Renew Your Courage, with Norther Emily
Being out in wild spaces, especially when we’re alone, can bring up so much fear. But just on the other side of that fear lies a life that’s in touch with something much greater than our concrete culture. Norther Emily is a writer and wilderness guide, and in our conversation, we explore her own journey into this work, how to build your own competency, and how to renew your courage.
You can connect with Norther on her website, blog, or Instagram.
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Megan:
Welcome to A Wild New Work, a podcast about how to divest from capitalism and the norms of modern work and step into the soulful calling of these times we live in, which includes the call to rekindle our relationship with the earth. I'm Megan Leatherman, a mother to two small kids, coach, writer, and amateur ecologist living in the Pacific Northwest, and I'm your host today.
Hi friend, and welcome. I'm so glad that you're here. So honored that we're spending this time together in this space. I'm recording this in Leo season. The sun is in the sign of Leo. We're in the mid summer period here in the Pacific Northwest. Things are dry. Very dry. And I think most summers lately, most of us are feeling an increased awareness and fear and sadness around the, what's happening in our planet, to us, on our home, to the other beings that we share this earth with.
So Leo season for me is like kind of meh because it's hot and it's dry and it brings into sort of stark focus what is happening. I can't really look away and I try to remember that Leo you know in astrology corresponds to the heart and this time can be a courageous time of being heart led, right, and the Tarot Leo corresponds to the strength card, where we're working with fear.
We see what is scary and we act anyway. We sort of stand still in the face of it and we hold our beating heart and we take a step forward, even though we're terrified. What we want, what we need, is so often just on the other side of our fear. And fear can be wonderfully protective. We can honor it. I mean, I wouldn't dismiss fear in a truly dangerous situation or in the face of someone that I wanted to do me harm, of course, fear, we, we honor fear and need fear in that time.
But fear can also show us where we need to go next. It can be an amazing guide and partner on our path. We notice where there's fear. It's often a sort of signpost that that's where we want to focus next, that that's where we can grow, that's where real sweetness lies, just on the other side of that, or in working with that fear.
And my guest today is someone who knows this well, who works with fear, helps others work with it as well, helps people get into beautiful, wild, situations and experiences and talks a lot about fear and when that comes up in our conversation today. So I'm really excited to bring you this conversation with Norther Emily.
Norther Emily is a writer and wilderness guide who specializes in foraging, off trail navigation, destination research, and helping people overcome their fear and mindset blocks in the outdoors through her work at Wild Solitude Guiding. I have worked with Norther personally and I just felt so inspired by her stories, perspectives and just the way of being in the wilderness that she does, that she lives, that um, I knew I wanted to have her on the podcast, so I think you're really gonna enjoy this one.
Before I transition us into my conversation with the Norther, I just want to let you know about three upcoming ways that you can work with me if you'd like to go deeper. The first one is a four week series called Unlearning Capitalism, which is a series of writings and meditations about how to reclaim your life as sacred, your time, your body, your labor, your home, which is Also, of course, the Earth.
This is a free offering. It's a really sweet, rich process that I guided the Cedar Lodge community through a couple of years ago, and it's getting a little refresh. So it's going to start on August 22nd, and you can learn more at the link in the show notes or at awildnewwork. com. It's a very sort of Virgo esque offering and will run through throughout Virgo season.
So I hope you check that out if you want to. The next is a live class called Tracking Spirit and this will be, this is a class I've done twice before and it's a really, I think, lovely look at some of the principles of animal tracking and how to weave those into your own journey of living into your purpose, your life right now.
The class will be held on Wednesday, September 6th, and you can sign up for my newsletter if you want to know when that registration opens. I'll put the link in the show notes. Finally, for a deeper experience for the deep work of giving life to some new path that is probably already beating inside of you, we can do work one on one.
