(Land) Trust Yourself

Abby Bennett, Ultra Runner, Researcher, Van Lifer, Land Steward

Photo Credit: Jeff Sinon

This week I’m back to in-real-life interviewing (woohoo!), and taking you with me to the ultra cool and vintage headquarters of the Mahoosuc Land Trust at Valentine Farm in Bethel, Maine, where we'll be chatting with Abby Bennett - aspiring ultra runner and conservationist in training.

As you’ll hear, I first started trying to get Abby on the pod because she had a little online business selling fun-looking compression socks for hiking and trail running, and I thought that was cool. I got some socks, but never did manage to connect with her enough to chat at the time. So while we both languished through most of COVID, I followed her Instagram account and got even more interested in her progress as an van-life-ing ultra runner, and her professional transformation, all of which we’ll dig into here.

Abby is as big a fan of western Maine as I am, so of course we have some fun. 

I hope you'll follow my new friend Abby (@abby.j.bennett), where you can watch her grit it out through all kinds of vertical, and take on her new schwanky van conversion!

Because I know next to nothing about land trusts and trail/ultra running, I had to look a LOT of stuff up from this episode:

• Mahoosuc Land Trust

• YouTube video of Abby living out of van at school

• ‘ProMaster’ van

• Billy Yang

• Courtney Dewaulter

• Madison Gulf Trail (NH)

• Baldpate Mountain (ME)

• Ultimate Direction running pack

• What is a FKT?

• Strava

• Old Speck (ME)

• Baldface Circle Trail (NH)

• Western Foothills Land Trust

• NSF program at UMaine

• Maine Coast Heritage Trust

• Buck’s Ledge Community Forest (Woodstock, ME)

• Maggie’s Nature Park (Greenwood, ME)

• Bethel Village Trails - Bethel Community Forest

• Spandits - and my episode with the Spandits ladies!

• OnX app

• Speed Goat 50K (Utah)

• Loon Mountain Race (NH)

• Joe Gray - Grayson Murphy

• Rumford White Cap (ME)

• Granite Backcountry Alliance - Black & White Glade

• Acadia Gantz on Guides Gone Wild

So, before I let you go this week, I want to acknowledge that talking about land trusts is a complicated counter point to the last episode with Summits in Solidarity co-founder Serena Ryan. This year, the Summits in Solidarity fundraiser is supporting an indigenous-led project to install permanent signage at trailheads and summits across New Hampshire, where white-centered colonial landgrabbing had been doing a great job of wiping out a long history of place naming and stewardship by First nations people.

The conservation movement, and land trusts more specifically, have certainly been part of this systemic disregard of the original inhabitants of these spaces that we’ve decided are worth protecting and preserving access to for future generations. Little tinge of white saviorism there too.

But it’s been encouraging to see land trusts questioning some of the ideas they were founded on, and beginning to act in partnership with indigenous tribes, not only to expand access to land and restore sovereignty, but also to reimagine our relationship with the land, and return to proven sustainability and conservation practices. (Check out this interesting article about a 2020 transfer of 735 acres to the Penobscot Nation.)

These aren’t issues that are going to be resolved quickly, or as a result of a podcast, but I hope by talking about them a little bit, we’ve encouraged you to plug in to the land trusts in your area, to understand how they operate and what their goals are. We can help create the future we want to be part of, remember that, people - it’s something Abby has taken to heart, and we can too!