Journalist and author John Vaillant began his career with a profound interest in connecting stories of adventure with complex social issues. And it was on a reporting assignment to the remote regions North Western Canada that put him on the path of a remarkable narrative steeped in both ancient mythology and a modern controversy at the heart of the environmental movement.

“It was thanks to Outside Magazine that I got up there. I was doing a paddling story for them in Haida Gwaii, which is this remote archipelago off the northwest coast of British Columbia, an extraordinary place, home of the Haida Nation,” Vaillant said. “One way to understand them is the Vikings of the North Pacific. Huge canoes, but they are also a great political force, very powerful environmental advocates. It was also the home of this botanically unique tree, this Golden Spruce. It was 165 feet tall, seven feet across at the base and had golden needles. Every tree from Mendocino to Anchorage, growing in that rainforest band has green needles. And there was one coming up out of that forest. You could see it from 20,000 feet in the air in a plane. There was one golden spire and it was that tree.”

Sitting at the MacLab Bistro at the Banff Center in Alberta Canada, Vaillant and I had the opportunity to talk about this incredible tree. The Golden Spruce is at the center of a film which appeared at the 2015 Banff Mountain Film Festival and sets the stage for a very complicated discussion on the importance of wildlife conservation and the sustainable management of public land. In the film Vaillant helps frame the story behind why this particular tree means so much to the Haida People and their forest home.

Hadwin's Judgement

Sometimes, when we’re talking about environmental conservation it’s difficult to know or even imagine exactly what really mean. That’s especially true when we’re asked care, I mean really care about remote areas thousands of miles away from where we live work and play. One such place is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In a region of Alaska so remote that it is only accessible by small charter airplane the Arctic Refuge is perhaps the most geographically isolated wilderness area in the continental United States. Very few people will ever visit there, but as the home many different plant and animal species including caribou and grizzly bears this remarkable ecosystem on the shores of the Beaufort Sea and the Arctic Ocean is at the forefront of the modern conservation movement. And as a bellwether of the global impacts of climate change the protection of the Arctic Refuge is a major priority for conservation groups like the Sierra Club and many other environmentally focused community outreach organizations.

José Gonzalez is the founder of Latino Outdoors. His group aims to help members of the Latino community to become engaged in efforts to protect the natural environment. Along with a leader from Outdoor Afro, a group dedicated to helping African American families forge a bond with the natural world,  José and I had the rare opportunity to travel through the Arctic Refuge. Over the span of seven days we paddled more than 50 miles  along the course of the HulaHula river to experience for ourselves the unique beauty of this vast yet fragile natural habitat. In the hopes raising awareness for the importance of this and other distant wilderness areas this trip was organized to help make a connection with emerging communities of color who will one day be called upon to save them.

The Joy Trip Project Season 8

José In the Arctic

I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Carolyn Finney recently in Washington D.C. and she shared with me her wonderful vision of the future in an essay called This Moment. Addressing the potential lives of children born eight years ago at the begining of the administration of President Barack Obama, Finney details a series of challenges and opportunities to make proactive change in the decades which still lie before us.

This Moment

In a series of photo essays and feature films McBride now tells the story of the river that provides food and water for more than 10 percent of the U.S. population. The hardest working river in the world Colorado has flowed for more than 6 million years. But in the span of just a few decades its precious resources have been tapped to the breaking point.

Returning to his home in Colorado Peter McBride is raising awareness for the importance of conserving water in the west. Through his films and still photographs he illustrates the plight of the Colorado and demonstrates the impact of over development and the abuse of our most precious natural resource.

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Peter McBride ~ photographing the most endangered river in America

The Joy Trip Project Season 9

Campfire Stories

On Tuesday March 14, 2017 climbing pioneer Royal Robbins died of natural causes at his home in Modesto California. He was 82 years old. A leader in the world of mountaineering he completed the first class VI climb in America on the Northwest Face of Yosemite’s Half Dome and in 1961 he completed an ascent of the Salathé Wall on El Capitan. In a long career that included the founding of a global sports apparel brand that bears his name Royal Robbins was a leader in the outdoor industry and a philanthropic supporter of many organizations that encouraged environmental conservation and getting youth outside.

In 2009 at the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival in Alberta, Canada I had the pleasure of meeting Robbins for the first time. He very graciously agreed to an interview on his book To Be Brave, the first in a series of memoirs that recounted his remarkable life of adventure. In this flashback edition of the podcast I am proud to share for the first time this archived conversation with Royal Robbins.

To Be Brave

Outside Magazine recently featured a wonderful essay by the writer Rahawa Haile. This young woman from Miami, Florida had successfully through-hiked the Appalachian Trail. Walking solo, she made the journey of 2,179 miles from Georgia to Maine under the power of her own two feet over several months in 2016. In her fascinating story, one passage in particular stood out.

"Throughout my youth, my grandmother and I took walks in Miami, where I’d hear her say the words tuum nifas," Haile wrote. "It meant a delicious wind, a nourishing wind. These experiences shaped how I viewed movement throughout the natural world. How I view it still. The elements, I thought, could end my hunger."

