Forging into the Wilderness as an Environmental Scientist

  My guest today is Michelle Schumann. Michelle is a retired ecologist who specialized in wetland science and environmental policy in Alaska for more than four decades. Part of her work in Alaska included acting as a first responder on the Exxon oil spill, a major environmental disaster that occurred in 1989.

She's the author of a novel called Jaguar Moon, And a memoir titled, The Understory, A Female Environmentalist in the Land of the Midnight Sun. In addition to her first two books, she has finished another novel, an environmental thriller, that she hopes to release this year. In our interview, she discusses all of these topics and more. 

Michelle, it's so nice to have you here. Thank you for being here. Oh, thank you for inviting me. Let's start right away with your career, because I think this is something that is fascinating. Wildlife, soil science, being out in the field, and from your memoir, it sounded like oftentimes, you know, some really dangerous kind of conditions and travel.

So tell me first what your career did consist of. What was the range of the things that you did? Oh gosh, it was,  my undergraduate was in wildlife biology and range management. So that's dealing with domestic animals and wildlife animals. So that's what I chose to go into. And then my minor was soil science.

I worked with wild horses. I worked with big game, such as elk. And then I got offered an opportunity to go to Alaska. And work with reindeer and muskox. And so I flew to Alaska and that's what started off my career because I'm vegetation and soils and I do landscape mapping. When wetlands became an issue, I had all the skills to do that as well.

So that morphed into wetland science and eventually my graduate degree in wetland science and environmental policy. But yes, I've done about everything. I decided to go to Juneau and work for the state of Alaska as an oil spill ecologist. And a few months later, Exxon happened. So that became another aspect of my career.

So I've got a, quite a range, you know, from environmental science. To I was the regional ecologist in Alaska, which kind of brought all those skills together. And now I'm retired and I write. Yeah. So you did, as you said, you were part of the oil spill cleanup with the Exxon Valdez spill. And that I think even for those who weren't knowledgeable about that sort of thing, but that was really prominently displayed in the news at the time.

So tell me about that.  Especially for an animal lover like you are. To see the damage, what was that experience like for you? Oh my gosh, I think I still have post traumatic stress from that. It was, you know, when I walked into that field, I didn't know anything about oil spills other than I knew we had many of them, but I was completely ignorant on that.

I went to Southeast Alaska because I love to sail and I wanted to learn to sail more. And when I got offered that job, I think one of the reasons my supervisor hired me was because I had also done a lot of environmental impact statement writing and oil spill contingency plans, which was one of my roles was to review and or approve, disapprove oil spill contingency plans are about the size of an EIS. 

Lots and lots of paper. And so oil spill contingency plans are the same thing. They are a plan that requires an owner to develop if they are transporting or storing hazardous materials such as oil. And so they're required by law to do an oil spill contingency plan. It has all the details of what is needed and how to react to a spill after it happens.

So that was part of my role was that as well as being a first responder on oil spills and hazardous waste spills, hazardous materials. I also did oil spill training exercises.  That was my role in that position in Southeast Alaska for the regional office. But you were out there seeing the actual spill.

Yeah. So the Exxon spill happened in the Valdez region and the oil spill ecologist down there, oh my gosh, he was just incredible. He had been screaming for years that Exxon and Alyeska, the cleanup corporation down there was not prepared for an oil spill. And sure enough, that night, the Exxon hit a rock and it took me, There was only like five people statewide that had those positions.

And so it took me almost two days to show up there. No one really knew how the damage and how large of a damage that was when the Exxon hit the rock. And so I ended up. Flying on a commercial Alaska airlines plane from Juneau to Anchorage. We saw the spill. And I remember my first vision of that because the pilot flew over it, it was calm seas and there wasn't any boom, which means there was no protection.

There was nothing keeping that oil from spreading and the seas were calm. I land in Anchorage. I end up catching a ride with the national guard on a C 130. And. Strong winds, we landed in Valdez and so those calm seas after three days turned into rough seas. And yes, my first job, because I was also a soil scientist, I was given the task of assessing the damage on beaches and the devastation to the wildlife was just.

