Amy Voytilla
Amy is the Wilderness Classroom’s sponsorship coordinator and PR person. Her previous Wilderness Classroom online adventures include the Superior Waters Project, the Trans-Amazon Expedition, and Project Polar Bear.
Amy received her BA in Art and Psychology from Macalester College and MA in Art Therapy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. When Amy is not out paddling or adventuring in the woods, you can find her in the ceramics studio at the Grand Marais Art Colony. She has also been a sea kayak and dogsled guide in northern Minnesota for the past six years.
Dave Freeman
The Wilderness Classroom was born in the winter of 2001 during Dave’s Border Country Adventure—a
6-week, 240 mile, solo toboggan trek along the Minnesota/Ontario border. Using a laptop computer and Globalstar Satellite phone, Dave posted journals, photos, and other educational resources, connecting with classrooms across the country. During the last seven years he has played a vital role in the development and implementation of 10 online expeditions with the Wilderness Classroom.
Dave does it all, from planning and executing expeditions to maintaining our website. Each year Dave conducts many school assemblies, introducing students to our online expeditions and familiarizing them with the wilderness locations we explore. He graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder with BA in Biology and Anthropology. Dave is also a Web master, programmer, and wilderness guide. He has worked as a dogsledding, sea kayaking, and canoeing instructor for 15 years, introducing hundreds of people to wilderness travel.
Clayton White
John Amren
John's experience with kayaking began with white-water paddling over 32 years ago. He moved to the Grand Marais, Minnesota areain 1980 with initial dreams of becoming an artist and photographer, but ended up working as a carpenter and block layer. John has paddled a lot of white-water and was on many of the early descents of the local North Shore rivers in the late 70's. In addition to the many Lake Superior watershed rivers, John has run rivers in California, Colorado, West Virginia, various southeast states, as well as Yucatan Mexico and Guatemala. John has also paddled the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon twice.
John made the transition to coastal kayak touring through the years... starting and operating a kayak touring business based in Grand Marais from 1992 through 2009. He sold the building that housed his business just in time to join the team for the first stage of the North American Odyssey. When he was in junior high, John was intrigued with Bigfoot (also known as Sasquatch). For a while he actually wanted to move to British Columbia to seek them out!
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Latest News
| Wild Beauty of the Peel Watershed 08/26/2010  We have just spent the past six days paddling through a very special landscape. I call it special for two reasons: 1.) it contains vast tracts of intact wild lands and 2.) it possess a stark beauty unlike any other place that Dave and I have traveled in. This area is the Peel Watershed. To give y [ ... ] |
| Highlight from Hiking in Tombstone Territorial Park 08/20/2010  We left the Yukon River and hiked into a new watershed, in order to continue our progress north. We spent 8 days hiking 70 miles in Tombstone Territorial Park. The first 30 miles of the hike are on an old road. It started off as a somewhat well-maintained gravel road that gradually transformed int [ ... ] |
| Yukon Salmon 08/19/2010  by Kevin Boltz Prior to this trip we had all done a considerable amount of research about the Yukon River ranging from topics such as the Klondike Gold Rush, Yukon wildlife, and places of interest. I also researched the fish found in the waters of the Yukon River. I was researching fish [ ... ] |
| Paddling From Carmacks to Dawson on the Yukon River 08/09/2010  We flew through Carmacks. The Shedd crew was keen to stick with us until Minto. Melissa, Kevin, Maureen, Konrad, and Kelsey were thrilled to join us for the infamous Five Finger Rapids. The only word we collectively decided sums up our experience in the rapids is “anticlimactic”. The experi [ ... ] |
| Treats from the Trail 08/04/2010  by Maureen Hanzel Trail mix, with rice and beans every night is not necessarily the case while camping: with a few simple tricks one can create some tasty treats. Dehydration is your friend. Make sure to pack fresh fruits and vegetables. Find proteins that will last. [ ... ] |
| Shedd Team, Signing Off 08/04/2010  It is hard to believe that our 8 day journey has finally come to an end. It has been a fantastic experience for all of us and we are all taking home memories that will last a lifetime. In 8 days we have traveled over 240 miles maneuvering through shallow sand bars and anticipated rapids. The weathe [ ... ] |
During stage 1 we will kayak 1,400 miles from Seattle, Washington to Skagway, Alaska. The Pacific Northwest is home to a wide range of aquatic and terrestrial animals. We will be studying whales and other marine mammals, kelp forests, salmon, and many other species.
The Pacific Northwest is home to a variety of large land mammals including Grizzly Bears, and Black Bears. Above and below the surface we are sure to find plenty of things to learn about. Many of these large mammals need large undeveloped spaces to thrive and the roadless sections of British Columbia and Alaska provide the perfect habitat.
From Skagway, Alaska we will hike over the Chilkoot Pass in the footsteps of thousands of gold seekers who struggled across the pass to reach the Klondike. Many of artifacts remain from those early days, and we will follow their path all the way to Dawson City along the mighty Yukon River.
From Bennet Lake on the eastern side of the Chilkoot Pass we will canoe through a chain of lakes that form the headwaters of the Yukon River past White Horse and down the swift flowing Yukon River to Dawson City. 
From Dawson we will hike 100 miles through the mountains to the headwaters of the Blackstone River. The Blackstone flows into the Peel River, which flows in the McKenzie River, which will lead us to the Arctic Ocean. The rivers flowing through these rugged mountains as some of the most pristine wild rivers in North America, with hundreds of miles of flowing waterways between towns or roads.
After over 2,600 miles of paddling and hiking we hope to reach the Arctic Ocean before freeze up. We will spend the month of October,2010 training our dogs, and learning about native life in the Arctic. In November we will head south along the McKenzie River by dog team, crossing 1,800 miles of frozen wilderness. There are many remote native communities along our way and we are sure to learn a lot from the people we encounter.
When the ice melts in the Spring of 2011 we will transition from dogsled to canoe and paddle 2,300 miles along the historic travel and trade route pioneered by Alexander McKenzie, Samuel Hearne, and other Canadian Explorers in the 1700's. We will finish this stage of our journey in the fall of 2011 by completing the 8 1/2 mile Grand Portage which will lead us to the rock shore of Lake Superior.
After spending the winter giving presentations and making final preparations we will begin 4,800 mile kayak journey from Grand Portage, Minnesota to Key West, Florida. The first 2,200 miles will take us through the Great Lakes and out the Saint Lawrence Seaway. 
During the final stage of our journey we will kayak the length of the Atlantic Coast from the Saint Lawrence Seaway to Key West, Florida. We will be following the seasonal whale migration from the Bay of Fundy in Maine to the warm clear waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way we will visit cities large and small, and study a variety of ecosystems and environmental topics. We also plan to take side trips into the cyprus swamps and Everglades National Park looking for Alligators, birds, and other critters.