I work with people individually for six to twelve months. We meet over eleven sessions and do an in depth tarot reading. There's a workbook to guide you. We connect over text and email in between sessions. And, you know, It works in some part because of the logistical things that I just named, but I think the real reason it works is that you say yes to something and then you're held within a strong container that can give you the courage to look at what's scary, to look at your patterns and habits, to act in spite of that fear and act in congruence with A deeper story that's trying to come true in your life.
So if you are on the precipice of some meaningful change in your work, you can learn more about my one on one program at awildnewwork.com or at the link in the show notes. Alright, so why don't I speak our opening invocation and then dive into this conversation with the Norther. So wherever you are, just noticing your body and time and space, Remembering that you're alive.
Feeling your breath. Maybe you take a deep breath. May each of us be blessed and emboldened to do the work we're meant to do on this planet. May our work honor our ancestors, known and unknown, and may it be in harmony with all creatures that we share this earth with. I express gratitude for all of the technologies and gifts that have made this possible, and I'm grateful to the Cowlitz and Clackamas tribes, among many others, who are the original stewards of the land that I'm on.
Okay. Norther, thank you so much for being here with us.
Norther:
Thank you so much for having me.
Megan:
I'd love to start by hearing a little bit more about how you came to be a wilderness guide. Um, and wherever you want to start is perfect, but I'd love to hear about some of the major sort of steps. On your way that led you here now to this kind of work.
Norther:
You know, I always like to joke and say that I started doing this work because I am not qualified to do anything else. My guiding work is like a very accurate representation of my own, like personal outdoor movement practice or whatever. I've been really intentional in creating a business that is, is just based on my own personal practices, things that I've learned on my journey, things that I know to be true, rather than filling like a gap that I saw in the market, you know?
I was at a real, a real rock bottom in my life, um, I had just gotten out of a toxic relationship with my, my kids’ dad. I was homeless for like eight months in the middle of the pandemic with my children. We were just like couch surfing essentially and at one point we were like living in my car.
It was pretty rough. It was kind of like, there was, I hit the bottom. And there was really nowhere else for me to go. So I, I didn't know what I was doing at all. I had been a stay at home mom with my kids for over, I think, 12 years. At that point, I had been at home and out of the workforce. I wasn't, like I said, not qualified to do any specific type of work.
I had always just kind of bounced from one super random entry level job. was never, like, interested in pursuing a career path of any kind. But I also at that time realized that, like, I had this really unique opportunity in front of me. Um, it's not very often. Your slate gets wiped clean in midlife, and I was really keenly aware of what a gift this chance was for me to start over and to build something that was unique to me, and that would be the best fit for, for me as, as a person, but also as like a, a person that deals with chronic health problems and just generally having low energy and also being a very like sensory sensitive person.
It's very easy for jobs to drain on my energy in a way that is not sustainable. So I was really excited because I knew that I had an opportunity to create something that was going to serve me the way that I wanted to serve other people. Um, but I didn't know what that was at all, so I decided to kind of hand it over to the universe. I knew that this was a problem that I was not going to solve with my conscious brain. Um, so I leaned in really hard on my kind of like spiritual practice and I started just spending a lot of time in the woods by myself. It was winter. And I went camping every week, every weekend.
It was not really fun. It was pretty cold and miserable a lot of the time, but I just leaned really hard into doing things that I do connected me with my intuition, which is being alone, being outside, being in nature, and just like being away from the excessive stimulation that is just a part of our normal lives now.
And I did that for about four months. And, you know, I didn't hand myself over completely and just say, like, whatever the universe brings. I was also kind of, like, actively looking at what are the things that I am the most passionate about? What are the areas that I'm most knowledgeable in? And what, what is the kind of work that I like to do that I find really fulfilling?
For me, that's writing, anything to do with spending time outside, working with people one on one, especially, is really rewarding for me, whereas interfacing with big groups, um, can be very draining, I think. So, I did have some kind of, like, themes in mind, but I, beyond that point, I was truly... So I went out to the woods, I spent my time by myself, I gave my brain a chance to unfurl.
