Nat Hab’s mission is Conservation by means of Exploration: defending our planet by inspiring vacationers, supporting native communities and boldly influencing the complete journey business. What started as a fledgling one-man operation has develop into a world chief in conservation journey. We owe our success to our numerous group of workplace and discipline workers, Expedition Leaders and friends.
We additionally owe gratitude to the intrepid explorers and conservationists of the previous who paved the best way for our world journeys. These people had been pioneers of their fields, taking dangers and overcoming adversity to find new lands, defend wildlife and protect cultural heritage. From the first Black man to succeed in the North Pole to the primary lady to guide an Arctic expedition, these adventurers blazed a path in order that vacationers right this moment can expertise the identical awe-inspiring pure magnificence for generations to return.
At our properties like Base Camp Greenland and Alaska Bear Camp, we honor our humble beginnings by proudly displaying the names of those that have helped us navigate the land we traverse.
Get to know a few of the girls we rejoice and get impressed by all they’ve completed!
© Court Whelan
Alaska Bear Camp
Follow within the footsteps of Alaskan frontierswomen and conservationists to expertise an unparalleled immersion in pristine brown bear habitat from our fly-in camp in Lake Clark National Park. Built on the positioning of a historic homestead on the ancestral lands of the Dena’ina folks, Alaska Bear Camp occupies a non-public inholding surrounded by 4 million acres of protected wilderness.
A nameplate graces the door of every considered one of our deluxe tent cabins. There’s one devoted to pilot Celia Hunter, who protected the Yukon River from the Rampart Dam; Margaret Murie, the “Grandmother of the Conservation Movement”; and Ada Blackjack, the only real survivor of the Wrangel Island Expedition.
Read on to find Alaska Bear Camp’s different honorees!
Rozie Bressler
Born to Russian immigrant mother and father in Brooklyn, Rosalind “Rozie” Bressler spent her childhood studying worldwide mysteries that includes the far-off lands she yearned to go to someday. As a 16-year-old scholar at Smith College, Rozie spent hours within the library, burning by means of Fodor’s guidebooks. In the mid-Nineteen Sixties, Rozie relinquished her instructing profession to boost her unruly sons, Ken and Nat Hab Founder Ben.
Rozie mentally escaped a few of their shenanigans by studying Europe on $5 a Day and dreaming of unique journeys. When the boys received bored, Rozie shuffled them outdoors to discover the wooded gulley outdoors their New Jersey house.
In the Nineteen Sixties, Rozie and her husband, Marty, spent weekends marching in Washington, protesting the Vietnam War and championing civil rights. In her pursuit of gender and race equality, Rozie grew to become an legal professional.
Between her League of Women Voters conferences and her position as Corporation Councilwoman for the town of Newark, Rozie led her household on cross-country street journeys and worldwide escapades. She introduced them from museum to museum and park to park to satiate her love of historical past, nature and tradition. Rozie collected journey experiences as others collected souvenirs, and he or she handed this ardour for exploration on to her sons.
In the late Eighties, Rozie developed a mind tumor, which hindered her eyesight, so she left her job and joined Ben’s fledgling journey firm, performing bookkeeping duties and “organizing the mayhem,” as Ben likes to say. Together, they visited the Galapagos Islands, Africa, the Arctic and the Yukon.
Brilliant, variety and unyielding in her pursuit of justice, Rozie influenced the creation of Natural Habitat Adventures and impressed our women-only adventures program, Women within the Wild.
Christine Sisco
Christine Sisco was Nat Hab’s very first worker. She was working as a journey agent in New Jersey when she responded to a “Help Wanted” commercial by Founder and President Ben Bressler. When Ben determined to relocate his firm to the foot of the Rocky Mountains in Boulder, Colorado, Christine got here too. She invited her husband on numerous early Nat Hab journeys and enthusiastically shared photographs and tales of their adventures with their kids. Soon sufficient, the children had been tagging alongside to the Bahamas, Hawaii, Costa Rica, the Grand Canyon and all over the place in between.
