{"id":2238,"date":"2010-04-21T17:43:33","date_gmt":"2010-04-21T17:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hub-dev.bates.edu\/magazine\/?page_id=2238"},"modified":"2017-09-06T11:40:57","modified_gmt":"2017-09-06T15:40:57","slug":"thinking-outside","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/back-issues\/y2004\/fallwinter04\/stories\/thinking-outside\/","title":{"rendered":"Thinking Outside"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bill Sherwonit \u201971 has climbed Denali, North America\u2019s tallest mountain. He\u2019s authored nine books on topics like the Iditarod, Denali National Park, bears, and Alaska\u2019s state parks system. A columnist for the Anchorage Daily News<\/em>, he\u2019s a well-known advocate for the state\u2019s wilderness, especially the surprising amount in and around Anchorage itself, where Sherwonit lives with his wife, Dulcy Boehle.<\/p>\n

Yet when Sherwonit graduated from Bates with a geology major, his fascination with the outdoors was still two careers away.<\/p>\n

After Bates, he earned a master\u2019s and headed to Alaska to be a geologist. \u201cSome part of me knew that I was going home,\u201d recalls the Connecticut native. And the state, heavily reliant on mining and oil exploration, should\u2019ve been geologist heaven \u2014 but Sherwonit didn\u2019t feel it. On a minerals exploration crew, he worked with people who loved geology far more than he did. \u201cI had my first midlife crisis in my late 20s,\u201d he says. So he left Alaska determined to \u201cfind something that I could love as much as those guys loved geology.\u201d<\/p>\n

Retreating to the Los Angeles area, he enrolled in a photojournalism program that included a newswriting course. The science-minded Sherwonit embraced the logic of newswriting, \u201cthe whole inverted-pyramid thing.\u201d After a few years, it was back to Alaska as a reporter for the now-defunct Anchorage Times<\/em>, first covering sports, then the outdoors.<\/p>\n

In Alaska, the outdoors beat goes on and on. Sherwonit covered the Iditarod, the Masters of sled-dog racing. He spent time with mountain climbers trying to scale Denali, which led to his own 1987 ascent of the 20,320-foot peak as part of a guided group. Just happy to be on the mountain, Sherwonit recalls other climbers for whom not making the top meant failure. \u201cThere\u2019s always talk of conquering a mountain,\u201d Sherwonit says. \u201cI don\u2019t buy that notion, because factors beyond your control, like the weather, often determine success or \u2018failure.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

While bagging peaks isn\u2019t his goal, Sherwonit admits that Denali has \u201can incredible allure, a special magic.\u201d And it\u2019s a great subject for writers. Sherwonit\u2019s Denali books include To the Top of Denali: Climbing Adventures on North America\u2019s Highest Peak<\/em>, which he calls \u201ca consistent seller\u201d for more than a decade. There\u2019s also Denali: A Literary Anthology<\/em>. \u201cI feel it\u2019s a wonderful collection, but putting \u2018literary\u2019 in the title was a kiss of death. Sales have been horrible.\u201d A recent project is Denali: The Complete Guide<\/em>, which gives the big picture of the Denali experience.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s Iditarod: The Great Race to Nome<\/em>. \u201cThe Iditarod is not necessarily mushers against mushers,\u201d he explains, \u201cbut mushers and their dogs taking on the challenge of Alaska. Just as Denali captures the public\u2019s imagination, so does the Iditarod. Alaskans might disagree vehemently on other issues, but they agree that the Iditarod is amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

An ingrained fascination with confronting nature might also reflect the state\u2019s alive-and-well frontier mentality, says Sherwonit (whose Web site is www.billsherwonit.alaskawriters.com<\/em>). A prevailing Alaskan notion, he says, is that natural resources are both boundless and available \u201cfor us to use, subdue, conquer. Things get measured in terms of their importance to our species.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that\u2019s not the only measuring stick \u2014 a lot of things, wildlife or whatever, are inherently valuable for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for life in Anchorage, Sherwonit worries how development \u201cnibbles away\u201d at the city\u2019s beloved public parks, bike trails, and other green spaces. \u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re going to lose all what makes Anchorage special, but it\u2019s still worth fighting for.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bill Sherwonit \u201971 has climbed Denali, North America\u2019s tallest mountain. He\u2019s authored…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":0,"parent":8087,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_dimp_site_id":"","_dimp_override_contact":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"class_list":["post-2238","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2238"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10757,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2238\/revisions\/10757"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}