for all to see. Then I doled out sweat-stained backpacks, the smell of campfire smoke and musty hiking socks inundating the room. This is what I call the yard sale. Making a couple quick rounds, I helped eliminate unnecessary items—excess clothes, junk food, a chemistry textbook, various forms of technology—and echoed one sentiment repeatedly: “Take only what you need to survive.”

Late in the afternoon we arrived at our first camp, a little knoll with a view of Mount Yoran. As the sun fell over the horizon, a full moon radiated a deep blue sky, the stars twinkling in the lake. I had the kids grab journals and writing utensils to write sit spots (meditative reflections centering on a natural backdrop). Consumed by thoughts of her mother, of home, Danyka’s mind started to race.

The following morning, the temperature just above freezing, I asked students to come look at the map. I informed them that they would have to work together to travel 11.5 miles to our next camp. I set my pointer and middle fingers, the fingernails and cracks of my knuckles caked in dirt, on our camp at Yoran Lake and then pointed to the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). No trail connected the two points, meaning they would have to bushwhack their way through dense forest. Timidly, they all marched around to the other end of the lake and took the leap of faith.

About an hour later, we reached the PCT, the trail opening up to an endless sea of trees undulating for miles in the distance. I happily instructed kids to drop packs. Everyone exchanged hugs, celebrating the fact they helped each other make it up the mountain. Some students cried tears of joy, snot dripping, lips quivering, hands smearing dirt across the face.

That night, I asked students to write a story about their day and ultimately share it with the group. I have yet to discover a more powerful tool in forming community. And this is the great irony of any success we have ever experienced: sitting in a circle and sharing stories costs nothing, even organizing an expedition is relatively inexpensive when you consider how much money is spent on education in the United States. Often in those reflective exercises, as was the case when students read about climbing a mountain and carrying a heavy pack, students gain a greater sense of themselves while recognizing the suffering, the beauty of others. This bonds them together but also gives them

the courage to speak.

Danyka shared an epiphany, realizing that carrying a up a mountain, blood seeping through the Duct Tape wrapped around her heels, was the hardest thing she had ever done. And somewhere between the physical suffering and quiet moments sitting and soaking up the natural world she found happiness. One student shared a tragic anecdote—the day his father was hauled off to jail after violently attacking his mother, a day so traumatic that it made him block out much of his childhood. He realized, in the course of three days, that he could let go of the past and step forward, “no longer apart from reality, and a part of an adoptive family.”

In the early days of MINE, I thought the best way to build strong, critical thinking adults was to take them outside. I figured if I had students long enough and took them far enough away, they might forget some of their troubles, disconnect from everything virtual, and connect with the world. I believed that once kids connected to a landscape, they could discover some deeper meaning.

In the spring, we planned a conservation trip to the coast to work with the Siuslaw National Forest and Audubon Society of Portland. That first night we raced up to the top of Cape Perpetua to watch the sunset. Students giddily stepped off the bus in various shades of fleece and synthetic outdoor gear, their boots carrying them toward the sound of ocean waves gently rolling into the mountainous coastline. At the West Shelter, a rock refuge constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1933, Danyka stared off into nothing, trying to memorize the scope of color and space changing before her eyes. Contemplating existence, thinking about life and death, Daynka was set free.

“The waves stirred something inside of me,” Danyka later wrote. “They surrounded my heart and relaxed my brain until I could see the world through the ocean’s eyes. I realized how insignificant the car lights that winded down a distant road to my left were and how silly school desks are, because the water, the ocean, the land, all that is real. Because the knowledge that what I gain from listening to the ocean is far more powerful than that gained from a classroom seat.”

“And lastly I’m beginning to know myself,” she added. “I am not constrained by the jail of conformity and I realize now that I’ve always had the key in my hand. I have simply neglected to use it. When I first stepped

outside of the metal bars, I realized I was mute. Words were caught in between my flawed teeth, and then finally I spoke through my pen. I know that I have found my voice.”

To finish the year, I put together an eastern Oregon road trip—six days through Smith Rock State Park, Fort Rock, Summer Lake, Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge, Steens Mountain Wilderness, and Alvord Desert—a 1,000-mile journey into the unknown.

This experiment included waking up at 4 in the morning on the second day to watch the sun rise over the Crooked River as the day’s first light bathed Smith Rock. Without complaint, everyone huddled together in the cool desert air to observe illuminated rhyolite cliffs, an idyllic climber’s playground, first in dull orange, then pink and purple. In a fleeting moment, the light highlighted an ostensible ecological balance, illusive imagery, for what appeared pristine in the moment would soon see an adjacent parking lot overflow with cars, people scouring the scene with leash-less dogs, all searching for the perfect Smartphone selfies.

