Alaska in February.  A solo wilderness trip.

Except that we are never solo.

I was craving time in nature to reconnect with reality – my reality.  I needed to get clear and I do that by being in the wild. It is not a running away, but a running to.  There is a lot of science and data out there saying you must have substantial human connections to be truly happy, I only agree with half of that.  I believe we need connection, period. Deep connections can happen with many beings.  We are soooo human-centric.  Did you know the world’s 7.6 billion people represent only 0.01% of all living things? Why limit our connections to only 1/100^thof life?  We have dogs and cats and hedgehogs, but our culture defaults to measuring the animal world against our own human-centered thought. We rarely approach other living things as equals.  We thereby miss out developing fuller and richer relationships with the beings that surround us.

Perhaps, if we developed relationships with more beings on our planet, we would not put so much pressure on our human relationships and be so ruled by them.  Perhaps we would be more forgiving, more understanding, even, more confident that we are not alone.

Our foundation, Re-Inventing Schools Coalition, had just been given 5 million dollars by the Gates Foundation to replicate work in School Districts across Alaska and later America.  I was soon to be Executive Director.  It was an exciting time.  Giving too much priority to human things; like work, and schedules, and thinking I was more important than I was, had me feeling off-balance.  I needed to get grounded with other beings so I could come from a place of peace and authenticity.

Did you know the world’s 7.6 billion people represent only 0.01% of all living things? Why limit our connections to only 1/100^thof life?

I did not like having a title.  I wanted a flat organization where staff were equal with the same titles or no titles. I saw this as a more efficient and happy organizational structure.  My Board of Directors, didn’t like the idea. They wanted an ED and a chain of command.  I accepted the title, and over our first few years in the work I could feel myself getting a bit too proud of that title.  I wanted to remember why I was here.  I was passionate about education and creating systems that treated every student like the genius I believe they are.

This was going to take a lot of time and focus and I wanted to make sure I was committed to this ride.  My husband Rick, was creating with me (Title: Director of Operations; reality: we all did it all).  I knew that he too was having to check himself – we would be foregoing our simple life in the woods for many business trips around the world, sacrificing our comfortable clothes, and having to get haircuts.  We were living in the log home in Talkeetna, Alaska we had built with our own hands, falling the trees, hauling our water, living close to nature which was our dream.  We wanted to share with others, that they too could live their dreams, whatever their own dreams were.

Honored to do this job, I wanted to do it “my way”, which may not look like the ‘typical” ED outside of Alaska. I would not give up my sanctuary in the woods.  I would continue to enjoy hauling my water from our magical spring and bathing on my porch, as well as my high-speed internet.  We would create an organization that was completely virtual.  Our staff worked in various places across Alaska and the lower-48.  This type of no-office structure was unfamiliar in the early years of the new Millennium, we had not seen it done before. It worked for us.  There was a lot of pressure to have a “brick and mortar” office and to do what others were doing.  It was seriously considered to move to DC where we would be better connected.  Instead, we committed to happily driving the three hours in the icy dark, dodging moose, to the nearest airport to attend meetings and to conduct conference calls from our simple home.  The Gates Foundation supported our work because what we were doing was successful and we were doing it our way.  Rick and I believed there were many avenues to doing this life and we should all get to have a say in what worked for each of us.

It was an exhilarating time.  Our staff loved the freedom of living where they wanted and doing it their way.  We believed, to make true progress as an organization, we had to live the things we were trying to share with others.  Part of our organizations’ mission was to allow students and education systems to create learning that worked for each individual.  It wasn’t easy. Nevertheless, I believed it was all possible, that I could juggle my life, my wacky way and allow others the same. I just didn’t know exactly how to make it all run.  This is where wolverine enters.

A week was planned for a brief respite from our crazy schedules.  I could squeeze in a trip to our homestead, in February.  The Homestead, as we call it, is surrounded by wilderness seventy miles from the nearest road.  This is a sacred place for me, a place I have only to step foot and am connected with something deep and real.  It brings me profound peace although it is not always peaceful out there, more akin to alive awareness.  I felt the need to get back to this place to re-ground myself at the remote cabin we were building with so much love and care, just like we wanted to build our Foundation.