Guided by an unbiased spirit, Christine all the time paved her personal path and inspired others to do the identical. Her lust for all times created some unimaginable journey reminiscences, like when she flipped her kayak in Africa’s Zambezi River, adopted her husband by means of an underground tunnel to observe elephants drink from a waterhole, and cruised across the Galapagos Islands with Ben and his mother and father.
Christine’s legacy perseveres with the assistance of her daughter Katrina, who adopted in her mom’s footsteps and moved West to work for Nat Hab. As a member of the Alaska Operations group, Katrina takes care of journey particulars, guaranteeing a gratifying journey for friends. Katrina has visited greater than 20 nations, together with Canada with Nat Hab on a Churchill polar bear expedition, Brazil’s Pantanal and Tanzania to see the Great Migration. Christine handed in 2014, however her reminiscence lives on by means of household and buddies who admired her adventurous, vivacious, eclectic and selfless nature.
Margaret E. Murie
Endearingly known as “Mardy,” Margaret E. Murie, hailed because the “Grandmother of the Conservation Movement,” died peacefully on October 19, 2003, at 101, leaving an inspiring legacy in her wake.
In 1924, she grew to become the primary lady to graduate from the University of Alaska. After she married biologist Olaus Murie, the couple launched into a long time of scientific explorations from a 500-mile caribou analysis expedition by dogsled to a river journey with their toddler son strapped to their canoe.
Mardy and Olaus Murie
After touring within the Brooks Range above the Arctic Circle in the summertime of 1956, Mardy and Olaus campaigned to make the world a wildlife reserve. Four years later, President Dwight D. Eisenhower designated 8 million acres because the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; President Jimmy Carter greater than doubled the protected space in 1980.
Mardy continued her advocacy work after her husband died in 1963. She returned to Alaska to survey potential wilderness areas for the National Park Service and labored on the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act that President Carter signed in 1980. That laws put aside greater than 100 million acres of land in Alaska and upgraded Lake Clark National Monument to National Park standing.
In her congressional testimony concerning the Alaska Lands Act, Mardy passionately relayed:
“I am testifying as an emotional woman, and I would like to ask you, gentlemen, what’s wrong with emotion? Beauty is a resource in and of itself. Alaska must be allowed to be Alaska; that is her greatest economy. I hope the United States of America is not so rich that she can afford to let these wildernesses pass by or so poor she cannot afford to keep them.”
Ada Delutuk Blackjack
Ada Delutuk Blackjack was born in 1898 within the Iñupiat village of Spruce Creek, in what was then often known as the District of Alaska. She was raised in a Methodist missionary college, the place she realized to learn, write, prepare dinner and stitch. At 16, she married Jack Blackjack and gave beginning to 3 kids. Only her son Bennett survived previous infancy. However, he suffered from persistent tuberculosis. Jack abused Ada all through their marriage, and after 5 years, he deserted her.
After Jack left, Ada walked greater than 40 miles from Spruce Creek to Nome, carrying her ailing son many of the approach. She positioned him in an orphanage and sought employment as a seamstress to make sufficient cash to take care of him once more someday.
The Wrangel Island expedition get together. Front row left to proper: Allan Crawford, Ada Blackjack, Milton Galle and Victoria (the kitten born on the ship). Back row left to proper: Fred Maurer and Lorne Knight. Image courtesy of “The Adventure of Wrangel Island” by Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Public Domain
In 1921, famed explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson went to Nome searching for English-speaking Alaska Natives for his expedition to settle Wrangel, a distant island within the Chukchi Sea north of Siberia. Stefansson provided $50 per thirty days, and Ada, determined for monetary safety, volunteered. Despite orchestrating the mission, Stefansson didn’t accompany the expedition get together. Instead, he recruited a crew of American and Canadian males to solidify a declare on his behalf.
Ada was joined by Allan Crawford, Milton Galle, Fred Maurer and Lorne Knight, making her the one Inupiaq and the one lady current. The ship efficiently dropped the group off at Wrangel Island, initiating the stalwart for diplomacy. Ada shortly grew to become the expedition’s scapegoat, and the boys bullied and berated her incessantly. Homesick and alone, she discovered solace in her diary and the corporate of the ship’s kitten, Victoria (Vic for brief).