Donning a mouth full of braces, oddly matted hair, at least three pairs of leggings, two fleece jackets, and untied Merrel boots, Paola Lopez snapped photos, as had become customary procedure throughout the year. Hesitant to join MINE at first, Paola purposively avoided our first trip. Having no experience with outdoor recreation whatsoever, Paola worried that she might be eaten by a bear or fall off the top of a mountain. Hearing reports about the first trip invoked reconsideration.

Growing up in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Paola was encouraged never to stray too far from home for fear of kidnapping, human trafficking, and the drug cartel. The perceived risk of danger was so high that her father crossed an unforgiving Sonoran Desert to seek employment in the United States, devising a plan that his family would eventually sneak across the border with fake passports. Paola was only 6 when her mother notified her that they would leave for California.

Paola started school not knowing any English. By the time she entered tenth grade she had surpassed many of her peers. The following year she joined MINE.

We soon entered the 422-square-mile Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge, planning an overnight backpack trip to a dilapidated Barnhardi Cabin, with an option for a mountain summit. Early in the afternoon,

we weaved through a thick forest of quaking Aspen, which created a maze of trees up the drainage until we reached a notch. From there, Danyka led us upward, bushwhacking through bitterbrush, sagebrush, and sticker brush up DeGarmo Canyon toward Warner Peak.

As we continued to climb, Paola stopped repeatedly. “I can’t breathe,” she said. “Something’s not right.” She looked anxious, uncomfortable. I suggested we take a break.

Having been to the top two years earlier, I explained that I was happy to stay with Paola while the rest of the group summited with my other trip leader, Sara Worl, Wonder Woman to my Batman. After giving Paola half a Clif Bar, I parked myself next to a patch of snow, soaking in the sunshine, very different from my previous trip, when a snowstorm loomed in the distance. For a second I closed my eyes, the memory still burning in my psyche.

Grey skies fill the horizon. The wind howls down and around the canyon. I purposely dodge slick patches of ice and slog across the frozen terrain, gaining elevation, my boots crunching into the earth with every step, the chilly air penetrating my synthetic layers. On the summit, wind stings my face and bare hands. I walk out toward the black mass in the distance, hail and snow heading straight at me. I am about to be a father and wonder if I can cut it after what happened in my own childhood. The storm looks like it could swallow me whole, and in that moment, I wish it would.

Leaning on my backpack, coming back to the present, I remembered waking up to snow that next morning, everything blanketed in white, desperately wanting to share the moment with my wife. Then I watched my students climb, and smiled. I scanned the arid expanse, suddenly appearing so unthreatening. I looked at Paola, who had her back turned to the mountain, and muttered a simple question: “Isn’t it beautiful?”

She looked up, her eyes following my right hand as it slowly pointed across the landscape, and then up the opposite side of Warner Peak until the rest of our team came into view. As if awakened from a trance, Paola giggled heartily and said, “yeah.”

“This is better than being in class,” I said, thinking about how far we had traveled in just a few days. “I’m so glad we’re all here right now.”

Paola responded, “me too.”

After surviving a cold night, we headed to Steens Mountain, a spectacular product of Ice Age glaciers that trenched themselves half a mile deep into basalt and later rose to form Kiger, Little Blitzen, Big Indian, and Wildhorse gorges during the Pleistocene Epoch. Just north of the Alvord Desert on the eastern side, we pulled up to Mann Lake, our backyard for the next two nights.

I asked students to gather in a circle so we could read excerpts from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. Then all dispersed to find a place to reflect. With the sun setting behind Steens Mountain, I sat my rear end in the road, chalky dust enveloping my clothes. Pulling out my notebook, I marveled over the last few days, feeling lucky that I had the opportunity to engage students in some transcendental dirtbagging.

I thought about school and about what was transpiring in the desert, and how an incomprehensible chasm seemed to separate the two. In the classroom, I had been charged with providing some kind of evidence that academic growth occurs throughout the school year. This in hopes of meeting common core standards. I could not possibly explain the type of growth

that occurred not only on the trip but throughout the year. It felt as if the kids had set their own standards, lofty ones, surpassing what I thought was even possible. Looking out at all of them writing, noses buried in journals, I sensed them connecting to something much bigger, to each other for sure, but to something that cannot be measured, only experienced.