Getting there entailed having a friend fly us in his small plane on skis for an hour flight from our “town” place in Talkeetna, Alaska.  My girl Utu, a crazy-alpha black labrador, joined me.  We boarded the super cub to fly over the grand Susitna Valley, landing on a large lake near our remote land.  Utu and I jumped out of the plane, greeted by -15 degrees and a winter wonderland of frosty Spruce trees ringing a crystalline lake.  Whenever I come here, the land says, “be here now, this is everything.”.

We unload gear needed for the week; snowshoes, -40 sleeping bag,  lighter, first aid, head lamp, salmon, butter and chocolate.  I also brought kerosene for the lamp and a few miscellaneous items.  The cabin was stocked with a wood stove and plenty of firewood.  There were beans, oatmeal, rice, pasta, various canned goods, and I hoped, some whisky left from the last trip 6 months before.  No cell service reaches this place.  I confirmed with our pilot-friend that he would return in seven days and we would meet on the lake.  If weather was bad and he couldn’t make it in that day, I would listen for his plane over the following days.

I strapped on snowshoes and began to make trail while Utu frolicked through the deep snow.  Our cabin just a few miles away, seemed further, hauling a sled behind me with our supplies.  It was slow going in the 7 foot drifts, but I was motivated and basking in the freedom.  Rick and I hadn’t finished building the cabin yet.  The walls were up and a roof was on, but the gable ends were open so that snow blew inside and piled up in the corners.  Our place is near the Alaska Range and snow is always plentiful and usually double what fell back in Talkeetna.  After a strenuous snowshoe, I began shoveling snow to try to get to the front door.  An hour later, I gave up and climbed over the gable end and dropped down the 7 feet inside to our wood flooring.  Utu had no trouble scrambling up the log walls and climbing down via the kitchen counter.

I lit the wood stove and began dinner.   Utu and I shared a delicious salmon pasta with lots of butter.  It was clear the stove would heat our food, but not do much for warming us.  Dark came quickly. That first night the wind blew more snow inside and I admit to wondering why I had thought this would be fun.

I slept huddled next to that wood stove each night with Utu.  Mornings dawned sunny and cold and impossibly beautiful with the Tordrillo mountains filling my view out the gable ends.  Coffee made the night before with melted snow was left on the stove.  I could wake to the smell of dark roast and pour a piping hot cup before getting out of bed.  A scoop of butter added some serious yummm.  I also discovered that chocolate in your oatmeal is a good thing.

We explored each day.  I let Utu lead, following her on snowshoes to nearby creeks and meadows throwing sticks, making snow angels, laughing and marveling in the silence that is loud out there.  I trusted this special animal friend and liked to give her the freedom to make choices.  Returning to the cabin before dark, we’d cook simple hot meals on the stove, and I’d read myself to sleep by the light of a kerosene lamp. I was getting into a groove, forgetting about schedules and goals and what I looked like.  I love the cold clarity of winter, the return to basics and hyper awareness.  I was feeling myself  a part of everything again, not just human-created things.

One night, Utu woke me, growling low. Retrieving my headlamp, I peered outside but saw and heard nothing. I went back to sleep.

The next morning, at 10 am’s first light, I set out to see what had caused Utu to growl.  She always had a reason. I found what looked like a wolf track right against the house, it appeared to have been looking in the front window.  We tracked around the cabin and east through thigh deep snow.  The prints were clear across the white forest floor angling through old growth Spruce, Birch and Cottonwood trees. I remember the clouds were low with impending snow.  No birds sang.  The prints had a funny gait, but I still assumed it was a wolf. Utu lagged behind, loathe to trace this animal’s path.

Snarls erupted from somewhere nearby.  Then, a howl sounded and it was other-worldly. I can’t even explain the sound; a loud guttural breathing, alternating with screeches and roars  – like a cross between a bear, a witch cackle, and almost a wolf-howl. I froze.

It appeared that whatever it was, had circled back around me. The call came from my right and continued its wailing, cackling howl with huffs in between. I could not find the source.  Utu was clearly on guard.  I tried to talk calmly while backing toward the cabin some 100 yards behind me.  “Hey there, hey now, I am just out to say hello, we’ll leave you be now, peace to you, peace…”  The sounds stopped as I talked, and began again when I paused my talking. I was freaked because I could not make sense of the sound – a hurt bear that came out of its den? a hurt coyote? Wolf? An alien? I know fox make crazy sounds too…I was scared and curious.