And after about four months, one day I received this like very clear and specific download. I got this very specific transmission and it told me that my purpose was teaching people how to reconnect with nature. And I, and I was like, okay, great. Like, that's great. That sounds like something I would do.
That makes sense. I love that. So it was really exciting for a second, and then almost immediately I was like, okay, but what does that mean? Where do I take that? Because... That's really vague and it doesn't sound like a job and I have got kids to feed and bills to pay so I needed more information so I just didn't let up.
I just kept going outside. I kept camping alone and hiking and backpacking alone. And maybe about six weeks later, I was walking on the beach outside of Tillamook. And I came across this really cool rock, it was a big chunk of carnelian, and I picked it up out of the sand, and right as I, like, picked it up and turned it over, I got this, another, like, really clear transmission, and the message was, “start a guiding service in the Tillamook State Forest,” and so I did.
I got back to my car a couple hours later, and I called the Oregon Department of Forestry. And I started the process of applying for a special use permit to guide hikes in the Tillamook. Six days later, I had an LLC. Within a month, I had taken the class, gotten the insurance, and gotten my license. And, uh, and it just, it went from there.
And I want to be clear like I didn't have any background in business or any plan to ever start a business or any like knowledge of any of these tasks. This process was totally new to me. But I just went all in and it took about six months for the first of my two special use permits to come through.
And during that time, I taught myself how to design a website. I learned how to do social media marketing. I took some marketing courses and I just yeah, I, I went all in on these very specific instructions that I was given.
Megan:
Thank you so much for sharing that. What a really special, kind of mythic story.
One of the things I love about that is that you didn't know where to go next, but you just focused on making the space for it. You just went out to where it felt right. And you just for four months and then six weeks after that just kept making the space. And I find that that's kind of like all we, that's the only place we can start really when we're at the precipice of something completely unknown.
And it's just so, it's always so inspiring to hear that that worked and that you, yeah, that you got. Clarity that you needed and, um, that it, yes, it took a lot of effort and patience, but it eventually came through and then, and then you did something with it, which is the other challenge, right? Because sometimes we get the really clear message and then we sit on it and you acted right away.
And so, yeah, there's just so much about the story that led you here, that's really profound.
Norther:
I think most people in my shoes would have probably taken the quickest path to safety. And that's what everybody around me told me to do. Go to college, take out some loans, go get a job, get what, take whatever you can find, get, you know, move into an apartment and just like do the thing.
And I can't. I cannot, I am not available for that. And I never have been. Um, and I think the thing in that, in that situation that served me the best, besides the fact that I have kind of like a lifelong connection to listening to my intuition and following its instruction, is that I was already at the bottom, so I really had nothing to lose, because I had nothing.
And it was, it was very terrifying. And it was also this like, incredible sense of freedom that was very scary to look at because I knew I was going to be okay and I trusted myself to not walk off of the edge of a cliff that I couldn't come back from. But, um, but it was really hard, I think, especially for the people around me to look at me, like, take a leap at that time in my life when most people would have, would have pivoted towards whatever felt safe and whatever their, their conscious mind said was the best option.
Megan:
Totally. So one of the things that it sounds like really held you in that time was your relationship to place and to the sort of grounding that you found out in these. More wild spaces. And that's something that you obviously carry into your work now. And one of the projects that you have is this interview series, Topophilia, um, where you interview others about intimacy with place.
And I'd love to hear more about what you mean by that term, intimacy with place and, and how it's more than just like enjoying nature or like enjoying a good hike. And if I think it can be that, but what do you mean by intimacy with place?
Norther:
Intimacy with place is a practice that I think is pretty common among people who've spent a lot of time in the outdoors, whether they’re just like mountain people or, or adventure sport athletes or what, you know, other kinds of like outdoor professionals. Everybody's got a spot that they go to that's like their spot, like their, their home in the forest or whatever. And there's a lot of benefits to building relationship with a specific place.
But one of them is that it's an excellent way to develop competency. You know, the best adventure sport athletes in the world don't skip from destination to destination becoming the best because they've rock climbed every climb in every park in their country. You know, like, the best skiers in the world don't ski every single mountain in succession.