Transformational experiences in nature are perhaps the single most compelling reason that anyone would devote months of their lives and thousands of miles walking the great National Scenic trails of North America. Every year trails like the Appalachian, the Continental Divide or the Pacific Crest draw hikers from across the country and around the world to sample the delicious, nourishing winds of the world outside. Many spend these long hikes in quiet reflection of their lives, while others use this time to heal the emotional wounds of their past. In that regard Rahawa Haile was no different. But during the intensely divisive and politically polarizing climate of the 2016 Presidential election she felt the added burdens of race and gender identity in a natural environment populated predominantly by white men.

The disparities of participation among those who spend time in nature and those who don’t still fall dramatically along the same distinctions of race, gender and class that divide much of our country today. But on her long journey Haile was pleased to discover that she was welcomed and encouraged to become part of the Appalachian Trail community despite hiking while bisexual, female and black.

This interview with writer and Appalachian Trail through-hiker Rahawa Haile was recorded in a coffee shop in Oakland, California. Sorry about all the ambient noise, but this conversation was definitely worth sharing. Look for a feature story on Haile and the delicious winds of the outdoors in the next issue of the journal Appalachia.

The Delicious Wind ~ An interview with Rahawa Haile

At 95 years young National Park Ranger Betty Reid Soskin is a national treasure. Stationed at the Rosie The Riveter/World War II Homefront National Historic Park in Richmond, California she interprets the cultural narrative of life in America during one of the most turbulent periods in time. Drawing on her personal experience through the 1940s she offers a compelling look into the past that helps us to understand who we are today and chart a course toward a brighter tomorrow. As an African-American woman who endured and survived the racially motivated oppression of previous generations, Ranger Soskin offers young people of color especially the hope and motivation to become leaders and role models themselves in the future.
Ranger Soskin addressed a gathering of more than 200 young people of color at an event called the PGM ONE Summit in Berkeley, California. PGM stands for People of the Global Majority, an emerging new generation of black and brown people around the world who are mobilizing to achieve lasting social change. Much like those of her generation who rallied to confront the   threat of foreign armies during World War II Soskin wants the young people of today to stand up against the rising challenges of the 21st century.

“I’ve live now for almost 96 years. And what I have learn in those 96 years is the fact that ever since 1776 my nation has experienced an upward spiral, ciclical periods of chaos,” Soskin said. “And it’s in those periods of chaos that democracy is redefined. We’re in another one of those now. Those periods provide opportunities to reset the buttons, allows us to redefine what demoncracy means. And to get on with the project of forming that more perfect union.”

After so many years of life experience in this country Ranger Soskin understands that the great experiment of democracy is an ongoing process. Like ascending a spiral staircase we wind our way round and round, getting higher and higher though we seem to find ourselves in the same place time and time again. And here we are back to once more test and redefine the integrity of American democracy. We’ve here before.

Right after her talk in Berkeley Ranger Soskin shared with me her thoughts on our history and the roles each us may play to protect the legacy of our future.

Ranger Betty Reid Soskins

It was the summer of 2017 and I was just coming off a major reporting project. I’d spent the better part of a year working on series of stories about the private land owners, farmers and ranchers and their relationship with the natural world. Modern agriculture is such a big deal, because things like soil health and water quality directly impact the nutrition, physical health and wellbeing of people all over the world.  But farms no matter how big or small also have a profound effect on the overall safety and security of nearby  rivers and lakes.

Across North America watersheds that span hundred, even thousand of miles connect our forests upstream to densely populated cities where urban people depend upon the availability of fresh fruits and vegetables, sustainably raised meat and dairy products and of course safe drinking water. So agriculture was pretty heavy in my thoughts when I reached out to my friend Amy Kober. She’s the director of communications at the nonprofit American Rivers and I was really just checking in to see what kind of initiatives they might be working on in relation to watersheds and farming.

“Well, it just so happens ,”she said “we’re about to release a new film we produced on the Milwaukee River.” Amy sent me a link to a film called Alice’s Garden. There I could stream it online in advance and I was pretty blown away in the first two minutes of watching it. Milwaukee is about an hour and half from my front door and I had never heard of Alice’s Garden. Located in the heart of downtown this green patch of land is surrounded the urban core. With systems in place to retain rainwater and restore the capacity of the soil to support growing things, Alice’s Garden helps people who live in the neighborhood to experience nature in meaningful ways through the cultivation of fresh vegetables. But what really struck me most was the environmental justice angle of this very cool short film.

“If we’re going to be honest, the river of Milwaukee and Lake Michigan are places that have been refashioned more for white people with means than for the community I serve on a daily basis,” said Venice Williams, an African-American woman who is the executive director of Alice’s Garden. “I personally love going downtown and I love the riverwalk, but when I look up, there are very few people who look like me. So I think the rivers in this city, if we’re going to be honest, have been some of those places of segregation and divide.”

It didn’t take long for me to realize that I wanted to learn more about this remarkable place in one of the most urbanized cities in North America. So I made the drive cross-state to have a conversation with Venice Williams at Fondy Farmers Market in heart of the African-American community in Downtown Milwaukee. There just a few blocks away where she and members of her community grow their own vegetables she told me all  about Alice’s Garden.

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