California 88.71%
Nevada 3.92%
New York 3.60%
Indiana 1.29%
Other 2.47%
I’m a fourth-generation Californian, born in San Francisco and raised in Nevada County, California by my adoptive parents.
At 11 years old I began a quest to find my natural family, a goal that would remain entirely unrealized throughout my teenage years. Left with a continued sense of searching, I was spurred toward a life of adventure. As soon as I graduated from high school, and following the death of my adoptive mother from cancer, I set to travel. Ultimately, I explored nearly 60 countries, getting by on $10 a day while climbing mountains, hitchhiking, and experiencing every adventure I could find.
One such adventure was my joining a co-ed team training to ski to the South Pole. Despite giving the training my all, I was unable to raise the necessary $70,000 and could not join the expedition.
In response, I founded The American Women’s Trans-Antarctic Expedition and began pulling together the best female outdoor adventurers in the country, including Ann Bancroft, the first woman to reach the North Pole by foot, and other top Himalayan climbers. Ten months after organizing the team, however, I was told by the other members that as a beginner I lacked their experience of 15-20 years and as such, they kicked me off the team and went to the South Pole without me.
This time it took a year to recover from the blow, but when I did it was with the decision to cross Alaska by myself. First, though, I chose commercial fishing as a test of my fortitude. Thus my Alaskan adventure began on The Big Valley, an ill-fated vessel, which I would watch sink twelve years later along with my captain, Gary Edwards, and four other crew members, on a television show called The Deadliest Catch.
Satisfied with what commercial fishing taught me both about Alaska and myself, I moved to Homer in 1993, securing a job training Iditarod sled dogs, while I organized my trans-Alaskan journey. I also trained with two retired sled dogs who would help to pull my sled while I cross-country skied down the frozen Yukon River. In yet another setback though, the owner took the dogs back five days before I was to leave. He intended for me to give up.
I did not. Five days later, at 27 years old, at 55F below, I attached myself to the 160-pound sled. Filming for National Geographic, I skied and pulled my supplies down the frozen river. As it would turn out, I encountered another dog along the way who became my travel companion after I saved him from being shot.
Much of what I faced along the journey was surmountable with minor adjustments. That was until halfway across the state, when the only “road” I knew, the frozen Yukon River, began melting prematurely below my feet. I had two options: give up or find a different way.
While I waited for the ice to finish melting, I stayed in a tiny log cabin along the bank of the river offered to me by the local Athabascan villagers. As the weather continued to warm, I pondered my next steps, the first of which, it would turn out, was just a few steps away. Outside my front door, an old birch bark-style canoe that had been hidden under a snowbank slowly became visible. I finished digging it out before going to the elders of the village with my announcement: I was going to build my own canoe, all I needed were some tools. Unfortunately, the elders’ response was an emphatic, “No! Women don’t build canoes!”
Once again, I made the rounds in the village, but this time explaining to each of the elders, “No, you don’t understand. Where I come from, in California, that’s what women do! We’re canoe-builders! That’s our thing!”
Despite their initial reluctance, they lent me the necessary tools. I then proceeded to cut down three trees, split the trunks, and plane the 18-foot-long planks of birch and spruce. The villagers watched me, doubtful at first, but becoming increasingly interested in this odd white lady, building her own wooden canoe. Only after I completed planning and began assembling the wood, their skepticism was replaced with enthusiasm and support. Keeping my eye on the goal, I modified the boat for rough waters, and the locals began to offer advice, C-clamps, galvanized screws, and oil-based marine paint, helping me to improve and fortify the canoe.
The children were particularly engaged in what I was doing because it had no longer been customary to hand-build canoes in the village for the last two decades. Together, we would learn and relearn how to build a canoe, tapping into lost and primitive knowledge.
In this way, the canoe became the catalyst for deeper insights into our humanity. Our collective power and ability to share knowledge had not only created something both practical and poignant, it had greatly expanded my understanding and appreciation of what humanity is capable of. It also highlighted for me the real value of leadership and the inherent power and wisdom of our collective-genius when properly harnessed.
In a canoe fortified by a collective effort of young and old, an endeavor that blended the venerable knowledge of the Athabascans with the creativity and enthusiasm of those willing to undertake what seemed impossible, I was able to continue the final - and unexpected - leg of my journey. This 18-foot canoe, generally reserved for the calm waters of a muskrat pond, would now be able to endure the dangerous and pounding four-foot white-capped waves of the treacherous Bering Sea, allowing me to complete my 1,500-mile odyssey in four months and six days.
During this isolated winter solo trek, I learned, of all things, the exponential power of community and the human spirit. Lessons that came to serve as both the catalyst and guide for my community work.
For the rest of the story, and the lessons of legacy learned along the way, go to: https://www.thefoghornexpress.com/reinette-s-solo-alaskan-crossing
