Alena

In this brief interlude between series, we decided to publish something a little different: an interview! We hope you find it as enjoyable as we did!

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Featured photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/orpoXtc5h8yfhwkMA

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One of my favorite parts of traveling is meeting new people. We have many new friends because of our travels! In a tiny town in Montana, we met our friend Tom. On a sunny Texas morning, we met our friends Mark and Noël. In Arizona, we met a New York City ex-cop named Kevin. We took a bike tour with Chris, we ziplined with Natalie, and I took photos with Jacques. The friends we have made are just as memorable as the places we’ve seen. 

At home, we find just as much joy with our local friends. Tyler and I are blessed with an amazing community! My own inner circle is blessed to have my friend Alena in it. Alena is one of the coolest people I know. We first met when I, a scrappy teenager, joined a Kwanmukan martial arts class. I was clumsy and awkward. Alena was fast, talented, and threw a mean punch. It was a match made in Heaven! 

Alena is wonderfully talented. She loves musicals and can sing like an angel. She is vibrant and fun to be around. She taught herself how to paint by watching Bob Ross videos. In my opinion, she has perfected the art. Looking at one of her paintings feels like standing atop a secluded mountaintop during the prettiest sunrise you’ve ever seen. They capture nature in perfection, sweet solitude, and the elusive feeling of peace. I have the distinct honor of owning two Alena originals. The mountain lake scene lives on my bedroom vanity, so I can enjoy it every morning! 

One of my favorite Alena traits is her fearlessness. She lives life on her own terms, subverting norms and expectations at every turn. In our Ohio hometown, there are many people who have never ventured further than the state’s borders. Like many small towns, there are people who find comfort in familiarity. Several years ago, Alena supplanted this notion when she spent a college semester researching in South America. Upon her return, she migrated north to research in Michigan and Wisconsin. After her college graduation, she accepted a job with the US Forest Service. True to form, her sparkly new job wasn’t in Ohio, but in the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest of Idaho!

Through all of these experiences, Alena demonstrated resilient adaptability. I admire that the most about her! She remains confident in the uncomfortable. She doesn’t let the fear of the unknown stop her. Alena is still working out in Idaho, battling tough winters (Idaho isn’t for the faint of heart!) and, more recently, the intense insecurity of having a government job. Her work is grueling, her hours are long, and still she smiles through it. Alena is a fighter. She was gracious enough to allow me to shine a spotlight on her during this uncertain time. So, without further ado, meet Alena. I hope you all enjoy getting to know her as much as I enjoy knowing her!

Thank you for doing this interview with me, Alena! Can you start us off with a fun fact about you? 

A fun fact about me is that I have a pet kitten named Precious who is made entirely of black fluff and spite. She is currently (very helpfully) sitting on my arms as I write this, but if I kick her out she might bite me.

Having met Precious, I believe that entirely! Before we talk about your job, let’s discuss living in Idaho. How does it compare to growing up in Ohio? Like the stereotype, is everything in Idaho related to potatoes?

Idaho is a beautiful state, and the summers here are lovely. There is so much wilderness out here that it's truly awe-inspiring. However, living here as a young person with hobbies and interests is very difficult. Elk City offers few activities other than walking to the post office or the grocery store, or hiking on the few trails I can access with my city-girl car between May and September before the snow sets in. I can drive 1.5 hours each way to go to town and go to the movie theater or the slightly larger grocery store (they sell specialties like yogurt and spinach). My three (3) friends all live about 1.75 hours away (one-way, mind you). We meet up on the weekends and sometimes drive the extra hour from their places to go to the “big city” and go contra dancing or to the farmer's market, which is actually so fun. But sadly, I am missing out on joining things like a community choir, a ju-jitsu class, a Bible study group, a theater troupe, or a dance class because those simply don't exist here. 

And about potatoes... I hate to be the one to say it, but Eastern Washington actually grows more potatoes than Idaho does. However, potatoes are one thing that I did manage to get to grow in my garden in Elk City last year. When it frosted at my house in July (lol), they were already big enough that I was able to harvest some delicious, real Idaho-grown potatoes!!! 

I’ve visited Idaho but never considered the difficulties of living somewhere so remote. Your perspective is informative! Let’s get into the real interview now. Tell us about where you work and what do you do! 

I work for the US Forest Service as a forestry technician. My job is very interdisciplinary, so I get to help out wherever people need support, which is super fun. I spend a lot of time with silviculture (who are in charge of forest health and management, like planting baby trees), timber (who organize and prepare and run timber sales), and recreation (who maintain trails, clean bathrooms, monitor campsites and river activity, and things like that). But basically I just go where I'm requested! If I'm not in the field, I'm usually making maps on ArcGIS for different departments.

What inspired you to pursue a career like yours? 

I went to school for environmental science and biology because I wanted to work outdoors. I am not the type of person who can be okay after eight hours on a computer, so it was important to me to get into something that had a lot of field work. I also wanted to avoid something where I would have to be in charge of my own funding, like a research position, because that can be so exhausting and unstable. The Forest Service is a great fit for me because of the steady work, the field work aspect, and the benefits of working for the government (healthcare, time off, etc.) that frankly can be very hard to find in the environmental sciences.

At the US Forest Service, what does a typical "day in the office" look like?

