Tonic of Wild – Pacific Northwest Stewardship Event Wrap-Up
On May 26th, 2021, we had an opportunity to gather the Pacific Northwest boating community online to celebrate American Whitewater’s river stewardship work in the region and build support for AW. Memberships and community support are essential to our organization and over the past year we’ve really had to get creative with ways to continue to engage paddlers in support of our mission. We’ve seen an incredible response and the Tonic of Wild event was a huge success.
We heard from professional kayaker and photographer Chris Korbulic, with a special presentation on the Olympic Peninsula, including incredible video and imagery from his experiences paddling there this past year and his reasons for supporting the Wild Olympics legislation that American Whitewater has been advocating on behalf of for well over a decade. We also heard from Pacific Northwest Stewardship Director Thomas O’Keefe and Executive Director at the Oregon Outfitters and Guides Association Priscilla Macy with an update on the plethora of stewardship work American Whitewater is involved in across Oregon, Washington and Idaho.
We gave away a Pyranha kayak during our membership drawing and a bunch of schwag in drawings for anyone who participated in the event. In conjunction with the event we held a silent online auction with with framed prints from the Olympic Peninsula from Chris Korbulic, framed prints of an awesome map of the Peninsula and tons of other great items from Kokatat, Hala Gear, Werner Paddles, AIRE, Immersion Research, Sierra Nevada, and American Whitewater schwag and pin kits too.
Thanks to all our sponsors, presenters and viewers! We signed up a ton of new members and raised a significant amount of funds towards our river stewardship program – a true testament to the community and big night for AW. If you weren't able to attend you can watch a recap of the night here.
Evan Stafford
Fort Collins, CO 80524