It was incredible. That's the busiest time in, in Prince William Sound for wildlife species. They're migrating through, they're breeding, they're nesting. So yeah, the, the damage was horrific. And that spill could have been prevented. I think that's the hardest thing is. It could have been prevented if the oil spill contingency plan had been followed.

Okay. And have you noticed, do you feel like since that spill, there's been a change or there's been better compliance or better plans or protections put in place? I hope it's better, but we're still having many spills. It's better than probably what it was, but those things happen. They get noticed and then they disappear.

What do you think drove you to this type of career? Because this is really putting yourself physically out there in these natural environments. What was the driving force that led you to this career? By age three, I was fascinated by animals. I loved anything that moved, crawled, I'd bring home snake, you name it, by the age of three.

I've always had this drive, so I'm, I'm going to say that I was born with it. It's innate that I was born with a very strong sense of empathy, wonder. Curiosity and of course, courage. So I have a passion for nature and probably wilderness and wildlife. So I like the idea of being wild. So it's just, I think I was born for it and I, It's been my life ever since.

I just have a very strong connection to the outdoors and to other creatures and to our planet. Do you feel like you've slowed down now? You said you're retired, but in terms of traveling or wanting to travel? I just don't age, I think, because I still go and go. I just got back from Costa Rica. Traveling is not as hard.

fun as it used to be. There are so many people and it's just not as fun as it used to be. I never even stepped on a plane until I was 20, 21 years old. And when I went up to Alaska, of course, my transportation was helicopter and fixed wings. And I remember doing some presentations when I had to do a grocery run.

From our remote field camp in a helicopter. And, you know, I'd speak to tourists and know them that probably spent their entire life savings to come to Alaska. And there were some of them could barely walk. They couldn't really see what the wilds of Alaska was. And I swore to my husband that we would travel, that we would not just talk about it, but we would do it because there's a whole world out there that has.

I know in my traveling has opened up my eyes to different peoples and different lifestyles and amazing natural settings that are at risk. Traveling is harder. I know just after coming from Costa Rica, it's just, I used to just throw a backpack on. Oh, where are we going to go? Let's go to this country.

Okay. And we throw a backpack on and show up and. Go from there and you can't really do that anymore.  So, yeah, I've slowed down some just because it's so much work. It's just so much work to travel, but I still want to do it. I'm still, there's still things I have to do. There's still places I need to see.

So how many places would you say? Like if you had to estimate how many trips have you taken? How many different places have you seen? Oh, gosh, my goal was to hit a mostly third world countries that we could afford to go because when we go for a month, sometimes 2 months when I was working private. And so those are always endangered ecosystems of some sort.

So I know just Africa along. I counted that up. I've been 10 times. And I've seen 10 countries and I've been 12 times. I haven't been to Greenland or Antarctica now that I'm no longer living in Alaska. Those are two that I would probably like to see. Many places in Europe, but I don't really know.

Australia, since I'm a diver, I used to whitewater rafts. So I'd go to endangered rivers. I was part of the international river networks team and project raft where we would go raft endangered whitewater rivers. Such as the Bayou in Chile and the Zambezi in Africa. And so, yeah, those were always crazy expeditions.

Yeah. So I've been to a lot. I'm fascinated with it because there's just different people. Everybody's different. They all have different interests, passions, and this sort of thing. But it is fascinating because I think there are plenty of people who are really and truly just perfectly content to stay, you know, in their little community and their sphere, and that's totally fine.

And then you've got someone like you who's just like on the go and traveling and whitewater rafting and doing all the jobs that you did. It's just like you said, you were born to want to do the things that you did. And it just sounds like you just have that in your personality. Yeah, I'm so different than my brother and sister.