In January 1923, after an anticipated aid ship failed to succeed in them, Crawford, Maurer and Galle took the group’s remaining sled canines throughout the ocean ice to search for assist. The males had been by no means heard from once more. Back on the camp, Ada had to offer and take care of Knight, who had a extreme case of scurvy. She taught herself to catch foxes in traps, shoot birds out of the sky and defend towards polar bears. In June, Knight succumbed to his sickness, making Ada the only real survivor of the Wrangel Island expedition get together.
Resolute in her mission to see her son once more, Ada eked out a dwelling within the unforgiving arctic panorama till August 20, when she noticed the ship of Harold Noice and obtained asylum among the many crew of the Donaldson. Ada reunited with Bennett and introduced him to Seattle, the place his tuberculosis was cured. She finally returned to Alaska, the place she died on May 29, 1983, on the age of 85. Ada is buried in Anchorage Memorial Park Cemetery, the place her grave plaque reads: “The Heroine of Wrangel Island.”
Celia Hunter
Celia Hunter was a pilot and adventurer turned conservationist. She protected Arctic communities from proposed experimental nuclear blasts, saved the Yukon River from the large Rampart Dam, based the Alaska Conservation Foundation and have become the primary feminine president of The Wilderness Society.
Born right into a Quaker household on January 3, 1919, on the foothills of the Cascade Range in Washington, Hunter’s household taught her to respect nature and its stewards. Soon after her 21st birthday, Hunter flew the coop and joined the Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASPS) program in 1943.
Celia Hunter and Jim Case, Camp Denali Alaska, August 1957 © Kit Case
There, she met Ginny Hill Wood, and the 2 conspired to fly to Alaska regardless of the navy’s restrictions towards girls transporting plane. They struck a cope with a pilot who wanted planes delivered to Fairbanks, and after 27 days of weathering winter storms, the ladies arrived in Alaska and made a house.
While Hunter was initially pushed by a way of journey greater than a way of function, her love of Alaska quickly changed into a need to reserve it. In 1960, she grew to become a founding member of the Alaskan Conservation Society, a bunch that garnered public assist for what’s now the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Hunter additionally fought to move the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which protects thousands and thousands of acres as federal wilderness areas.
Celia Hunter handed away at 82 on December 1, 2001. She spent her ultimate days writing letters to senators, persuading them to oppose oil drilling within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Dr. Frederica de Laguna
Dr. Frederica “Freddy” de Laguna helped open the fields of archaeology and anthropology to girls in the course of the early twentieth century. She accomplished her doctoral research at Columbia University in 1933 and secured funding from the University of Pennsylvania Museum for 2 excavation initiatives in Cook Inlet. Over 25 years, Dr. de Laguna led 5 expeditions to Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound, some funded by revenue from her sequence of thriller novels.
During the Thirties and Nineteen Forties, Dr. de Laguna performed surveys of Tuxedni and Chinitna Bays, which are actually a part of Lake Clark National Park. These surveys marked a few of the earliest archaeological research performed within the Cook Inlet area.
Notably, in 1933, she made a major discovery in Tuxedni Bay, uncovering one of many solely two recognized pictograph websites in Lake Clark. In 2006, fashionable expertise validated her interpretation of the iconography, offering beneficial insights into the chronological timeline of coastal cultures. Dr. de Laguna once more made historical past in 1938 by instructing the first-ever archaeology course at Bryn Mawr College. However, she briefly interrupted her educational profession in 1942 to serve within the WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Service) throughout World War II.
As a testomony to her groundbreaking contributions, Dr. de Laguna grew to become the Vice President of the Society of American Archaeology from 1949 to 1950, and he or she was among the many first girls elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1986.
