Guide Profile: Anna Nordin   

Growing up on the shores of Lake Superior Gitchigumi, Anna has always had a love for playing outside. Anna has spent 5 summers working as a backcountry guide at a wilderness adventure camp and sharing outdoor experiences with youth including canoe trips in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and backpacking trips around the lower 48 as well as the Alaska Brooks Range.

Anna worked for the Utah Conservation Corps learning about the different plants and invasive species in the Moab area. In the winter of 2022/23 she spent the season working as a dog handler for a musher in Willow Alaska. Anna learned how to care for, train, and race sled dogs and has gotten to experience how amazing and powerful these tiny beings are!

As you can see, Anna is always learning new skills and not afraid to step out of her comfort zone for new experiences, especially if they are in the outdoors.  

While working as  as a wilderness guide, Anna has come to realize a passion for facilitating connection amongst groups of people and allowing space for folks to interact with the outdoors in their own unique ways. Creating an environment where people feel welcomed and included in the outdoors, is important to Anna, while also discovering the past and present stories of where we travel is paramount to developing respect, responsibility, and allyship to these wild places and to each other. Anna isn’t just interested in spending time in wilderness but in exploring how people interact with each other and the physical environment in remote backcountry settings.

Anna earned the nickname of “Tugboat” on an Alaska trip last summer with clients. She is small but mighty. She just keeps on going and encourages others to follow along with the tugboat.

Not only is she experienced and skilled in the backcountry, but she is just fun to travel with. No matter what gets thrown her way on a trip she keeps on going and doesn’t let small things like three days of solid rain dampen her enthusiasm for a trek or her clients.