Last September, we were all beginning our first full semesters of online school. Lab reports, essays, and even exams would be completed from our couches, kitchen tables, and bedrooms. We would tread the same path from bedroom to bathroom to kitchen and back again. If the weather was nice, perhaps we would venture to our

My name is Jackson, I’m a current student of the Conservation Across Boundaries course, and I’m here to share some of the things I’ve learned, along with a few observations I’ve made. The very first concept we studied on this course also happened to be one I was unfamiliar with. It’s the idea of Traditional

Not many people get to stand on the seafloor. At least, not consciously. When I strode into Montana’s Bob Marshall Wilderness on July 12, 2021, I wasn’t immediately concerned with the long history of the region with my exhilarated attention thoroughly divided between the cliffs and peaks surrounding the Gibson Reservoir and my dusty boots,

I was up early. It was a cold morning at our camp in a high elevation meadow in the Snowcrest Mountains of Southwestern Montana. I greeted our ever-cheerful instructor Steve and got straight to boiling water for everyone’s breakfast. It was my first time as Leader of the Day, and as I attempted to not

On our first afternoon backpacking in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley, we saw a grizzly bear. We had just set up camp for the evening in a spruce grotto beside the river when people began animatedly gesturing to ascend the hill that opened up to a small meadow above camp. Upon cresting the hill, it took me

We were told that 30 yards is far too close to get to a grizzly. In Yellowstone, you need to be at least six school buses away from them. Our first day there, we got within one. On the second of July, we hiked about five miles from the Lamar Valley to our first campsite.

My heart heavy, my mind intrigued, and my body attentive, I listened to Hal Herring tell a tale of America’s public lands. Details left and right—the Homestead Act, droughts, Dust Bowl, Great Depression, Clean Water Act—he built a narrative of the rise of America’s public lands but never left out the dark truth of America’s

In the words of the great Bucky Preston (Hopi elder and activist), “I guess I’m an environmentalist.”  What was meant by this seemingly simple statement was that through the actions and protests he has partaken in over his lifetime he was not trying to conform to a group identity, he was trying to live a

“In the Western tradition there is a recognized hierarchy of beings, with, of course, the human being on top. But… we must look to our teachers among the other species for guidance. Their wisdom is apparent in the way that they live. They teach us by example.” -Robin Wall Kimmer “Hey bear!” A deceiving call,

I can’t get to my binoculars quickly enough. The dark shape soars above us in effortless circles. I can see the flash of white tail feathers in the sun. I fumble with the protective covers of my binoculars and finally squint through the eyepieces as my kayak twists sideways in the water. The bald eagle