For a few minutes I sat awestruck, unable to write. I considered Thoreau’s theme of seeking poverty, stripping life of everything unnecessary and unimportant. I thought of all that was important in my life—my wife and family, the students I was trying to inspire, the earth I sat on.

An hour later, I told everyone to come back together so we could start dinner. Some, including Paola, sat and continued to scan through the Thoreau text, jumping back and forth from one underlined passage to another, erasers furiously at work, pencil tips flipping back to the page, still trying to find the right words. After dinner, sitting around a campfire, dancing flames illuminating the faces of those present in the circle, the kids read their reflections.

Paola opened up about feeling disconnected from the

MINE students set up camp at Mann Lake near Steens Mountain.

Trever Watson

world. She read, “I used to think this land was not meant for me, an illegal alien. An illegal alien. One that breaks many laws and should be deported to their home country immediately. One that does not come to find refuge, better education, or a brighter future. An illegal alien.”

Paola burst into tears. She opened up about crossing the border, and in turn how it had since limited what she could see and do, always living in fear her family might someday face deportation. She continued, “Thoreau says, ‘for the most part, we are not where we are, but in a false position.’ Today, I stand in the middle of two worlds. A culture I was born into and a culture I was brought into. The hardest part of it all has been trying to fit into this landscape knowing that this is all a false position.”

Taking a deep breath, Paola looked up from her journal, face aglow. She added, “There are five million illegal immigrants in the United States. I’m one of them. Here’s my story. I hope that getting to know me, getting to know my struggles makes you think a little differently about those statistics. I just wanted to

share my story.”

In the glow of the firelight, we finished reading. For a long time that night, I sat watching the flickering of hot embers, pondering how Paola felt, thinking specifically about the complexity of the terrain, physical and psychological, she had covered. Then I thought about the mountain.

According to Northern Paiute mythology, the world began at the base of Steens Mountain. In the book Legends of the Norther Paiute, oral historian and Warm Springs Paiute spiritual leader Wilson Wewa explains how the father of creation, Wolf (or Mu naa’a), worked with Coyote to construct the world from darkness. Wolf and Coyote asked who would dive under water to search for land. One by one, Otter, Muskrat, Mud Hen all tried, and when Mud Hen returned with mud on its bill, Wolf sang a “doctor song” to make the tiny spec of earth bigger until it formed the landscape we now know.

In the spring of 1860, a year after Oregon officially became a state, General William S. Harney sent Major Enoch Steen to explore transportation routes for

Paola Lopez (second from left) hikes on the Pike Creek Canyon Trail.

Alex Brown

moving military supplies and weapons needed to deal with potential conflicts in Oregon. In June, traveling east to the Harney Basin, Steen encountered “hostilities” from the Northern Paiute. Steen and company pushed all the way to what was then called Snow Mountain before returning to their post. The Pauite vanished into the mountain like ghosts.

As the last embers flickered away in the dark, I thought about how the Burns Paiute—after years of resisting encroachment, surviving great oppression, never ceding their lands, and fighting to preserve their culture and traditions—may be the only free people left in Oregon. I puzzled over the paradox of Paola’s current situation, an alien in a country commandeered by past immigrants, now camping with a group of high school kids purposely seeking an escape from a faltering American education system, one that sometimes alienates even the most privileged. I thought about her comment on Thoreau and wondered if I too was in a false position. If Paola was labeled alien, was I no more than an accomplice in a governmental ethos shrouded in lies and misery, one that has hurt millions of kids? I continued to lay in the dirt as the last fire light fizzled away, searching for the right words.

Climbing several switchbacks, we plodded our way to the grossly overpopulated Mirror Lake, endlessly stamped on postcards, overrun with backpackers and dogs, but about five and half miles into the walk Charlie asked to stop.

“I am bonking,” he said. “I have no idea what’s going on.” Shortness of breath, congestion, headache, extreme fatigue, Charlie had contracted Covid.

Last July, Charlie and I made our annual trip to the Sierra Nevada. After ten hours of driving, we arrived at Topaz Lake, where a black haze turned the sun an ominous orange, the result of forest fires near Yosemite. After five minutes, driving through smoke, we turned around and retreated to Reno, Nevada, where we stayed in an absolute dump of a motel.

Looking for a safe place to disappear into the mountains, I opened the AirNow smoke and fire map online—showing a large, virtual haze looming over most of the western United States. I suggested we travel back north 600 miles to the Eagle Cap Wilderness in the Wallowa Mountains of northeast Oregon, thinking Glacier Lake would make a suitable basecamp. Two days later, Charlie and I commenced a hike from Two Pan Trailhead toward the Lostine Valley.