But for some reason as hikers and like pedestrians, recreational pedestrians, like people love to skip from one hike to the next and always trying something new and that's just not how you build competency. That's not how you get good at things. So as I met like more and more people who like myself prioritizing prioritize spending time in the outdoors, I noticed that this was a theme that everybody had a place or multiple places that they visited regularly, seasonally, if not more than that, year after year, and that, that they were gaining a lot from these experiences.
When I tried it, when I decided to implement that practice after, um, I had a near fatal mountain climbing accident in 2017, and I was very traumatized, and I needed to work through a lot of, of emotional and psychological stuff.
I decided to implement this practice by going to the same area every single week as summer transitioned into winter, essentially. And I learned so much about the forest, about myself, about the activities that I was taking on. I became a better navigator. I found a sense of, like, safety in that familiarity.
It was easier for me to, like, push my edges because I'm in a place that I knew really well, and I had practiced this route many times before. So, people don't talk about it very often, but it's definitely something that, like, anybody who spends a lot of time outdoors actually does. And when I was a couple, I guess it was maybe like a year and a half into Wild Solitude, I was like kind of burned out from creating content to talk about ideas like intimacy with place.
And I felt like, um, it would be fun to bring some other voices in online to kind of share these experiences and talk about how, how they, you know, different people utilize this practice. Just for themselves. Um, but I also really wanted to create an outlet to share some of the stories of people I know who are kind of, you know, legends in their own right, but, you know, aren't doing magazine interviews or, or podcast interviews that often or whatever.
There are a lot of really incredible people who are kind of part of the larger like outdoor scene in the Pacific Northwest, and I thought it would be cool to document more of their stories. And to just do something that wasn't, like, about creating content, like, I was just kind of, like, burnt out on, like, making reels and writing captions and being on TikTok and all that stuff.
Like, I wanted a project that could connect back to my work that, that wasn't a job for me. So I thought this was just be like a nice fun little side project that I got to do.
Megan:
Yeah. Sounds like it was a way to make the work feel more sustainable for you. I think that's beautiful. What are some of the things, maybe not with the people, I mean, maybe with the people you interview, but for like lay people like myself and probably most of the people listening, what are the, some of the major things you see keeping amateurs from getting out into wild spaces and feeling more comfortable. What are some of the barriers that you see in your work with people?
Norther:
I think the biggest barrier that I see is that when you can't visualize yourself, like, undertaking an experience, uh, it's a lot harder to make space in your life for that experience. So, um, I live in Portland and there are a lot of new people who come to Portland all the time.
And it's a very overwhelming to... have so many different hiking options to choose from and like people have told me like everyone seems so outdoorsy and it seems like everybody goes outside every weekend and it feels like really overwhelming it's really like hard to get in so you know i think i think for a lot of people it's just like not really knowing where to go, like not really being sure that they know what stuff to bring, knowing that they're probably going to have like big crowds to deal with different places, and not really having a plan for how to like get around that at all.
I think that's a big obstacle that keeps people indoors. There's also a lot of kind of like fear and misinformation spread about whether or not hiking is like by yourself is safe. And I think a lot of people believe that they need to go with someone else for safety reasons. And, and it's, you know, we're all adults.
It is so hard. coordinate skills with another adult, especially if you both have children, forget it. That's, you're never going to go hiking if you're like waiting for other people to join you. It's very impractical. So I think there's a lot of like fear that people are working with and, and just kind of like inaccurate information about the idea of hiking alone being like this super dangerous thing.
Megan:
Yeah, that has definitely kept me, and you're so right, I hardly ever go anymore because it's like impossible to make it work with others, and one of the reasons that I reached out to you was about fear in particular, just really noticing how uncomfortable I feel in Wild spaces by myself, um, and wanting to, I don't know, work with that differently or find some ways to just be with that in a different way.