Something about this call warned at the same time it was asking questions – “what are you?  What are you doing here?”.  I moved toward the mad sounds nervously searching.  It occurred to me I was out here with no immediate way to get help, and at the same time I thought, “I am helping myself.”.

I took a deep breath and then I saw her.  Standing on hind legs, next to a spruce tree some 40 feet away, a small and potent bear.  She was quiet now.  She watched me with full awareness, it felt like I was walking through an airport full body scanner.  It took me a moment to place this fierce being.  Then I realized.  Wolverine.

 

She was 10 feet tall.   It was an illusion, she was hardly bigger than Utu.   I found it hard to navigate the discrepancy in her 25 pound frame with her 500+ pound energy.  She was glorious.

I heard, as if wolverine was speaking English, “I do not want to be tracked”.  I had intruded on dear ferocious wolverine doing her winter rounds. In her neighborhood. Her clear communication was impressive, vivid.  She was claiming her space and waiting for me to tell her about me or to leave.  Well, I had not learned my own howl yet, I didn’t know what to say.

I knew of her ability, and the ability of her kind, to force a Grizzly off its kill.  I knew she could break and eat bones.  She had the strength and motivation to travel 20 miles in a night, and climb mountains just to get to the top, and, in winter too.  She didn’t need to build herself a cabin, she was home in herself.  There was more than the facts of animals that we humans get so interested in and argue about.  There was the life of this being, as a remarkable individual, the intuition of the adventures she lived and a distinct personality.  Things I cannot define or prove, but real to me nonetheless.

Probably, she wondered what it meant that I was standing there in awe, or maybe she was used to it. My awe calmed me.  I watched for movement and I stepped back with Utu to show my respect. Wolverine’s eyes were a galaxy of ancient knowing, yet it was all familiar.  I wondered what she saw in mine.

Our few moments together moved on, and Wolverine literally disappeared in front of my eyes.  She stepped back into the woods and Pouf. Bears have done this to me before, one minute they are there, and the next, gone, fading silently into the woods leaving you to wonder if you even saw them – until you go look at the footprints left behind.  I was not going to check tracks in this case.

I had run into wolverines in the wilderness before.  Once, walking the beach on the lost coast of Alaska, I saw a speck down the beach get closer and closer, finally turning into a mother wolverine with three babies.  Encounters since, on a raft trip, hiking across tundra, on a riverbed, all add to my knowledge of and relationship with this amazing animal. Years after this Homestead encounter, I met a new wolverine in the same area who stood his ground, forcing me to go around him to get back to the cabin.   I wrote about this adventure in another blog, Getting BARE with Raven, Otter and Wolverine.

I have not heard the call of a wolverine since.  Listening to YouTube recordings, questioning biologists and those who wander the territories of wolverine, I continually ask if anyone has heard their crazy shrieks the way I heard them, no one has shared with me a similar hearing.

Female wolverines are more territorial than males,  I believe this was her home range, the patch of ground she used for her subsistence. This means she claims up to 250 square miles around our homestead!  I can see her easily rambling around the nearby Tordrillo mountains, a place I want badly to explore. Interestingly, female wolverine can in some cases, be larger than the males.

Wolverines may be the future of search and rescue according to Mike Miller at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center.  They can smell a creature 20 feet below the snow, they can blaze up mountains, and they can be trained to recover avalanche victims.  Wow.  Training wolverines is problematic, but I believe in the idea of building relationship with, learning from, and supporting each other as myriad forms of life.

We are only 1/100th of the sentience on this planet.  Let us realize the abundance and resources for connections and friendship all around us.  We can create a more inclusive life, a richer and more balanced life, if we, as human, recognize it’s not just us here.

Her health and the well-being of wolverine populations, depend on protecting large expanses of wilderness. Wolverine habitat is somewhat protected in Alaska through various federal and state land dedication programs. However, as human recreation expands into more remote areas, wolverine health is threatened.  I was aware how my own homestead was impacting the beings around me.  I tried to bring reverence to my explorations.

Utu and I spent four more nights at the cabin before packing back to the lake to catch the flight home.  No more sign, nor sound of wolverine on this trip.  She stayed with me however, her unique vocalizations so clear and unmistakable, “I am here and I claim this space, I am wolverine and I do not want to be tracked.  What are you?  What is your goal?”.   I decided that I needed to get a howl like that.  You see, wild animals don’t pretend, they fully inhabit their authentic selves and that is why they are so energizing to be around. I thought a lot about who I was after that, could I distill myself into one awesome howl?

