Life has been an adventure. "The only reason that I'm as smart as I am is that I've made more mistakes than anyone else. –Buckminster Fuller.
 

I was always an explorer. At twelve I began guiding friends in the Scottish Highlands on multi-day hikes - first along Jock’s Road, then the Lairig Ghru and eventually off-path across the wilderness.

As a teenager I worked on farms during holidays to fund my studies. By sixteen I was venturing north into the Norwegian wilderness and arctic.

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At seventeen I had become a sailing instructor, beginning work with ex-prisoners as a watch leader on a two-sailed ketch, and I continued my other explorations, into the Arctic.

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At university I trained as an Ecologist. I worked in climate science, eventually spending a decade at the Abisko Scientific Research Center in the Swedish Arctic. I ran a greenhouse-gas monitoring station on the Integrated Carbon Observation System for Swedish Polar Research.

 

I worked on expeditions aboard the Oden, the world's most powerful non-nuclear-powered icebreaker and one of the foremost platforms for research in the polar oceans. I worked as a science technician, logistical planner and problem solver, while also guarding against polar bears and helicopter fires.

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On 21st August, 2016, I finally came to the North Pole, reaching a dream I had held since I was a six year old. This changed my life.

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It was the culmination of my career in science, though not my obsession with soil, and it led me in a completely different direction than any I could have ever predicted.

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My scientific work has focused on soils, tree-lines, agriculture and different scales - gathering field data to pass to climate modelers, and ground-truthing data from satellites and models. Bottom-up plus top-down.

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I have spent months at a time working alone in the mountains, in the winter, in the dark of the Polar night.

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I have also encountered the winters and darkness within myself, impelling me to discover a process of working with and through deep grief, depression and trauma. This is part of the Hero’s journey and the myths I integrate into coaching.

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So I have been led back to what I embarked upon when I was twelve years old – exploration, and leading others into, and out of their own personal wildernesses.