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Nora
As a horse guide in Alaska, Nora braved a
different terrain than the mountains of Oregon
that she's used to.
Nora's biography reads like an adventure story. There have been twists and turns and jobs that many would not dream of. There have been beers to brew, wildfires to fight, helicopters to rappel from, herds of animals to tend, and at the end of each — there's been the return to a ranch that she calls home.
Through it all, or even because of it,
Nora stays grounded.
She's practical, she's driven, and she lives with intention. Even home is an adventure, because for Nora, home is a ranch that her family homesteaded generations ago. And at home, hers is never the typical day.
There are goats to feed, horses to wrangle and there's lumber to mill.
Because it is a family homestead lived on and worked for generations, it is not a place easily abandoned. To keep roots and still see the world, Nora travels — and she does it by any means necessary. Most recently, she traveled to Antarctica. Why Antarctica?
In Oregon, Nora works as a horse wrangler and packer,
taking hunters into the mountain on horseback.
It's the only continent
she hadn't yet explored.
She decided to travel to Antarctica as an employee of the McMurdo science research station. But not everyone that wants to, can sign up to work, sleep and live on a bed of ice. There's a rigorous application process, one that Nora went through repeatedly before she was deemed qualified to shovel snow.
As a snow shoveler last year, Nora carried rock samples, ran rock saws as scientists searched for dinosaur bones and aided in the set up of equipment that surveyed the depths of the glacier's ice sheets. And, of course, she shoveled snow.
Now, Nora's in Antarctica from October through March
for the second of her summer seasons.
In Antarctica, the weeks around Christmas have 24-hour sunlight,
so it really is Christmas in summer!
She'll be assisting scientists in their research and, because of the excellent work she did during her first season, she'll be working as a helicopter technician. That job could entail any number of things in addition to the heavy lifting of scientific equipment, assisting scientists and acting as an extreme stewardess.
Because of that, Nora couldn't say exactly what this second season on the ice will entail. Surely she expects that there will be countless opportunities for adventure. That's part of the draw. And considering her history, there's no doubt she'll pursue each and every one of them.