Base Camp Greenland
Located simply south of the Arctic Circle, Base Camp Greenland overlooks a protected bay off Sermilik Fjord the place icebergs, spawned by large glaciers, glitter within the late sundown gentle. Whales and seals frequent the fjord, and miniature wildflowers and cotton grass dot the tundra. Nothing compares to East Greenland for an epic Arctic expedition, with a chance to witness dramatic shifts on the entrance strains of a quickly altering local weather—and there’s no extra inspiring method to expertise it than from the consolation of our wilderness Base Camp!
Each of our deluxe tent cabins is devoted to an individual who has made essential contributions to the exploration and conservation of the Arctic. We proudly honor girls like Louise Arnar Boyd, the primary lady to fly over the North Pole; Inuit explorer Navarana; and LGBTQ+ activist Gerda Vilholm, who passionately contributed to the expansion of Tasiilaq.
Read on to find Base Camp Greenland’s different honorees!
Tasiilaq, Greenland. Photographed by Nat Hab traveler © James Moyer
Louise Arnar Boyd
Born in 1887 to a rich California gold miner, Louise Arnar Boyd spent a lot of her childhood fantasizing about polar exploration from contained in the partitions of her household’s mansion. Like her mom, Boyd grew to become a socialite and philanthropist, lively in group work. Still, she yearned for journey and, thus, lived vicariously by means of her hero, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, who, in 1906, tried to finish the primary sea voyage by means of the Northwest Passage.
At 32, Boyd misplaced her whole household however inherited a fortune. She took the cash and invested it in following her desires North. Her first foray was aboard a vacationer cruise to the Arctic, then a leisurely journey to Franz Josef Land, considered one of Earth’s most distant and unforgiving areas. In 1926, Boyd employed her personal ship and crew, changing into the primary lady to guide an expedition to the polar seas. In 1928, when her hero, Amundsen, disappeared at sea, Boyd participated within the 10-week rescue mission.
Throughout the Thirties, Boyd partnered with the American Geographical Society and arranged, financed and led six maritime expeditions to East Greenland, Franz Josef Land, Jan Mayen Land and Spitsbergen. She pioneered cutting-edge expertise, together with photogrammetric gear, to conduct exploratory surveys. Boyd additionally made the primary deep-water recording, which helped her uncover a glacier in Greenland.
In 1938, Boyd was awarded a medal from the American Geographical Society and later grew to become the primary lady to be elected to their council. Boyd returned to the Arctic one final time in 1955, when she chartered an airplane and have become the primary lady to fly over the North Pole.
Boyd died in 1972, two days earlier than her eighty fifth birthday, and her ashes had been scattered within the Arctic Ocean. Her legacy lives on by means of her pictures, which proceed to encourage and inform folks concerning the magnificence and fragility of the Arctic area. Her reminiscence can be preserved in a fjord in East Greenland known as “Louise Boyd Land” and on considered one of our tent cabins at Base Camp Greenland.
Navarana Mequpaluk
Greenland’s Navarana Fjord (mapped in the course of the Danish Peary Land Expedition of 1947–1950) is a testomony to an Inuit Greenlandic lady explorer named Navarana, who died on the age of 23, simply earlier than becoming a member of the Fifth Thule Expedition together with her husband, Peter Freuchen. Her loss of life was brought on by the Spanish Influenza, which ravaged Greenland’s Indigenous populations within the early Nineteen Twenties.
Navarana with husband Peter Freuchen © Courtesy of Danish Arctic Institute
Navarana began life as Mequpaluk, which suggests “little feather,” earlier than selecting to name herself Navarana after her marriage ceremony day. The identify Navarana comes from naverar, which suggests “to trade” or “to borrow.” A extra poetic translation means “One Who Alternates Between Parties.” Traditionally, the Inuit had many names, and altering one’s identify was symbolic of marking a turning level within the particular person’s life.
Navarana skilled heartbreak and famine at a younger age; she misplaced all meals safety and her brother to the pandemic. She met Danish explorers Knud Rasmussen and Peter Freuchen in 1910 whereas establishing the Thule Trading Station. Freuchen assumed Navarana was poor and hungry, so he gave her a chunk of bread. Navarana sewed him a pair of gloves to thank him, and the 2 grew to become buddies.