My brother just thinks I'm totally nuts. He has no desire. They stay in, what is it? Five star hotels. I stay in a tent and that's changed it a little, but I know just in Costa Rica, when we were kayaking and zip lining and crazy things like that. And I didn't want to just go in a. A big kayak with a bunch of people.

They got me my own kayak. I like to be out in nature. So when I'm in the jungle or the rainforest, it has to be quiet. I'm looking and listening. I'm hearing I'm silent. I'm observing. And that's where I think my wonder, the curiosity of what's out there. So I'm always observing my environment and that's what I get out of it.

I would not do well. On a cruise ship. Granted, there's people that just love them. I would, it would probably freak me out. I know I'm going to Egypt and Jordan in February, but yeah, there's just so much out there to see and do. I just couldn't imagine not wanting to be out there and explore it. You mentioned that your Family you mentioned the memoir and here again in the interview that they you really were different than them really stood out.

I think in your memoir, you might have called yourself the black sheep, but let's talk about that a little bit. Let's talk about that. What was that? Like? I think there's a lot of people who can relate to that feeling different than your family or than just. People in your school or whatever. What was that like for you?

Did you ever go through a period of time where you were struggling with that and wanting to be more like them? Or were you always like, this is just who I am? I think it was a struggle. I'm a very strong empath and that has always been a curse in most of my life because I'm, I'm too sensitive. I'm too emotional.

Even in my family, it was like that. So it was a struggle, but. Because basically I was on my own at a young age. I was off doing my own thing at age 17. My parents weren't into paying for any college for me. And all I ever wanted to do was be a big game vet. So that gave me that strength. And I think that courage, it nurtured it because I knew what I wanted in life.

And I got it. I went after it, but yeah, it's always been a bit of a struggle and I'm not real close to a lot of my family because of that, I think it's just, I'm still the black sheep, I'm still the crazy aunt, I'm still whatever now my husband's. His sister's daughter, who was the flower child at my wedding, the little flower girl, she and I are just like, wow, we're so close.

She's just amazing. And she is my family. She's just wonderful. And she has that same little spark. So I just, I'm different. And I have accepted that now. Now I embrace it. I embrace who I am and what I've done and you just keep moving forward. I'm always fascinated with that because you can have a group of people who Look at someone and they think this is, as you said, crazy aunt, or this is crazy.

This is nuts, but what you've done and what you do is it's so cool. It's so cool. And I think there's probably so many people out there who think that and your courage, like you said, maybe having that idea of what you wanted to do really helped you with your courage, but it is courageous when you have everyone around you looking at you like you're crazy, and to just be yourself.

And you said now you've embraced it more as you're older, but I think all these years of just following your thing that you know is what you want to do. That's that is courageous. Thank you. Yeah, I do too. And I think part of that driver, my mother. Was one of those people that never could do anything. She always, she was so smart, but she didn't focus.

She didn't put her energy into a direction. Of course, it was a generational thing as well, but I chose not to regret to not do things because I was afraid and she always did. When I have friends that are afraid to do things, they're afraid to, like right now, I'm cold water plunging and I've got friends that are, Oh my God, that's so cold.

Are you nuts? And it's, Hey, I was kind of that way too. Cause my baths were in the Bering sea. Why would I want to go intentionally go and stand in the water? And. It's an amazing feeling. It's just another thing that the sea is here and it's offering, it's nurturing abilities. We get in the water and it's Zen for me.

It's just absolutely lovely, but people put so many walls up. That they can't do something. And I chose not to be one of those human beings that do that. Even after my accident, I couldn't walk for two years. I could have easily just curled up in a ball and withered away. And it was a fight and it was a struggle and it's still a struggle.

It's still a struggle, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to. Push forward every single day while I have it. Let's talk about that accident. Talk about what happened and what happened to you physically from the accident. Oh, yeah, boy. I, from age 24, I worked out of a helicopter. That was my main transport.

And so I was very familiar with flying in rough conditions, in dangerous conditions, getting in and out of a helicopter. And then in 1998,  I had been, I was working on a large project, again, an environmental impact statement doing all the wetlands work and environmental work for a large mine in the interior of Alaska.

