
Liz has always had an affinity for living on or near water. Although she currently calls Juneau, Alaska home, she has been a gardener on Nantucket, studied environmental anthropology on the Greek islands and bought salmon from Alaskan trollers while living on a scow on the outer coast of southeast Alaska. After receiving her bachelor’s degree in anthropology and environmental studies, she moved to Alaska to combine her love of the outdoors with her passion for education. She enrolled at the University of Southeast Alaska and obtained her outdoor leadership skills certificate. Liz never slept in to miss a class because her courses ranged from backcountry skiing and navigation to whitewater safety and rescue. Her favorite class by far was expedition sea kayaking, so when the U.S. Forest Service offered her a job as a kayak/wilderness ranger, she jumped at the chance. Liz spent three seasons in an “office” of glacially carved fjords and paddled among the icebergs of the three tidewater glaciers in the Tracy Arm/Ford's Terror Wilderness Area.
Liz earned her master’s in education and spent a few years in the classroom teaching middle school language arts and social studies. But she couldn’t give up her passion for playing outside and has worked summers as a glacier guide in Juneau and a sea kayak guide in Glacier Bay National Park. For two summers, she connected her love of education with her love of kayaking and taught a month-long college-level sea kayaking course focusing on the ecology and natural history of Southeast Alaska. She also continued to follow her passion for photography, growing a graduate school photography assistant gig into a small photography business and work that has been shown and published throughout Alaska. Among her subjects, has documented remote island life in the Louisiades Archipelago of Papua New Guinea, the wild bush of Tasmania, the marine mega fauna of Southeast Alaska, and the vibrant culture of Oaxaca, Mexico and Bogota, Colombia.
Liz has practiced yoga for more than two decades, having done teacher training in hatha vinyasa, hot and yin styles of yoga. She finds yoga is a compliment to her favorite sports, of which there are many. You can often find her either backcountry skiing on her telemark skis, going for a trail run, training for a triathlon or, most recently, trying her hand at surfing. Liz recently earned her Master’s 60 Ton captain’s license and STCW Basic Safety on the Water certification. One day she hopes to captain her own sailboat and live her dream of being Pippi Longstocking in the South Seas.
Upcoming Adventures with Liz:
Discover Greenland: The Natural Habitat Experience
Paddling Portugal's River of Wine