That's not just feeling escalated all the time. And I want to share a quote from you. This was from a post recently about fear and you wrote, "I look fear in the face all the time. I am always doing this work. I am not, nor have I ever been fearless. What I am, instead, is so practiced, so experienced, so competent, that I trust myself completely. My belief in myself eclipses my fear."
And I would love to spend some time talking about why some of the main fears that come up for people, especially around like strangers or predators, why some of those are just cultural myths that. We can sort of deconstruct, but also how you in particular or how you recommend people work through them.
And I think you mentioned already like building that competency by going back to the same place, but why are some of these fears larger than they really need to be? And what are some ways that people can shift them or, or move through them differently?
Norther:
I think a lot of people's fears are based on kind of like outdated ideas, and also maybe things they see on TV. There's definitely a lot of people who are listening to like true crime podcasts and it's really not serving them. So I think that that's certainly like a big cultural part. There's also kind of, like, this idea that, you know, that you're not safe in the woods alone as a woman. I mean, we face risk everywhere we go, right?
So like, that's nothing new for us, but I, I really do believe that that narrative, um, serves the patriarchy more than anything else. Because the further that you get away from other people, the safer that you are. And that's just, that, that is a sad fact, but it's, it's very true that like, if you can find a place to go where there are no other humans around, the risk of your activity decreases dramatically.
The other piece with that and, and this is kind of how I approach things for me as like somebody with a more advanced practice, but this is appropriate for anyone really learning how to separate risk and fear and seeing those two things are actually completely different is the, the thing for me that really like anchors me when I feel unsettled.
You know, most people have predator fear of some kind, whether that's like cougars, bears, or men. Another really common fear is, falls into a category that I call proximity to vastness, which is like things like the ocean, darkness. Um, wide open spaces, pretty much any kind of situation you can be in where you are very much aware of how tiny and small and powerless you really are in, in the scale of, of things.
So most people I talk to fall into those two categories. It's either predators or it's just like not being cozy with how tiny we are. And those are not things that really are actually worth worrying about. Most of them. Um, the biggest risk that most people face or like the biggest wild card is you. You know, like most, uh, backcountry accidents are user error, whether that's something, um, you know, more straightforward, like hiking, uh, getting lost, like not making good choices, having the wrong gear, things like that.
Or, you know, uh, sports that have kind of like a bigger level of risk associated with them. Rock climbing, you know, there is, is definitely like a big deal in rock climbing for me. I try to notice my fear, like when I'm scared or when I'm starting to get kind of like freaked out about something, I just stop and look around and I'm like, okay, I'm getting this right now.
Is it an intuitive feeling or is it, like, my noisy brain is trying to, trying to come up with some narratives for me right now. I just kind of like pay attention to like where that thought and that feeling is coming from. And then I take a look around and I acknowledge like the actual risks that I face in a given situation.
Like I was hiking in southern Oregon last week and I got kind of creeped out and I was like, Hmm, what is it about this that bothers me? You know, and I just kind of paid attention to that for a while, and I just kind of like examined the fear rather than acknowledging it as real, because Yeah, because there's no value in that.
And then I looked around and I was like, okay, so actual risks we are facing today: getting poked in the eye with a stick, um, on a not very well maintained trail, I was like doing a little bit of bushwhacking. There was some nettles, there was some poison oak, there was a couple places where I definitely could have like, tripped and fallen in the wrong direction and, and gone off of a cliff.
There was nobody around, so I wasn't really, didn't really have any reason to worry about people, and, and that was it. And I was like, well, I can handle some nettles and some poison oak, and I'm just going to be careful by the cliffy parts, and I think that's all. I think that's all I've got to do here. So I just try to look at things really practically, like look at the situation head on.
Now there could have been like some creep lurking around the corner, right? Like there's a one in a million chance that somebody is in the vicinity that wants to bother me. But I can't, I can't actually prepare myself for that situation in any way. There's nothing I can do in the moment to make that different for myself.