And it shouldn't have been that different because I've been doing that for several years. We always had helicopter safety briefings. You had bear safety briefings. You had, it was all a very controlled and safe environment. safe environment until 1998. And something happened where there was lots of big mining projects going on in Alaska.

And for some reason, I know that reason the local mine health safety administrative office was closed down. And so there was none in the state of Alaska. There was no helicopter briefings. That first tour, there was nearly a, let's see, a live dynamite. A live load of dynamite was dropped in camp. We nearly had a head on between two of the three helicopters that flew 24 7.

My partner and I usually worked alone and we'd be miles and miles from camp and you would see garbage, you'd see bread bags and garbage.  And the trails to and from the camp were like highways. And after that, my, again, my sensitive self,  my intuition was on fire. It was just, you know, the anxiety was high and I chose, I told my partner, my work partner, that I was not going to come back on another tour. 

And then my. My partner was, Oh, you're being unprofessional. You're being a wimp. You're being emotional, blah, blah, blah. My work partner and I, we got some first aid equipment. I was an emergency trauma tech trained because of all the crazy things I do in my personal life and my work life. And so we showed back up and.

That night I went up to an upper field camp with a brand new pilot and was slowly getting out of that big helicopter. These were helicopters used for hauling mining equipment. And I did what I always do. I go out really slow. I look and look at the bottom of where I'm going and the door flung open. I was connected to that door and I was flung out about eight to 10 feet and my left leg landed straight on a rock.

A small rock was about six inches in diameter and everybody heard the explosion in my knee over the helicopter. My right leg got hooked on the little tiny step bent backwards and sideways. And the guy that opened the door, cause I never saw him, tried to pick me up. And then there was nothing. I was jelly from the waist down.

And so the helicopter pilot had to shut the helicopter down, which then is very scary. That's why you never approach a live helicopter. Until the pilot signals you, if there's people inside that helicopter, they go out in the front of him. And then he would signal people to come. That of course never happened there.

So as he shut that bird down, now you've got blades that are spinning. And that is how people get decapitated. And this guy, I drugged the guy that did this and told him to get against the fuselage. And then there was no EMT and I had to tell these guys what I needed. I needed stabilization, two by fours, towels to stabilize my legs.

And then finally I was, I was in shock. I knew I was going into shock. A woman came up to me and said, my name is, and I passed out. And she was an engineer that didn't tell anybody she was an EMT because she got tired of being an EMT. When she was actually hired as a engineer and we had to figure out how then for me to get to Delta Junction and flew in another helicopter, I slept on the floor of a mechanic's office, um, till a PA got in from a base, a military base, not too far from there.

Basically, I blew out both my knees. And I had to wait until my partner got in from, she flew in, we took the backseat out of her, or the front seat out of her truck, and then I had about an eight, ten hour drive back home. And that was the beginning of learning about workers compensation and insurance. And that was also the end of my field career.

It took two years of surgeries. And then in 2014, all of that started falling apart, and I had a bilateral knee replacement in 2014. Someone as active as you are, and who was  being so active in your career and in your personal life up to that point, then to have such a literally shattering accident happen.

What was that like? How did you manage that emotionally and and how long did you have to stay basically bedbound or just resting? Yeah, it was I remember the the PA and I said Can't you just cast me so I can go back to work? And he said honey, you're in for a very long a very long haul. Most people that he has seen that this has happened to usually end up with a broken back and broken back.

So I lived on a mountaintop, a mile of steep mountain road. I couldn't walk. So I basically, my life for the next nine months was A mattress, a little foam mattress on the floor of the living room, a computer on the dining room table. And I took just washcloth baths and my surgery was delayed. They did the left knee and that didn't go too well.

And then nine months later, I had the surgery. Surgery done on my right knee, which actually was almost worse than the left, which was completely destroyed. So through that time, I wrote a novel. I had a cat and a computer and I wrote Jaguar Moon and it was my introduction to fiction writing. And it basically was exhilarating because I was able to escape.