A few hours later he collapsed into a sleeping bag and did not move until the sun started to bake the tent the following morning. Finally emerging, he didn’t think he could leave camp.

“Can you make it to the other end of the lake?” I asked. “I know a great place that looks down on the water. I’ll carry your pack.”

“No,” he said, “we’re going to Glacier Lake.”

Wanting to escape the cacophony of barking heelers and Labradors, Charlie climbed 1,000 feet in a hurry to a beautiful rock promontory jutting out toward an emerald lake, Eagle Cap booming in the distance. An hour later we were listening to Jimi Hendrix, lounging on our inflatable rafts. As Charlie rested in the shade of a pine tree, I floated aimlessly in the sun, contemplating the slow rise, and eventual collapse, of the immense expanse of granite all around us. I thought about my own transient existence within that timeline, and desperately wanted to be with my

Paola Lopez

sons. Then I thought about education.

After winning a third national award in the fall, knowing the students had just put one of the best climbers in the world on the cover of the eighth edition of Backcountry Review (eventual winner of a fourth award), I considered the absurdity of creating something so incredible while returning from the Covid lockdown. It seemed as if the more chaotic and weird things got, the more professional the magazine became.

Yet, any temporary success has been largely overshadowed by the fact that public education has undergone a tremendous change, something the late French philosopher Bruno Latour ponders in his book After Lockdown: A Metamorphosis. Latour suggests that nothing resonates the way it did before, that the world students now occupy is nothing like that of their parents.

Returning from lockdown, donning masks, it seemed like all involved—administrators, teachers, parents—wanted to return to normal as quickly as possible, everyone except the kids. And who can blame them for not wanting to return to their obedient classrooms, operating in a system that basically left them to fend for themselves for a year?

In those first few weeks, people watched the economy, everything, shut down. Suddenly, whatever identity students had within the school system disappeared. Meanwhile, during “online school” kids hid their faces behind icons and muted microphones, perhaps opting not to buy into a virtual system they had absolutely no voice in creating, one in which they were forced into. In creating distance learning, we tried to control the outcome, to keep kids safe, but simultaneously silenced them.

Latour calls for radical change, writing, “we need to reinvent everything all over again—the law, politics, the arts, architecture, cities. But—and this is stranger still—we also need even to reinvent movement, the vector of our actions. We need to not forge ahead into the infinite, but to learn to step back, to unplug, in the face of the finite. That’s another way of liberating yourself.”

With the sun warming my face, I spun my boat 360 degrees, slowly taking in the mountains, trees, Charlie lost in thought, the lake itself. I thought about Robert Macfarlane’s book Mountains of the Mind: Adventures Reaching the Summit, in which he reflects on landscapes, “that our responses to them are for the most part culturally devised. That is to say, when we look at a landscape, we do not see what is there, but largely what we think is there.”

The image I had of us in the boats was one of adventure, escape, rejuvenation, but it was not reality, only my projection of it. Macfarlane continues, “what we call a mountain is thus in fact a collaboration of the physical forms of the world with the imagination of humans—a mountain of the mind.”

At one point on the trip, Charlie and I both lodged the end of our aluminum paddles into a floating chunk of glacier and just let go of any navigational control, our boats and bodies swaying in our watercrafts. Coming to life, Charlie relayed a route up the eastern side of Eagle Cap that we had climbed the day before, recalling the whole experience from memory.

That evening, back at camp, I pulled out my journal, custom procedure on such expeditions, intending to reflect on teaching. I just stared blankly at an empty page, pinpoint frozen against lined paper, the ink eventually starting to bleed. After two years of navigating Covid, I did not want to think about school.

I walked out alone to a granite seat overlooking the lake, the water plaid rolling off into nothing, the mountains acting as a sort of canvas for the evening’s alpine glow. I soon melted into the scene, soaking up the beauty of the landscape, the final light of day, working to preserve the imagery in my mind, to be called upon during tougher times.

After 13 years of teaching, I think we need to develop a higher level of consciousness, and I’m not talking about the artificial variety. Over the years, I have learned to thrive in the mountains, and have yet to find a better classroom. Every once and while I wander into the wilderness, find a good place to sit, and just listen. I have watched this simple formula help transform high school students into heroes, climbers pushing themselves to new artistic levels, summiting mountains that once seemed unfathomable.

Ivan Miller watches the sunset at Glacier Lake in the Eagle Cap Wilderness.

Charlie Wilshire

issue of Backcountry Review is dedicated to John Preston Smith and Douglas Unrein.