An eagle begins a dive on July 3, 2014 along the Kenai River in Alaska. Eagles are plentiful along the banks of the River, where they feast on millions of sockeye and king salmon that return to the Kenai each year. Eagles also feed on trout and some of the other 40 other species of fish that inhabit the river, along with ducklings and other prey in the area. Photo by Mike Leake
Here’s this season’s Flat Earth Media update:
Alaska is an astounding, mesmerizing place in the world – which made my recent assignment from the Denver Post, to summarize a day on the Kenai River in a mere 800 words, one of the more difficult projects I’ve ever faced. I very much dislike the phrase, “no words can describe,” or the idea that one can ever be left “speechless,” but those phrases continuously tried to insert themselves into my mind as I contemplated how to justly describe Alaska’s vastness, it’s wildness, and it’s beauty.
Working on my sockeye salmon fishing technique along the Kenai River in Alaska July 3, 2014. Photo by Mike Leake.
To be sure, words and photos are only a thin approximation of the real thing, but the best way to bring Alaska to life in the imagination of my readers, I thought, was to open with a description of a massive, bi-annual event that takes place on the Kenai Pennisula each year: the Skilak jökulhlaup. The idea that 102,000 acre-feet of glacial water can tear through 17 miles of wilderness before colliding with the massive Skilak lake every two years might, just might, give people a sense of how vast and wild Alaska remains.
They might also get a sense for the athletic abilities of the fish, who prove their resilience by surviving such events on a regular basis. They also proved it on the end of my line, where each catch fought with a vigor one might expect from a fish twice the size.
Along with the Denver Post story, I hope to post a more in-depth version of this piece on my own Rocky Mountain Post, but in the meantime I have quite a few other things to keep me and my team busy.
The first is my departure for the second summer Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, China, where I will be covering various sporting events and working with the International Olympic Committee’s Youth Information Service to make sure we do justice to the event in story form. As with my time in Innsbruck, Austria in 2012, Vancouver in 2010, and Torino in 2006, I know that a host of incredible stories await. I look forward to arriving, finding them, and telling these stories to our international audience. More than that, I look forward to reuniting with the folks who work for the IOC with me in this capacity, who are among the finest, most entertaining, and hardworking sort I’ve ever come to know.
Gone from Aug. 8 – Sept. 6, I will miss my family tremendously.
The Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing get under way August 16 and close August 28.
I’ll also be in limited communication with clients old and new, who have been exceedingly accommodating as I’ve planned for this event. Their grace, in large part, is due to the skill and talent of Jessica Chapman, who, despite being a new mother (for the second time) of a brand new baby boy, has stepped up to handle many of the needs of the company in my absence.
Jessica and I are excited to announce our work with the One Earth Future Foundation (OEF), a bold and ambitious organization that seeks to reduce the root causes of conflict. We are so excited to be involved with OEF, in particular this October with a few events right here in Colorado.
Jessica’s background in thoughtful essay writing and international work makes her the perfect candidate to lead this effort. Her care for nuanced details is helping us carry the messaging of OEF in a way that will allow us to reveal the pragmatic, practical, and action-oriented work of OEF to our audience, even as we begin to prepare for two seminal events to be hosted by the organization this autumn.
While in China, I’ll be checking in daily to hear more about this effort, as well as the continued efforts of my Sonoran Institute, Community Builders, New Mobility West, Students Shoulder to Shoulder, and other clients.
Community Builders, as visitors to this site are likely to know, has been a loyal and steadfast client of Flat Earth Media for quite some time. A new initiative as of January, 2013, Community Builders provides information and research for communities throughout the West who are looking to grow their economies while preserving their heritage. The work hits particularly close to home for me, personally, simply because I hold the American West so dear as a place I love to live, work, and play. Like so many other Westerners, I want our towns and cities to thrive even as we preserve the social, cultural, and ecological characteristics that make us unique. All of these goals are aligned, and Community Builder’s research continues to show how the same items that protect western heritage also, by good fortune, create lasting economic prosperity.
Correlated to that project is a new initiative: New Mobility West.
Amanda Swanson lead an excellent process to create a meaningful and attractive logo for New Mobility West.
Along with Jeremy Kennedy, Amanda Swanson, and others, Flat Earth Media has taken on the task of caring for the technical and web-based needs of CB and NMW. From widgets to web, media outreach to messaging, design to SEO, Flat Earth Media is quite honestly honored to be part of these sensible, balanced, and economically-minded organizations. We’ll have much more to report about New Mobility West as time goes on. For now, it’s enough to say that this brand-new organization is already showing it’s ability to bring people and ideas together in a round-table fashion, a hallmark it shares with Community Builders and the Sonoran Institute.
There is much more to share, and much more on the horizon. We’re looking forward to a great finish to 2014 and will update our friends here on this page as our firm continues to grow it’s capability to serve the media needs of non-profits, start-ups, and social entrepreneurship enterprises.