HANNAH LAFLEUR
Mountains have always had a gravitational pull for Hannah, beginning in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, where she grew up, largely outdoors and often covered in mud. After exploring many mountain ranges from the Andes to the Alps, you’ll now find her running up and down mountains in fjord country, savoring the ridges and alpine zones of the peaks in her backyard of Seward. With a BA in Environmental Science from Colby College, Hannah feels that one of the most important ingredients for effective conservation is a deep connection to the natural world. That sense of love, appreciation, and respect for wild places is what motivates us to fight for it. Hannah is excited to share with you her passion for lacing up her shoes and hitting the trail, as well as her curiosity about the dynamic relationship between humans and the environment.
LENI CHARBONNEAU
Leni has spent a good deal of her life setting up tent and home in high places. Having passed much time on the Atlantic side of “the north,” she’s taken to the Norwegian concept of friluftsliv, or open-air living, where the outdoors are not simply those places where we have passing experiences, but are the extension of our everyday lives. She is thrilled to be working as a guide for the Seward Wilderness Collective to help share the senses of home, self, community, and stewardship to be found even as we visit new places.
After spending some years working with environmental coalitions between Scandinavia and Japan, Leni completed her master’s degree in environmental history in Sweden. Her studies and research developed a new passion: storytelling about the ways humans and microorganisms co-create cultures, environments, and flavors on micro and macro scales. Leni is likewise excited to bring some micro/macro stories forth to the community in her second role as manager of the Seward Farmers’ Market.
When she’s not guiding or dishing out nordic veg this summer you’ll find Leni helping out with operations at Kayak Adventures Worldwide, getting to know the landscapes of Seward with her watercolors, or writing about the microverse.
CHRIS FLETCHER
Chris’s love of nature began on the rocky summit of Mt Monadnock in New Hampshire. Up there he discovered the perspective, play, curiosity, challenge, and peace that is possible when we leave the asphalt behind and he’s spent the majority of his adult life pursuing them and helping others do the same.
Chris has worked as an outdoor educator in New England and California, while guiding adventure travel trips in the U.S. and internationally. In the Northwest, Chris taught in Seattle and worked in wilderness therapy in Oregon. Last fall he decided to act on a long held ambition to live in Alaska and drove up the AlCan in winter.
Described by friends as light-hearted, playful (he is a champion WhirlyBall player), and thoughtful, Chris strives to add the personal to his professional side, upholding high standards while allowing space for vulnerability and authenticity. He believes in connecting people to each other and to the natural world.
RYAN WANAMAKER
Ryan has spent much of his life nor-dorking around — fishing, farming, kayak guiding, fumbling with skis, and generally managing mildew in the fjords of Alaska and Scandinavia. Why is he once again uprooting himself from his home amidst the dry soaring granite and friendly mules of the Eastern Sierra to spend the best parts of the year smack in the middle of the earth’s largest temperate rainforest? From experience we know that Ryan actually loves putting his extensive glove & jacket collection to work. But more importantly, we also know that he — like us — has an abiding appreciation and enthusiasm for the connective potencies which can be realized through experiential learning.
Ryan has been an environmental educator for almost 30 years and continues to be passionate about the capacity this work has to cultivate and create strong and earthly ways of knowing ourselves, one another, and of course the more-than-human. Guiding, tourism, and community organizing in these dynamic glaciated landscapes presents a powerful opportunity for us to build the necessary, new, and creative sense — and response — abilities, to our human ecology.
TRENT GOULD
Trent considers himself a grand generalist who enjoys windy hikes, trail runs through old spruce forests, empty surf breaks at sunrise and reading the New York Times with a fresh cup of coffee. After finishing his degree in Outdoor Education and Wilderness Leadership he moved to Alaska and has had the opportunity to guide in this area for the past 8 years. He believes the Collective has an opportunity to be an influential leader within the tourism industry and is proud to be a part of this movement. He looks forward to sharing stories, hearing your thoughts and inspiring hope through purposeful exploration of this wild, beautiful, and fragile place we call home.