Tag: breaking barriers

Wild, Outstanding, and Remarkable: Meet the Seven Wild and Scenic Rivers Flowing on Alaska’s National Wildlife Refuges    

Tuesday, March 16, 2021, 5-6pm (AKDT) 
Jennifer Reed, Arctic Refuge and FWS Wild and Scenic Rivers Program Lead

Recorded meeting below

Jennifer Reed of the Arctic Refuge will bring you on an unforgettable adventure exploring each of these distinct and thriving waterways.  While Alaska’s Refuges TEEM with countless amazing rivers, the rivers Congress deemed superlative and distinct within the Alaska  Refuges include:  Andreafsky (Yukon Delta); Beaver Creek (Yukon Flats); Ivishak, Sheenjek, and Wind (Arctic Refuge); Nowitna (Nowitna Refuge); and Selawik (Selawik Refuge).  Some are great salmon highways; others host more northern species like grayling and sheefish.  Some are corridors for vast caribou migrations and all furnish important riparian habitat and travel routes for waterfowl, songbirds, furbearers and all grazing species.  People have used them as transportation corridors and food sources for millennia,  since they are within the homelands of Alaska’s indigenous peoples. Subsistence users have now been joined by  adventurers and fisherfolk seeking solitude and the joy of rivers.

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Sheenjek Wild and Scenic River, Arctic Refuge (USFWS/A. Bonogofsky)

Jennifer Reed is the national and regional Fish and Wildlife Service lead for the Wild and Scenic Rivers Program.  She has lived between the Alaska Range and the Brooks Range since finishing college and leaving Detroit for her first Alaska job as a Denali Park Ranger.  She taught school for 8 years, part of the time on Nelson Island, before developing a federal career focused on connecting people with their public lands.  Jennifer confessed that she was not initially a rivers person beginning her  love affair with landscape-meets-human as a backpacker. Dog mushing and hiking are more natural to her but she became a boater because of her dedication to relating to the visitors to the Arctic Refuge. Since then she has boated most of the major rivers in the West.  Jennifer lives in Fairbanks. 



View Recorded Meeting:

Vets, Kids and Fly Fishing;
Finding Healing and Leadership in Wild Places    
Tuesday, February 23, 2021, 5-6pm (AKDT)
Friends monthly meeting with guest speaker, Chad Brown of Soul River Inc.

Recorded meeting video

Navy Veteran Chad Brown was homeless and medicated for PTSD when he discovered fly fishing and the healing power of rivers.  Brown said that the first tug on his line from his first fish was like a bolt of nature’s electricity bringing him back to life.  He founded Soul River, Inc. to share what rivers and fishing had done for him.  He pairs vets and inner city kids  on “deployments” to wild rivers including several trips to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  Amid the grandeur of the Refuge, the vets found purpose as mentors and the youth flourished in this new world of nature, adventure and fishing.  

Brown will share with us his story, the success of Soul River and how his mission has grown into protecting the Arctic Refuge and being of service to Native  communities.  He will tell us about his new non-profit, Love is King, which is dedicated to creating equitable and safe access to the outdoors for people of color.

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Chad Brown grew up in Texas hunting and spending time on his grandparents farm.  He joined the Navy to get the GI Bill and served in Desert Storm, Desert Shield and Restore Hope Somalia.   After the military, he earned a Master of Science in Communications Design and had a successful career as an art director and  photographer before his PTSD caught up with him and brought him down.  After fishing and rivers and the VA healed him he started Soul River as well as serving as creative director of Chado Communication Design and Soul River Studios.  Besides being an avid fly fisherman he is a bow hunter, outdoor adventurer and conservationist. 

Chad Brown pc: Corey Arnold