If I thought about what I was going through and what I was dealing with, with workers compensation, I'm not sure I could have continued. So writing was my salvation during that time. And I think mentally what got me through that is I knew I'd be able to walk again. I can't even imagine, especially veterans who come home, I've lost their legs or you're paralyzed from the waist down or the neck down.

I don't have the courage to, I wouldn't have had the courage to do what they do. I knew I was going to walk again. And I pushed myself, I used weights, I pushed myself and I walked without a limp and I went back to work. I could not do the type of work I did at that point. I couldn't carry a 65 pound pack and work for 13 hours a day.

Hours a day and 10 miles of digging soil pits and everything. So I went back to work for the federal government, but it was the end really of my whitewater kayaking because you have to use your knees and that I still mountain bike, but it was scary. I still scuba dived. And I just didn't do as crazy of things that I used to do, but luckily I was physically fit.

I was very strong. I lost all my muscle within three weeks of that accident. I was super thin, but I was physically strong, which helped me get through what I needed to get through. In your career, you did mention in your memoir that you worked basically in a male dominated career. How, how uncommon was it for a woman to be in all of your different jobs?

And what was that like to be in a male dominated career? It was when I was in that, I was one of three women at the university in that field of range and wildlife, only three. When I worked in Alaska, I was the only female. On my crew, there was a female soil scientist, which was very rare, but I was the only female amongst all the men.

I was the only person that had worked the entire six to eight week tour. The man always got to go back and had a break. That first field season, I showed up with snow and I was put in a tent without a door that could close with a sleeping bag that was military surplus that had feathers coming out of it.

And I remember the wind was blowing, we had snow that, that day, and the wind was blowing so bad and my coat luckily got caught on some Velcro. And so I carried my cot and went into the cook tent where it was at least warm and had a door. And that was my introduction to the guy crew. At the end of that tour, we were at the No Nugget having a beer when I realized there was a bet on how long I would last.

And I guess I won the bet because I still, I still stayed there. But that always happened. And that was for me, I proved myself. And therefore they knew I was strong enough. I was capable enough. I could keep up with any of them, but there was an underlying culture that I found up until the day I retired of feeling that women are subservient to men.

And those fields, I was paid anywhere from 20 to 30, 000 less a year. It was more difficult for me to get promotions than my male equivalents. I was smart. I was aggressive. I'm strong. I could hold my own. And that also is an issue with many men that I worked with. Talking with. Women from all kinds of professions.

That's not unusual. It was something that it seems to have just  even gotten worse than when I first started in the federal government at age 18, I'd love the guys I was with. I played with many of these guys, you know, went on whitewater trips with them. But when it came down to.  I know even my partner, when I got the regional oncologist position and was being sent to Spokane to do a presentation on the job, he was mad that I was selected to go.

And it was his boss that called me in and warned me. That's how it's so pervasive. And I don't know how to change that. When you say that your partner was mad that you were chosen for this, what is the rationale that is? at least expressed in those moments, or if you saw other anger towards you getting a promotion or a benefit that others were getting, what has been expressed in the anger?

That took a lot of years of therapy. And there's a saying in Alaska that the odds are good, but the goods are odd. Many of these type of men that I worked with are very into their own lives, right? They don't have close connections to women. But I know after some of the things, especially after my helicopter accident, I was basically told, and now I am a firm believer of that, that narcissistic sociopathic behavior doesn't change.

It only gets worse. And that is what, that is the relationship I was in. If everything was good and my partner was, you know, top of his game and he was getting everything he needed, then life was good. If I did something that wasn't, or if I got that position, it was something that grew and grew. And what I was told by friends were.

He looked at me as competition, not as a partner. And it was the most strange relationship I've ever been in, but we had fun. We rafted and we kayak and we traveled and I could do those things that most women would not do in those situations with him, but I paid a big price for that. And I realized that after my accident, and of course I realized it a few years ago where anger just took over and not knowing those terms.

