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Tackling Alaska's Malaspina Glacier with 2 babies in towWhen the violent storms of fall come marching across the Gulf of Alaska to pound desolate coast, it's hard to avoid thoughts of the family Higman-McKittrick out there all alone in their tiny nylon shelter. Mama Erin McKittrick acknowledged the difficulties ahead as she and husband Bretwood Higman prepared to leave Anchorage for the Malaspina Glacier in September with two infants -- 2 1/2-year-old Katmai and 8-month-old Lituya -- in tow. "It changes what can go wrong," she said. "It changes what the responses are. The calculations of risk are different." For Erin and Bretwood themselves, adventuring is sort of old hat. In June 2007, knowing precious little about long-distance wilderness travel, they launched an epic, year-long expedition from Seattle up the Pacific coast to Alaska's Prince William Sound and then west to the Aleutian Islands. By the time they were done "ground-truth trekking," as they call it, in June 2008, they had covered 4,000 miles and learned a whole lot about life and travel in the wild lands. Out of the adventure came a book, "A Long Trek Home: 4,000 Miles by Boot, Raft, and Ski"; a movie, "Journey on the Wild Coast", and a way of life. The young couple, Erin, then 28, and 30-year-old Bretwood -- "Hig" to almost everyone -- settled into life in a yurt in Seldovia, a community of about 150 near the southwest tip of the still wild Kenai Peninsula about 135 miles from Alaska's largest city. There they began cobbling together a life as writers, film makers and environmental activists. Strange as it might sound, "Ground Truth Trekking" became their business. Their website describes the nonprofit company this way: Ground Truth Trekking is based on the belief that expeditions to see what's on the ground help us learn about important issues. We combine that "ground truth" with "researched truth," using our scientific backgrounds along with our adventures to come up with something we hope will further the conversation about these issues in an entertaining and informative way. Hig and Erin are smart people. He has a Ph.D. in geology from the University of Washington. She earned a master's in molecular biology. Both were career-tracked to be scientists, until they took the turn toward becoming new-age, high-tech, back-to-the-earthers. "Broadband, Yes. Toilet, No" is how a headline in the Home and Garden section of the New York Times succinctly described them in 2009. "In the center of their yurt is a small, constantly burning wood stove,'' writer Sarah Maslin Nir observed. "In Seldovia, which can see up to 17 feet of snow in a season, even the biggest blaze offers slight warmth. It’s often freezing inside when they wake up in the morning. They feed logs into the stove every 15 to 30 minutes; the winter ritual of chopping, hauling and splitting firewood is constant and arduous." The story sparked some predictable reactions from that huge slice of the world Alaskans simply call "Outside." "People thought even living in a yurt is child abuse,'' Erin said. But that was the least of it. One blogger, noting the contrast between their love of technology and back-to-the-earth lifestyle, labeled them "The Most Irritating New York Times Couple Ever." Adrian Chen's complaint was that the Times had found yet more Americans able to make a living working way outside the 9-to-5 job box. This he clearly did not view as a victory of capitalism. "These yurt-dwelling neo-back-to-the-landers might take the self-satisfied cake," Chen wrote. Very interesting. I would hope that any "ground truth" exercise includes the people who live and have lived on the land they visit. I knew you'd finally get around to writing this article, Craig. You were the first MSM writer to cover them, back in early 2008, for the ADN. Probably the best article written yet about this fascinating young family. More young people need to know about them and their amazing iconoclasm. Cool |
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