If you can see Mt. Baker, you are part of The Experience
When Tommy Corey hiked the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada in 2018, he found himself able to integrate the things he valued most: the outdoors, photography, and self-worth. “Hiker Trash Vogue,” the photo project he created during that journey featuring long distance hikers posing as fashion models, set him off on his next journey. He spent two years travelling the U.S., photographing over 200 people in their natural habitat and collecting their stories of connection, strength, healing and belonging in nature.
“All Humans Outside: Stories of Belonging in Nature” features 101 of these stories and Corey’s intimate, insightful photographs of them. Most of the stories are first person accounts that celebrate the diversity of how humans connect to the natural world, calling for us to create a more inclusive outdoors.
“Being in nature is a powerful healing tool that everyone has the right to experience comfortably,” writes Nicole Snell, CEO of Girls Fight Back who uses lessons from nature to teach empowerment-based self-defense. Her story is included in a section titled: “Empathy, one of eight including Overcoming, Belonging and Identity, Family and Ancestors, and
Community.”
From physical differences to cultural expectations, whether internal or external, the stories explore how people overcome barriers that separate them from nature, and with the strength they gain, help their communities and the natural world through stewardship, mentorship, and advocacy.
“My job is to flip the script by not just focusing on our intergenerational trauma and fear of the outside but also celebrating the liberation and joy we feel in nature – a spirited current flowing through the veins of our history,” writes Francis Eymard Mendoza, a Filipino outdoor educator.
Many of the stories are about long-distance connections with nature and wilderness: long-distance hikers and riders, a bike trip across the continent, kayaking the Mississippi from source to sea. Others are about connecting to and caring for a place or community, from a first generation Black farmer to an Afro-Indigenous woman honoring her grandfather’s teaching as she stewards her own land. Paragliders and hunters, surfers and even a taxidermist all share the challenges and joys their individual bodies and minds experience as they connect with the outdoors.
“Nature grants us the freedom too be our authentic selves,” writes deaf nature and forest therapist Summer Crider.
Corey makes the collection feel personal, popping in through sidebars to introduce some of the people whose stories he includes. Parallels can be drawn with the “Humans of New York” project, but with an extra edge of empowerment and joyfulness that come from his commitment to fostering self-worth across the widest reach of diversity.
“He connects with his subjects and they want to participate,” his father Tim Corey writes in the closing note to the collection. “You can see it in their faces.”
From planning your herb garden to building an herbal medicine cabinet, this is an accessible and informative guide to using plants for wellness. 47 plants are profiled, both garden herbs or common weeds to be foraged, or encouraged! Each plant profile includes recipes, mostly for healing but also for healthy snacks and meals. “Healing Garden” includes clear instructions on techniques for making remedies and preserving harvested herbs, as well as information-rich charts for herbal uses.
The partnership of cocktail crafter and farmer sisters from Kent Valley have crafted a “garden to glass” guide to growing the raw materials, crafting ingredients and mixing cocktails. There is a sturdy how-to section to start, including stocking your pantry, basic techniques for infusions (complete with a comprehensive table of infusion times), and suggestions for your cocktail garden. Recipes follow for syrups, cordials, shrubs, tinctures, liqueurs and how to mix them, including a section on homemade garnishes that are as much at home on a charcuterie board as in a glass.
Culinary explorer, wilderness guide and sustainable wild food harvesting teacher at Western Washington University, Hahn has written a comprehensive and authoritative guide to regional foraging that is filled with personality and just plain fun to read. The first section and meat of the book is a guide to identifying and harvesting edible wild foods on the Pacific Northwest coast, with culinary tips, personal stories and interesting ecological trivia. Did you know that a dandelion bloom is visited by 93 different insects looking for a feast? The second section has a collection of recipes for wild foods to get you started making incorporating them into your dinner plans.
A beautifully illustrated seasonal guide to making wines, liqueurs, tinctures, syrups, teas, fermented drinks and other imbibables and garnishes out of wild harvested and garden plants. The first section is a guide to possibilities that come with each season, from red-flowering currant in spring to rose hips in winter, and what sippable delights can be made from them. The second section is a basic guide to techniques with a solid list of additional resources.