I thought the therapist was crazy, how would she know? But now after writing my memoir and that's where everything hit home, right? You're writing your about your life. I wanted to tell my story, my side of my story. I wanted to write all those wrongs and let people know who I was. And during that time, I realized I carried so much, not anger, but sadness and self responsibility after my husband was killed that I basically didn't think I could be loved by anyone that really loved me and I settled.

I didn't want to have that great love of my life and have kids and a family, because I didn't think I deserved it after my husband was killed. And so I ended up with somebody that I knew probably would never want to have that with me. And writing that memoir, all those things made sense. All those behaviors and feelings and the verbal abuse.

And it was exactly what that therapist told me would happen. And now that I'm familiar with that behavior and, and I've talked with hundreds of women and men who have been in relationships with someone like that, my mother was like that, I've realized now that it is a behavior and it's very common and very intelligent, driven men, my partners Father was like that.

I saw the effects on my partner's mother. So now that I know, I realize it. And I realized that I had really allowed all of that because I never dealt with some of the trauma that I needed to deal with. Yeah, you know what? That makes sense. When I was reading your book, you had that marriage with your husband when you were young and you, you lost him.

Like you said, he was killed. You could tell the story, but he was hit by a car when he got out of his own car to try to deal with an issue. And it seemed like your husband really respected you as you were as your authentic self. And then later you got in this relationship with this man who did not. And like you explained, you came to understand that.

He probably had a narcissistic personality disorder, but this is helpful to understand because in the loss of your husband, you can look back now and say the loss of your husband and the way it happened and all of that caused you to shift the way maybe that you saw a relationship or make a different decision than you would have.

Yeah, it was almost confirmation because Rick was the love of my life when I met him and he was, it's that intuition again, which is. Hit me when I met him and that was it. I think I was 19 in the blue mountains of Oregon or 18. Now I was 19 and I had all those horrible feelings, bad helicopter contracts, all this stuff was happening.

And I remember telling him that if something happens to me, sue the government. This is why. And unfortunately it was him that was killed. And I found out through a one way radio telephone, and then I got blamed. My mother blamed me, my brother blamed me, my sister in law at the time blamed me. They all thought if I hadn't moved to Alaska, Rick would still be alive.

And as a sensitive person, I took that to heart. And I had no family. I had no one that came and saw me. And. I think it just hit that life's too short. I'm going to just do it. I'm going to do things that I've never done before. I'm going to travel. I'm going to not work every single day. I'm going to do all these crazy things.

And that's what I did when I met my partner, when I met Mark, and it was great when we were traveling, but not so good when we came back home. But yeah, I think I, that's what I did. I just went, boom. I had my husband. We were going to plan to do all this and now it's all gone and I'm just going to go with it.

And that's what I did. So in all of your travels, in all of your work, and I know, I know that you are an environmentalist and you write a blog, you write about a lot of these environmental issues. What have you seen with your own eyes and what is the state of the environment? If you have to get, you know, give a few big points about it, what would you say to people about the state of the environment and what you've seen?

Yeah, you know, we started seeing soil temperatures raise one degree Celsius back in the mid nineties in Alaska, you know, because I was in Alaska for so long, those changes were so apparent from glaciers that, you know, used to be able to hike on or see are now so far, like the Portage Glacier, you could just.

Walked to the visitor center and there was Portage Glacier. Now you have to go to Whittier and hike over a mountain range and maybe you see a glimpse of it. And our soil temperatures have increased and permafrost has melted and the pack ice is no longer pack ice. It's broken. There's broken ice out there.

There's open leads of water, which has then impacted coastal shore erosion. Permafrost. I've seen polar bears not be able to feed, and they're coming on shore thin in the Galapagos. I went there twice within a year. The second time I went, I saw so many starving and dying seal pups because the mothers had to go so far out to catch food now, and they're, they're easy prey with bull sharks and mother seals do not adopt other seals.

