Guest Contributor

Diversity, Essays, Guest Contributor, National Forests, Outdoors For All, Private Land, Public Land, ReThinkOutside / 09.10.2020

I am African-American.  Feels important that I say that up front.  Born in New York city and raised by black parents on land belonging to a wealthy, Jewish family, I was “homeschooled” emotionally and spiritually on a diet of black power, black striving and black possibility.  I often joke with people that I lived with Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali whose presence my father invoked on a regular basis.  My parents, Henry and Rose, grew up in Floyd, Virginia – poor and black with a high school education. ...

#BlackLivesMatter, Commentary, Diversity, Essays, Guest Contributor, National Parks / 07.03.2017

Like much of modern America I was appalled by a seemingly innocuous line in a recent speech by the newly appointed Department of Housing and Urban Development Director Dr. Benjamin Carson. On his first day in office he addressed staff members with a lecture on the virtues of hard work and dedication in the pursuit of the American dream. With great reverence paid to the contributions of immigrants he particularly pointed out the efforts those forcibly brought to this country against their will. “That’s what America is about,” Carson...

Art, Commentary, Guest Contributor / 13.06.2013

There are few days when I don’t consider myself the luckiest person in the world. I’ve managed to pull together enough personal resources and relationships to do many amazing things in some of the most beautiful places in the world. But anyone living life in pursuit of dreams knows that there’s a price to be paid. Relative to personal happiness money has very little value. But we still have to come up with the cash to meet the mortgage, cover the utilities, make a car payment and buy...

Adventure Media Review, Diversity, Expedition Denali, Guest Contributor, National Parks / 12.03.2012

“Artists have gone with us into the Arctic and I have heard them rave over the wonderful beauties of the scene, and I have seen them at work trying to reproduce some of it, with good results but with nothing like the effect of the original…”it is color run riot”’ ----from A Black Explorer at the North Pole, pg. 67, by Matthew A. Henson African Americans have been explorers and adventurers from the very beginnings of our republic.  People of African descent accompanied many of the earliest Spanish explorers including...

Adventure Media Review, Banff, Climbing, Environmental Journalism, Film Festival, Guest Contributor / 14.11.2011

[caption id="attachment_6396" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="Photo by David J. Swift"][/caption] Alpinist Magazine editor Katie Ives sat on one of the many panel discussions during the 2011 Banff Mountain Film Festival. In a rousing discussion moderated by University of Calgary mountain literature specialist, Harry Vandervlist she and fellow panelists Anthony Whittome, Freddie Wilkinson, Dr. George Rodway, and David Roberts explored the role electronic media plays in reporting the great ascents of climbers throughout the world. Called The Digital Dilemma –Accuracy at Altitude, the panel explored how modern technology helps to overcome but sometimes contributes to a false accounting of the facts under circumstances where human perception can be compromised.