Have you ever met someone and had an enlightening conversation or experience, you may have never seen them again, still, that experience stays with you and is important?  Of course, it can be the same with animals.

A brief encounter, yet, over the next decade and a half, as ED for RISC, I thought of Lady Wolverine many times.  I wanted to be as authentic, and to howl my indignation when I felt like it rather than only trying to appease people.  Wolverine reminded me to fight for my time and space in the wild. Wolverine showed me that it was important that I stand for what I believed and I could do this by being uniquely me.

A focus of mine was to instill in our work that we stay balanced, take breaks when needed, and not take ourselves so damn seriously.  We had an amazing team, staff and Board members.   I called them Change Agents and they inspired me.  Many of these people continue the work of Personalized Learning right now in new and more powerful ways around the country.

The nonprofit world can be grueling with the pressure to give your all and I fought that, knowing it would lead to burn-out.  I knew the toll asked of the great people I worked with.  I still think that pressure to give and give can cause us to avoid our real lives when we make work everything.  It just bores me.  YAWN.  Our real and messy lives deserve that same dedication as our work.

I came under fire for many things.  One, was taking my annual winter expeditions.  Skijoring, snowshoeing, and exploring the winter landscape for a few weeks is medicine for me.  No, it is air.

There were years I cancelled, too many of those years when I choose to stay, not that I wanted to, but for appearance sake.  The year I didn’t go to Nome, I always feel it in my gut, a great disappointment in myself.  I folded under our American culture of work until you drop.  I got more burned out and set the example for others to burn themselves out as well.

I have since learned to create until you are tired, then rest until you are ready to create again – this is much more fruitful.  I channel Wolverine to claim my space.  I do not want to be tracked.  I knew what was good for me was good for the organization.  In the same way, I saw that staff and partners following their passions led to creative ideas, exciting energy, and more health.

There was also being a woman in this position.  For me, that looked like lots of subtle pressures, my methods second-guessed, my ideas ignored, and telling me how to act.  Remembering there was no way to ignore wolverine, I would use my voice, repeat myself, ground myself in my place.  That will be another blog.

I enjoyed building people up; students, teachers, superintendents, state legislatures; to recognize their own brilliance and to use it to create systems in our schools that treated every student like the genius they are.  Many, many miles, like Wolverine, were covered learning and teaching, traversing school systems from India to Brazil and New York City to North Dakota.  We could cover great distances with a great team of people and with the right balance of rest and motivation.  When the wrong people were added to the equation, it was an energy drain.

Our organization grew and succeeded, it was thrilling.  With success came people not aligned to my values.  These people tried to actively take our work down.  I was stunned with the dawning realization that a friend and colleague was not a friend at all but one of those mischief makers who thrives on turning everyone against each other.  A good and painful lesson in keeping boundaries for those who would harm you.

I remembered to stand my ground, state my truth and bar my teeth when needed. Wolverine whispered, “if you cannot use your crazy howl around this person, they are not your friend”.  That’s my new method for finding friends, I have to be able to be my craziest self, if they can put up with that then we are friends.  It is true, I had been keeping myself in check, for fear I wouldn’t be liked.  Wolverine went crazy on me out at the homestead and look, I love and respect her.

Use your howl.

I know how rare Wolverine sightings are, so I take the relationship seriously. Of course, to be in relationship, there should be a two-way connection.  What did I share with wolverine?  I think wolverine gains respect and admiration from me and I continue to support saving wilderness for Wolverine, and, for us all.

You know, we quote brilliant humans like Martin Luther King Jr and Jane Goodall, so why not quote the Wolverine’s howl?  Let us not close ourselves off from the true richness of this planet.  She came at me in a bright ferocious way which was the perfect time for me to learn to stand up for my beliefs.  She still coaches me.

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Today, I coach people who want to stand confidently in their power, who want to communicate with animals and who believe wilderness is healing.  I organize adventures and workshops for those who want to remember their brilliance and use it. You can check here for coaching, and events, including, how to mush your own team of sled dogs, ride a Clydesdale or build your own personalized retreat with me.

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I am inspired by Sarah Seidelmann and her work with animal entities.  If this interests you too, I encourage you to check out her work.  Her most recent book, The Book of Beasties, is a brilliant guide to finding wisdom for your life from the animal world.  And wait till you see what’s she’s written about Wolverine!