Photographing Alaska With National Geographic Guides
I went on a rowboat tour in Alaska and met this tour guide who had some very wise words to share with me. His name was Whiley. He had a very dry sense of humor and while rowing our boat down the river, he told the story of when and why he became a tour guide in Alaska.
Because of a car crash in which Whiley’s car flipped three times after he had been speeding over 100mph, Whiley walked away from his car with just a cut on his left shoulder that turned into a scar in later years. As he was watching the world flip around and around from the inside of his car, he realized that he had been living a selfish lifestyle. He thought about how that had been a time when he really felt okay with dying right there as the car flipped over and over.
But then when he realized his time to die could have come at that moment, he was not ready to go yet. He realized that he wanted to live, just not the lifestyle he had lived up till that point in his life. He realized that he wanted to live giving back to the wild in thanks for the life that it had, in turn, given him. Whiley had become a guide through the Alaskan wilderness to show others just how wonderful exploring nature truly is.
While I was on a boat tour with Whiley as my guide, we got stranded in the middle of the freezing river as we tried to slide over a shallow section of sand in the middle of the flowing water. We ended up having to volunteer a few of us to get out of the lifeboat and push/pull the boat to release it from the grasps of the sandy hill. As one of the volunteers who jumped out into the ice-cold water, I kept my composure as we worked as a team to free the boat. Though we were all freezing, this experience gave me a new perspective from the water than what I had gotten by just staying in the boat.
During my time in Alaska, I learned that I need to appreciate my life now and how wonderful the natural world truly is. I see how it is so important to experience nature in a way that may be outside of your comfort zone.
I was inspired to create photography that shows the beauty of the wilderness while I was in Alaska.
Check out my vlog while exploring Alaska with National Geographic photographers!
Exploring Alaska