Nearly a 12 months later, when Navarana was simply 13, the 2 married and launched into a whirlwind of expeditions collectively. “On a sled, a Thule woman is as good as a man. She arranges the dogs, she swings the whip expertly, and she helps to pack and secure the load. Her cheer lights up the darkness!” Freuchen detailed in his Book of the Eskimos.
The pair had two kids, a boy named Mequsaq Avataq Igimaqssusuktoranguapaluk and a woman named Pipaluk Jette Tukuminguaq Kasaluk Palika Hager, who grew to become a author. When Navarana handed, Freuchen buried her himself, because the church refused to carry out the ceremony for somebody not baptized. Her spirit was reincarnated on the massive display in 1934 when the world was launched to ‘The Wedding of Palo.’ Written by none apart from Knud Rasmussen, the movie informed the story of a ravishing Inuit lady named Navarana, who was on the heart of a love triangle.
Gerda Vilholm
Gerda Vilholm was born and raised in Denmark in 1944. She moved to Narsarsuaq in 1968 and settled in Tasiilaq, the place she shortly grew to become an upstanding member of the group. Gerda was a Trans lady and a passionate crusader who needed the most effective for her city. Beginning in 2008, she ran for all native political elections however was by no means elected. “Her living room has provided space for many political meetings,” mentioned Democrat County council member Justus Hansen, who regarded her as one of the crucial necessary supporters in his political profession.
Gerda was a jack of all trades. She tried her hand as an electrician and a blacksmith’s apprentice, spoke each East and West Greenlandic, helped set up group chess tournaments and raised funds for a city swimming pool. In 1989, Gerda opened a bookshop known as Neriusaaq, which suggests rainbow, as a tribute to the LGBTQ+ group. There, residents and guests may share tales over ice cream and occasional.
In 2010, Gerda created a web site known as Sukagaut to tell residents about native initiatives and occasions. At 73 years of age, Gerda served as a chairperson and board member of Greenland’s most distinguished enterprise group, Grønlands Erhverv (Greenland Business Association). She handed away later that 12 months in 2017.
The condolences on her Facebook wall testify to her constructive presence within the Tasiilaq group. “Gerda, who has taught me many things in a company, has a wonderful personality and is active in our lovely city, known for its old-fashioned ice cream! You have a special place in my life,” wrote Gerda’s former worker, Iddimanngiiu Jensen Bianco. Gerda’s contributions to Tasiilaq are particularly cherished by our Nat Hab discipline workers and vacationers who frequent her store on each considered one of our journeys.
Women within the Wild
The 2024 Women’s History Month theme established by The National Women’s History Alliance is: “Women Who Advocate for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.” The theme acknowledges girls all through the nation who perceive that, for a constructive future, we have to get rid of bias and discrimination fully from our lives and establishments.
At Nat Hab, we all know that empowered girls are highly effective brokers of change for folks and the planet. In our pursuit of a female-forward future, we launched Women within the Wild, an journey sequence completely for feminine vacationers. Our expeditions facilitate inspiring encounters in Earth’s wildest locations amid the consolation and camaraderie of an all-women group. In addition to Alaska Bear Camp and Base Camp Greenland, Nat Hab gives Women within the Wild journeys throughout the globe, together with in Canada, Iceland, Mexico, Costa Rica and South Africa.
Discover the tenderness of belugas, the energy of elephants and the fierceness of wolves. Let the matriarchs of our wild world nurture your creativity, compassion and sense of marvel. Visit native communities and witness how women-led grassroots actions safe sustainable futures, discover kinship among the many world’s wildest girls and foster friendships that endure lengthy after your journey ends. Follow within the footsteps of Nat Hab’s trailblazing Expedition Leaders, study the histories of girls explorers and listen to the tales of heroines by Indigenous elders. Find energy in vulnerability and let nature empower you to be your most radiant and resilient self!
Visit our Women within the Wild adventures web page to study extra!
© Mark Jordahl