 My days really, really vary depending on who I'm working for and what season it is. Typically in the spring, I am working with silviculture in the field. We are usually preparing for and running spring planting with our contractor crews. Planting season gets pretty insane, with 12-15 hour days six days a week at its peak. We have to lay out and mark all the units we're planting, then go through with the contractors and make sure that the baby trees being planted all look good. Those contractors work HARD. Later in the summer, I usually get on a couple of recreation trail hitches, where I get to backpack around in the most beautiful scenic wilderness areas and do trail maintenance. Hitches can be up to eight days long, and you really learn what stinky means, but it's soooo satisfying to clear out a particularly bad section of trail. In the fall and winter, timber starts gearing up. I help them with cruising plots, which is a very mathematical and precise sampling method to determine the value of a stand of timber for sale. Of course, in between all of these, I am hopping from department to department as needed, doing trainings, helping out at the office, and working on whatever falls into my lap. I like the unpredictability of it all! 

With such a varied schedule, I imagine you must work with a lot of different people! What are your coworkers like?

I have one coworker, Brandi, who is absolutely my work bestie. We have the same job title and we basically do everything together. We have generally the same schedule and get along so well. I'm eternally grateful for her. Brandi is a goofball with a construction-worker's sense of humor, and a grandma's proclivity to feed everyone she comes in contact with. I think she is responsible for half of my fruit intake, especially when we are traveling for work together. Outside of Brandi, my coworkers are still almost uniformly lovely. Our office staff is a super sweet group of ladies. The silviculture team is also full of girl power-- like Della, who's the sweetest lady you could ever hope to meet. Della is terrified of snakes and spiders. Every now and then, however, she will casually tell us about the time she was wildland firefighting and got trapped in a clearing with 300-foot flames on every side. She says the guys with her were going bonkers screaming at the flames. She and her crew had to get into their survival thermal bags and wait it out (everyone miraculously survived). There are also a lot of Idaho dude-bros in this forest (the screaming-at-flames type). They make it an interesting place to work sometimes just because it is a very strongly male-dominated forest. Fortunately, Brandi speaks fluent old-man, so she endears herself to all the grumpy old guys who have to be convinced that girls can indeed hold a chainsaw.

I love the way you describe your coworkers! What do you enjoy about working for the US Forest Service?

I truly enjoy basically everything about this job. I love working outside, getting to hike around or drive an ATV or backpack as part of my job. I love working to maintain the health of the forest and the ecosystem. I even enjoy the occasional office day where I make some maps or do background projects that make the lives of field-going employees easier. 

What sort of things make your job difficult? 

The terrain of northern Idaho is notoriously extreme. We are situated at the base of the Rockies, with peaks around me reaching maybe 8,000 feet, and ALL the terrain is mountainous. We are very consistently walking up and down 80 degree slopes for hours on end. I have very bad knees, so the physicality of that type of walking can be pretty tough, especially over time. The winters are also tough. This past winter was pretty mild, with the lowest temperatures about -20F, but we had a good four and a half feet of snow for most of the winter. To do any field work in the winter, we have to take snowmobiles or a UTV with tracks, and walk with snowshoes to the plot. However, in the summer it can be very hot in the lower elevation areas that I work in, with temperatures over 110 last year. One day I remember I left my water bottle outside, and when I went to take a swig, it was like drinking too-hot tea. It's a humbling place to be a field-going employee.

What is it like to work for the government right now? Are you worried?

There is definitely a weird culture going on right now. In my area alone, we have lost at least four employees who took the buyout. One of my friends was hit with the Valentine's Day mass-firing event (everyone hit with that has since been re-hired, which was great but also extremely frustrating). People are also having to return to work in-person full-time, which is an absolute nightmare for an area as remote as this. There is extremely limited housing available across the entire forest. Access to education for kids or healthcare is similarly limited. Honestly, personal wifi networks are almost always better than office networks, so many people whose duty stations were in remote places like Elk City have lived hours away for years. Now, the return to in-person work has driven some additional people to take the government buyout. For those of us who are left, the agency has been promising a big Reduction in Force that should be implemented by the end of summer.

Since Tyler works for the USDA, we’ve seen a lot of losses in his area as well. “Weird culture” is an excellent way to describe the unpredictable atmosphere! We’ve been choosing to focus on the blessings instead of the worry. In light of that, we’ll wrap up on a fun note. Do you have any fun adventures planned this year? 

I really want to do a backpacking loop this summer that's sort of near my house called the Seven Devils, so that will be a summer goal. I also want to go to some rodeos this summer (I went with friends last summer and it was SO fun) and maybe a Glass Animals concert in August if I can convince somebody to go with me. I want to add some pizazz to my garden this year with shade sails and some raised beds, even if it is an exercise in futility. And I am coming home to Ohio in October to be in a friend's wedding, so watch out for me then!!

Alena was gracious enough to include an album of photos to accompany her interview. She also wrote some fun captions to go with them! The link to her photos is above, and the captions are below. Thank you for taking the time to meet my friend Alena! 

Photos include: my backyard, Keet, snowmobiling with the timber bros (scary), baby trees, and the lower elevation ranger station post-work walk view!

Photos from last summer include: mule (I forget her name but she was neeeeedy), yellow-flowered arrow leaf balsamroot, a grimy me during planting in a wildfire unit, and some landscapes from the Gospel Hump Wilderness and our Forest!