I think the biggie was when my retirement trip was. To go see Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda for the mountain gorillas. And we were at a Maasai village. And when we walked in, there were two words written on the chalkboard, climate change and soil. And Mark was, his eyes just brightened up and he talked to these young children about that.

And one of the young boys pointed out the window and said, no snow. And what he was pointing out was Kilimanjaro and there was no snow. It was scattered snow on the summit and they were under, I think their fifth year of drought. So babies were dying. There was no water. I saw livestock dying and dead. So those are the things that I've seen globally.

Changes in coral. And what can we do about that?  That is probably the hardest thing to talk about because I'm a scientist. I'm not going to fluff it up. Tipping point's been reached. We have until 2030, before we start, we can no longer do anything about the temperatures. And so when people ask me what we can do, I think we have to connect with our conscious.

We have to be aware, we have to get over this idea of hatred and anger. And we have to really dig deep into our souls as to what is happening to our planet earth. And what is happening to us as human species. We were given the ability to know what's right or wrong and to have empathy and to have humility.

So, That's what I want people to do is really dig deep into their soul and think about their consciousness of where they want to be and where they want their children to be and their grandchildren to be and this short term anger and hatred. And to me, it's just a distraction that we need to just get over and start learning to live together and love each other and do what we need to do as a, as a human being.

Yeah, I see what, I get what you're saying, like with the news, I feel like there is so much news and there's so much triggery news out there, scary news, things that just cause people to have a reaction. And what I think you're saying is that that sort of thing can be very distracting and people can be caught up in that sort of thing when there's really more global issues that if we could all come together, we could start to try to do something about.

Yeah, there's, what's out there right now is called eco anxiety and it's a real thing and it's for many of us that are in this field and been in this field for a long time and we're still, we're just not making any headway. There's this anxiety out there. I just really see us needing to make a major change and be aware of what we want as a species. 

I guess it's like, you hope, oh, is there, are there these experts out there, somebody's working on these things, like, somebody's hard at work coming up with solutions. Because I think it's hard for people. It's not just about being distracted by, you know, hate and division. There's also just people are trying to get through life, I think, day by day.

And. There's a lot of stressors and there's a lot of things right in front of their face, and it feels completely impossible. Like, what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to It's so overwhelming, there's so many people, there's so much It doesn't feel like there's a lot of practical things to do, especially if a person already is inundated with daily stress.

But that's what I keep hearing though, is people are too tired. They're too exhausted. They've got this and they've got that. And that's what I'm talking about. Distraction is we have so many distractions now. There's so many things going on, but there's some very important things that are going on that are life changing things.

And it's easy to, of course, get overwhelmed. But go to your local community. So I don't, I don't know because so much of what we're dealing with needs to be handled at a large scale. We need to, as Americans address with our emissions and deal with what we're dealing with to minimize our usage and minimize greenhouse gases. 

Permafrost, the melting of permafrost puts over 50 percent of carbon into the atmosphere as CO2 and methane. I guess that's why 20 years ago we were screaming and yelling for a change. I guess I would just say get involved with your community. Scientists tried, you know, we've tried.  So,  small steps I guess.

Do what you feel. Recycle. Walk. Ride a bike. The answer is not always in, um, some of our alternative energy. Um, you know, be educated, be educated, read. Yeah, that's all good stuff. And so just shifting here, I'm not going to keep you much longer. I do want to ask you about your writing because you mentioned you wrote your first novel when you were dealing with your accident in the aftermath.

And so that was something really healing or really just like. Mentally positive and healthy for you to do during that time, and then you've continued writing, you wrote your memoir, you write blogs, so what has that looked like for you? What's that been like? It's been amazing, actually. The memoir was hard because it made me come to realization of what I have allowed in my life and, and to forgive myself, to love myself and be proud of who I am.