So I just try to stay really grounded in dealing with exactly the things that are in front of me right now and not letting my brain take me for a ride or tell me a story.
Megan:
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I'd love to hear a little bit more about how you tell the difference between a sort of intuitive hit, because I mean, fear can be protective.
Of course, like you've talked about how your intuition is kind of the greatest, source of protection that you have. And so we want to like tune into that, but do you have any sense of like the difference between. Your intuition being sort of like something's weird here versus the brain just doing its thing.
Yeah. Do they have a difference for you?
Norther:
For me, it's the stories that come with it. My intuition will just be like, leave. Leave right now. Go. Turn around and go. Whereas my fear will be like, “oh, I feel kind of creeped out. What if this happened? What if that happened? What if this other thing happened? What if there's an axe murder in the bushes waiting for you?”
That's the easiest way for me to tell, but I know that everybody connects with their intuition differently. So I don't know how helpful that is for other people.
Megan:
No, it is. I think that's totally true as well, or has been my experience too, that there's like a simplicity and and sort of cleanness to it versus like all the blubber of the mind.
I remember on our walk together, I told you, like, how preoccupied or nervous I am about cougars, especially. I've had a couple like encounters that felt meaningful to me. And now I just feel unsettled. And I remember you told me that you used to, like, run these trails in Mount Hood, and then someone was killed by a cougar, the same trail that you had been on, and you did this sort of research project, essentially, to make sense of what happened, and I thought that was a really beautiful example of how to bring in, how to, like, honor the fear of But also bring in some of the data to help make sense of this thing that could be big and scary.
So if you're open to it, I wanted to make a little space for that story as well.
Norther:
Yeah, so when I first started my first year of my Intentional intimacy with place practice. I was, um, running at least once, if not three times a week in a salmon Huckleberry wilderness on Mount hood. And it had been about a year since I had started going out there and I was trail running in the woods by myself.
And, um, I had done this big long loop, you know, and didn't hardly see anybody. Um, I did sprain my ankle really badly in the middle of the, of the run, but made it back to my car. Okay. And then a couple of days later, I heard that a woman had been killed on that same trail. Um, maybe like a day or two after me and, you know, a friend of a friend had been on the team that recovered her body.
So I got kind of some good, like, Um, behind the scenes info about that attack and that was, that was really upsetting to me because I felt so safe there. That was my, that was my spot. That was my home and I felt really comfortable in those woods. Um, I knew that there were cougars out there. My mom had seen a cougar out there earlier, like maybe 10 years earlier.
Um, and I know that cougars are in the woods. I mean, there's, there's hundreds of them in the Tillamook, but I, you know, knew that. Cougar attacks were extremely rare and that I would never probably ever even see a cougar. So, you know, I had put it out of my mind. I had rational reasons to like, not think about cougar attacks.
And then this cougar attack happened and this woman who was hiking alone, like I had been. For a year was killed and she fought back, you know, like it was kind of like all of the things that everybody says that you're supposed to do. She did them and she still she did not survive. So that was really upsetting to me.
And it really rattled my sense of safety in the outdoors. Um, especially because like I mentioned, like I had started this practice to recover from the trauma of a near fatal mountain climbing accident. So I was, I was working really hard towards a feeling of safety and confidence in the outdoors. That was my goal at that time was to like, get back the feeling of safety and security and trust in myself that I had. So, you know, I did, I did learn as much about cougars as I could. I read a lot about them. I spent a lot of time talking to other people about them. I talked to a lot of hunters. Um, I also talked to a lot of people who do bird surveys, like marbled mullet surveys in the Coast Range because those people all, those people all have insane cougar encounter stories. And I thought it was so interesting because whenever I would talk to somebody who had a cougar story, almost exclusively these were people who were creeping around in the woods at a weird time, acting not like a normal hiker, you know, they were, they were lurking around looking for animals.
And and almost all of them had stories about, well, one time this cougar came down and kind of tried to mess with me a little bit, see if I was easy prey. And I learned that, you know, cougars don't want to fight the cougar does not want to fight you to the death at all. That is not their style when they attack an animal.
