So many of you wrote in recent weeks with messages of appreciation and support for our efforts in continuing this great tradition that our late friend and mentor George Luste started 37 years ago. Thank you for such sincere outpouring of love for this amazing event, and for the wealth of programming ideas. I hope to follow up with each of you individually over the coming weeks. In the meantime, here are a few things you need to know...
REGISTRATION
The first step is to grab a great seat in the virtual Zoomitorium. Please click on the link below to register for the event. Registration is mandatory.
Jon Turk. If there's one name, one person... that crystallizes the sense of adventure, wilderness and spiritual force that powers my imagination more than any other living soul - it's Jon. From the cold oceans and shores of mystical Siberia (WCS 1999), by way of Raven's Gift and Wilderness Spirituality (WCS 2010), following In the Wake of Jomon Karsten Hauer (WCS 2006), synthesizing Crocodiles and Ice by taking A Journey Into Deep Wild (WCS 2017), Jon will now share his provocative look at the vital connection between human beings, the natural world and meaningful knowledge.
"While tracking a lion with a Samburu headman and then, later, eluding human assailants who may be tracking him, Jon Turk experiences people at their best and worst. As the tracker and the tracked, Jon reveals how the stories we tell each other, and the stories spinning in our heads, can be molded into innovation, love and co-operation — or harnessed to launch armies. Seeking escape from the confusion we create for ourselves and our neighbours with our think-too-much-know-it-all brains, Jon finds liberation within a natural world that spins no fiction."
Jon Turk earned a Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1971 and was nominated by National Geographic as one of the Top Ten Adventurers of the Year in 2012. Between these bookends, Jon co-authored the first college level environmental science textbook in North America, followed by 35 additional texts. At the same time, he kayaked around Cape Horn, across the North Pacific from Japan to Alaska, and around Ellesmere Island. He has also mountain biked across the northern Gobi in Mongolia and made numerous first ski descents and first rock climbing ascents around the globe. During extended travel in northeast Siberia, Jon’s worldview was altered by Moolynaut, a Siberian shaman, and his later books reflect these spiritual journeys, supported by adventure storytelling, and integrated with an anthropological view of the role of art and mythology in human development.