But this novel I just finished is an environmental thriller. It's set in Alaska and ends in Tibet. And it's about the mining of rare earth elements. It's got some romance thrown in there. It's got some horror thrown in there, but it always in my writing, I, I educate. So now I weave it through story with the hopes that just these little bits about rare earth elements, they're not the answer to everything.

So I love doing that. Writing gives me the ability to reach deeper into my soul. To weave a story with educating people. I love to educate people. I love mentoring young women who want to learn about our earth and about our environment and the vulnerabilities and the beauty of life on this planet. And writing allows me to express that.

And right now my novel is. In my editor's hands and I am grudgingly, uh, looking for an agent. So that's my next step is to be sending out query letters to an agent. Cause I love this story. I love this story that I've written. It will be a series and, uh, Jaguar Moon, if I can get that reedited,  I hope it will then also be a part of this series of an environmental thriller with a story about our environment, but also little bits of facts woven in.

Nice. That's so awesome. That's so awesome. You're just a person who seems very full of energy. You know what I mean? There are just people who have a lot of energy. It's like all the stuff you've done in your life, all the Activities, the writing was just, wow, it's, it's great. It's amazing. It's very admirable.

It's so funny. I've had three people. I had a couple of folks in Costa Rica that this one guy, I was just talking with him and asking him about him. And he goes, you are so amazing. So full of light, you give me energy. I'm like, what? And then I come back and my niece says the same thing. And now you say that, but I can do that.

That's great. Maybe that's the message follow the light, save our planet. That's that's very thoughtful. Thank you.  Is there anything else that you feel like you missed or you would want to say before we close out? The one thing I might say is in the travels, and I know we touched base a little bit, and then I went down a different rabbit hole, but I think this is what gives me hope is my connection to nature and my last trip to Africa.

This is where some things just are meant to be. And I was able to go to the Pablo group, which was the research group of Diane Fossey in the Virunga mountains, because my guide found out I adopted a gorilla. And we were walking through the bamboo and I was talking to the Virunga guide and about Cansby, which was the silverback that Diane Fossey.

Raised or knew since he was little and he was there in the tree. And I just was shocked because I thought he had left the troop and passed away and he came back. And I thought that was just, that's why I'm here. That's that connection to nature. And then less than an hour later, I was standing in the forest and the guide said, Michelle, do not move.

Just stay still. And this mama gorilla comes by, grabs my leg, just touches my leg. And. Looks at me and grunts like I'm in her way and she was followed by this little fur ball and this little fur ball grabbed my legs Stood up and stared at me and she had the most beautiful Amber field eyes and she you could just make a connection with her her inquisitiveness and her passion and this little Gorilla, then heard the grunt from her mom and Dropped down on her legs and walked away and then stopped and looked at me and then followed her mom.

And that was my adopted gorilla. That was cool. And  so I just, that story, that's our connection to nature. Go out and find a connection. Because once you find that connection like that, maybe that is what we can do. To help this planet and all the species in it is make a connection with nature. Go sit in the forest and listen, just listen.

And I believe that is the best therapy for all of us is just to find that spot, either on a beach, watching the water, or, you know, In the forest, or just give yourself that little bit of love from the resources. And maybe that's what we need to move forward. Yeah, that's a, it's a really good point. Some people really don't have access to it.

They really don't. But there are people who do, and it can be such a healing thing. And connecting, like you said, with all of nature can be really a positive thing for people. And helping to feel that connection between all of us and all living things. It is. And I know when I was in Washington, DC, I go sit in the Arboretum.

I go grab a book and just sit in the Arboretum. And that was my nature. That was that quiet. And just being amongst the green foliage and the quietness, I would sit in there for an hour and read. And so it can be as simple as that. Go sit in a museum. It doesn't have to be anything major, but I think it's such a healing.

It's just a powerful connection that can help. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for being here. I really appreciate it. I'm excited for everything else you're going to do. The other books you're going to write. It's all very cool. And I really appreciate you being here. Oh, thank you so much for allowing me to be here.