Dust Off Your Dreams with Mandela Van Eeden

National Wildlife Federation Outdoors

This week we are excited to feature a podcast from our partner, Artemis, and will head afield this week to talk with NWF Outdoor's newest member, storyteller and adventurer Mandela van Eeden. This episode was recorded on the edge of the forest near a meadow in Montana. Mandela's upbringing was split between South Africa, where her family harvested from the sea, and Montana - where they gratefully accepted the river's bounty. Mandela talks to us about connecting to place, pursuing your dreams, and how we can care for what sustains us. Plus, a black bear walks in on Marcia and Mandela mid-way through the episode. (No jokes, folks!)

4:00 All the 'boks' in Africa, which is Afrikaans for 'deer' (springbok, bontebok, gemsbok)

5:00 A childhood split between the African bush and Montana, leaving your heart in both

11:00 Three Gorges Dam & the Yangtze River

12:00 Storytelling with sound and music AND raft guiding both hemispheres

16:00 What's the core value that makes us do what we do?

18:00 The Oily River Rendezvous and seeing an oil spill from the river's view

19:00 "If you think you're too little to make a difference, you've obviously not spent the night with a mosquito."

22:00 "Grand Canyon pink" - a rattlesnake endemic to that space

24:00 Getting Primitive program gets kids into bushcrafting

27:00 Fish in one hand, shark in the other

30:00 Fly-fishing as a family affair

32:00 Podcast interrupted by a black bear... yep, bonafide bear strolling through!

37:00 The myriad of ways in which people gather from the sea

38:00 NWF Outdoors podcast, Vanishing Seasons

41:00 If you want to connect with a place... BE there. Fully present. Cease the wandering mind.

42:00 Yoga sutras written by Pantanjali

49:00 Connection to the outdoors through harvest + patience and mindfulness

50:00 The value of a mentor

54:00 Riverboarding the Grand Canyon for 15 days... the dream started with a flip.

56:00 Thalweg: the fastest current in the river

59:00 "Go into your dream closet and dust off some of those ones you've filed away."

1:03 Introducing family to game - antelope and bear... and recruiting a nephew into the ranks

1:06 Listen to what your body tells you to eat (plus, spearfishing)

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