They like to go in and, uh, maim. their prey, and then they back off, and then they just stalk the prey until it drops. So, even if you are, for some wild reason, attacked by a cougar, like, in that attack, like, the cougar's goal is not to take you down right then and there. It just wants to hurt you bad enough that you'll, like, wander off, get lost, fall down, and then it'll finish you.
So, knowing that helped me, like, make more sense of some of the behaviors that I had heard about from other people. Um, especially my friends doing the bird surveys. You know, they go out into the woods at, uh, just before dawn, and they go to some super random location that they have to find, and then they lay on their back on, like, a log or whatever, and they look up at the sky, and they count birds.
So, Cougars find that behavior incredibly suspicious. They think it's weird and they will come down and pick on you. The average person is never going to see a cougar. Um, they, they don't want to be around it. There are like hundreds of these animals in the woods. It's a whole lion, you know, that lives in the woods that you're never going to see because it wants to stay away from us that badly.
They leave when we come around or they hide from us. They climb up and hide in trees. They don't want us to see them. They don't really want to interact with us. And that's why those interactions are so uncommon, despite the fact that there are a substantial number. of these lions roaming in the woods.
The more I learned about cougars, the more I was just like, this isn't really an issue. And at that time, I was living in the foothills of the Cascades and I had started trail running by my house. And, uh, my neighbor one time sent me a photo of his trail camera and it, it was a picture of like a mother cougar, three adult babies.
They were big, but, um, yeah, but they were still like following her. And that was from like around the corner from my house. I definitely ran by that property all the time. And they have a very large range, uh, cougars do. So just because you see one in one area, it doesn't mean that it. It's anywhere near there the next time.
So at that point, I just had to accept that, like, that's part of being in the woods is, is knowing that those guys are out there. And as long as you act like you are in good health and doing normal human things, they're never going to come check on you.
Megan:
Thank you. It sounds like this journey of resettling into these practices in these places and kind of, um, work through that trauma of the fall and then these other things that have happened and are still able to be out there in the, in like, in a really loving way and connecting others to these spaces in ways that do feel safe and grounding.
So thanks for sharing that. Maybe before we start wrapping up, I have one more question. I was hoping you could share a little bit about your passion for going off trail, which I think is actually - in hearing more about your story today - a really beautiful metaphor for your own personal journey.
But can you tell people a little bit about why you talk about going off trails, some of the benefits of it? And if you want to talk about some of the resources you have for that, that's great too.
Norther:
Yeah, so I think a lot of people when they hear off trail hiking are imagining like some level five bushwhacking through like a very dense understoried forest, like people automatically kind of like build this image in their mind of the worst kind of hiking that there is, and off trail hiking doesn't need to be anything like that.
The state of Oregon is like 50% I think maybe 51% public lands and only a really small portion of that is actually developed for recreational use with trails. So there's, there's this huge swath of land that It doesn't have any trails on it, it's public land, it's open and available for you to use, and it does take a little work to learn how to, like, utilize these places best.
I think that off trail hiking came easy for me because I learned everything I know about hiking from a hunter, and off trail hiking is obviously a standard part of hunting. They don't use trails to go look for animals. And then I also, as I kind of got more into hiking and the outdoors, I started to meet more and more people who were going off trail for a number of different reasons, whether they were into cave exploration or waterfall photography or canyoneering.
There's a lot of different activities that you can get into that are going to take you off trail. I'm at that time in my life, you know, I was into rock climbing and rock climbers are the worst trail builders anywhere. Approach trails are always like totally poorly planned and pretty miserable. So sometimes like staying on trail is the goal. And that's just like the hope that you shoot for kind of. So I've had like a number of kind of standard recreational opportunities to be hiking off trail, whether it was like in rock climbing, mountain climbing, waterfall chasing, whatever. But then I started to spend a lot of time in the southeast part of the state, especially around Heart Mountain and Summer Lake.
