Exploring Wilderness

John Rust has spent a lifetime exploring and living in earth's wild places, pristine and primeval areas where both predator and prey exist. He has visited Yellowstone and the BWCA a multitude of times and has hiked and paddled the wilds of Alaska, including Denali, Kenai Fjords, Katmai, Admiralty Island, and Wrangell-St. Elias, over twenty-five times.

John has been charged by brown bears in Alaska and Bengal tigers in India. He has been confronted by growling wolves at night in Yellowstone and has spent lazy afternoons hidden in snow while large wolf packs napped nearby. He has kayaked braided glacier rivers with Alaska brown bears on nearby islands, and he has paddled rivers alongside porpoises, freshwater springs with manatees, and estuaries with basking alligators. He has trekked the frozen maze of lakes of the Boundary Waters during winter and hiked the Superior Hiking Trail--all with a keen eye toward observing wildlife and detailing his wild experiences in his journal.

John lives in the Twin Cities and is president of the Minnesota Division of the Izaac Walton League.