The Burn 2025_BrassicasKidsSet by Freeflow Institute

Ed Roberson in conversation with Chandra Brown, Part II – Teaching & Learning in the West’s Wildest Landscapes

As a professional kayaker, Brooke Hess’s life revolves around wild rivers. But in recent years she’s become increasingly concerned about threats to river ecosystems - like the dams on the lower Snake River. She knew she had to do something to encourage more people to advocate for the removal of those dams. That’s why, in April 2022, she and three other women set out on the trip of a lifetime: kayaking all 1000 miles of the Salmon River, from its headwaters to the Pacific Ocean.

https://freeflowinstitute.com/season3brooke/

Our theme music is by Nate Heygi and Wartime Blues. The Freeflow Podcast is made possible by support from the Prop Foundation. Mary Auld and Stephanie Maltarich produced this episode. To learn more about Freeflow Institute, go to www.freeflowinstitute.com.

Lailani Upham grew up on Amskapi Pikuni (Blackfeet) traditional lands in Northwest Montana. As a child, she listened to stories and songs about her people and their culture, as told by her grandparents and Tribal elders. As an adult, Lailani took these stories with her everywhere - they helped ground her, wherever she was, even if she was far from home. In 2019, she realized she wanted to take her stories to the next level by starting her own Indigenous-led company that facilitates "cultural storytelling hikes" on Blackfeet lands. Iron Shield Creative takes Tribal and non-Tribal people on hikes that are steeped in language, narrative, song, and community. Lailani's goal is to cultivate understanding from an Indigenous perspective and diminish damaging stereotypes by sharing traditions and stories.

https://freeflowinstitute.com/3-2-the-leader-lailani-upham/

Our theme music is by Nate Heygi and Wartime Blues. The Freeflow Podcast is made possible by support from the Prop Foundation. Mary Auld and Stephanie Maltarich produced this episode. To learn more about Freeflow Institute, go to www.freeflowinstitute.com.

Leeanna Torres worked for years on the rivers of the Southwest as a fish biology technician. She spent spare moments on those rafts scribbling thoughts and observations in a pocket notebook. In 2021, she had the opportunity to merge her passions for rivers and words on Freeflow Institute’s Gates of Lodore writing workshop on Utah’s Green River. On the river this time, as a committed writer with a very specific focus, Leeanna explores concepts of identity, belonging, craft, and connection.

Our theme music is by Nate Heygi and Wartime Blues. The Freeflow Podcast is made possible by support from the Prop Foundation. Mary Auld and Stephanie Maltarich produced this episode. To learn more about Freeflow Institute, go to www.freeflowinstitute.com.

In this final mini-episode of the Cold Weather Craft Series, writer, farmer, and Freeflow superstar Kitty Galloway offers an exercise that celebrates the spirit of springtime - foundation and new growth, inspiration, intention, and aspiration in this new season. While this is the last episode in our winter series, you can learn more about Freeflow Institute's upcoming workshops and scholarships, and listen to more of the Podcast at freeflowinstitute.com.

In this penultimate mini-episode of the Cold Weather Craft Series, Chris La Tray shares a beautiful exercise in which he invites us to notice the sounds embedded within and inherent to what we so often perceive as silence. Chris is a Métis poet, storyteller, and enrolled Member of the Montana Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians. He's also one of our favorite Freeflow instructors.

In this sixth mini-episode of the Cold Weather Craft Series, author and teacher Joe Wilkins offers up a stream-side meditation on the layers of landscape in our writing. Joe posits that any given landscape is a mosaic of layered and nuanced complexity, and he invites us to consider the entire system when writing about place.

In this fifth mini-episode of the Cold Weather Craft Series, author and journalist Heather Hansman shares some insight into making time for writing by setting boundaries and moving through the paralysis we so often experience as writers. She shares her go-to method of tricking our brains into just getting started.

On this fourth mini-episode of the Cold Weather Craft Series, Anna Brones, a writer and artist from the Pacific Northwest, leads a short and powerful exercise to consider why and where you need creativity in your life.