And there are really no trails down there to speak of, just a handful, and even those are like, not very well maintained. So you're going to be utilizing navigational techniques to follow those trails, whether they exist officially or not. Learning how to read maps and navigate off trail was completely necessary for me to visit some of the areas that I had been reading and doing research about. So, It's a skill set that I just kind of acquired gradually over probably 10 years.
I lived in northern New Mexico for a little while, and that was where I kind of got into hiking too, and that was all. off trail only. It was just kind of like, oh, I heard there's, I heard there's some cliff dwellings in a cave over on that side of the, on that side of the valley. You can just kind of like, scramble over there and go check it out. So the more I got interested in that stuff, I realized that there's actually so much more available to us. Once we break away from the idea of using these tiny little human highways that we've carved into the forest, um, my favorite off trail hiking is finding and exploring legacy logging roads in the Tillamook.
And that makes up probably the bulk of the hikes that I take people on in the Tillamook State Forest. Legacy logging roads are gently graded. They're nice and wide. They're really fun and easy to follow and probably easier than a trail in some cases, but they're not considered a technical trail and they're not really offered any type of maintenance unless they're being used for a commercial purpose.
So those are some of my favorite kind of adventures to have. I also guide in, um, on a piece of land outside of Maupin called the Criterion Tract. That's like up above the Deschutes River and that is just an abandoned cattle ranch that doesn't have any trails on it at all. Um, just an old logging or an old farm road that we follow sometimes but other than that everything is just cross country hiking.
So this just opens up your your range of possibilities once you acquire the pretty simple and straightforward skills that are required to to follow an old road or find one. Um, or to, like, identify and choose off trail objectives using maps and GPS. So in order to facilitate, like, supporting people with, with that, I offer a bunch of different classes.
One of them is a map reading and navigation class that I teach in person in the Tillamook State Forest and also in Maupin. And I also have destination research that I can teach via Zoom for people who are like not local. And that's just a class where we, we go over maps together and talk about how you can figure out things ahead of time before you get to your destination that are going to make it easier for you to access whatever area you're looking in.
But any of the, almost any of the hikes that I sign up for are off trail. I rarely guide on an official maintained trail, because there's just so many other better options.
Megan:
Makes sense. Oh, thank you. Well, Norther, I'm so glad that you answered the call that you got by the ocean in Tillamook. And just so grateful that you came today and shared with us. Where can people find you? How can they follow along?
Norther:
So the best way to connect with my work is through Instagram. I post a lot on Instagram and I share a lot of information about the courses and classes and stuff that I offer, but also just about my own practice and about the different ideas and concepts that I talk about and teach.
I also have a website where you can subscribe to the Topophilia Project and get updates every time we publish a new interview. And then I'm on Facebook and TikTok as well. But yeah, anybody that is interested to learn, feel free to reach out and send me a DM. I love talking to people and, and kind of steering them along the way.
Megan:
Cool, I'll put all of those in the show notes so people have them. Thank you so much, Norther.
Norther:
Yeah, thank you so much, Megan.
Megan:
Okay, my friend, I hope that you loved this episode and that it gives you a renewed sense of courage to get out there and try some new things and connect with this wild land that we live on.
I encourage you to follow along with Norther, get to know her work more. And I want to let you know that I'll be doing something special for the 100th episode coming out in a couple of weeks, and I haven't landed quite on a thing yet, but stay tuned. I'll share more next week in that episode.
So yeah, I'll be back with you in a week with another really lovely interview. Take such good care, and I'll see you on the other side.
To connect with Norther, visit:
*Wildsolitudeguide.com
*@wildsolitudeguiding
*Churchovsolitude.com
Other resources mentioned:
Unlearning Capitalism: awildnewwork.com
To find out when the Tracking Spirit class is live for registration, sign up for my email newsletter, at this link: http://eepurl.com/iimupP
To learn more about how I work with people one on one, visit: https://awildnewwork.com/one-on-one-coaching
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