Jenna Schnuer

The New York Times: In Alaska, Slowing Down to Take Things In

 With rain hitting the roof, the temperature outside hovering in the low 50s and a cast iron stove keeping things warm inside the cabin that, on this July weekend, is serving as an art studio and classroom, I feel a nap coming on. Summer days in Alaska. They are not always the bluebird skies promised in travel ads.

But there’s no time for napping on this trip to McCarthy, a bustling summer community of artists, writers, seasonal workers and visitors that sits 60 miles down a gravel road in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve.

I’m here to expand the techniques I use to observe and record the natural world, to gain a deeper understanding of the animals, plants and geology of the state I’ve called home for eight years. Over the next two days I’ll attend a field-sketching workshop taught by the science illustrator and natural history artist Kristin Link through the Wrangell Mountains Center.

Read the piece on the NYT site.

Extra Crispy: Camping Kitchen EssentialsMay 26, 2017

I’m fairly certain my love of camping kitchen gear grew out of my childhood obsession with buying things for my dollhouse. I wasn’t a fan of playing with the dollhouse itself. The dolls were creepy. But stocking that tiny kitchen was pure joy. All those tiny things! The wee cast iron skillet. The mini mini fridge. Those itty bitty strips of bacon. When I started camping a decade back, I found the same thrill in buying camping gear. I mean, seriously, the chance to stock another kitchen? And some of the gear is on the tiny side? The best. Ready to pack your own bag (or car) and hit the trail (or campground)? 

Find out which products I suggest.

Sierra Magazine: The Best Backpacking PodcastsMarch 22, 2017

Whether you’re still knee-deep in snow (as we are here in Alaska) or already stopping to smell an abundance of spring flowers (show-offs), backpacking should be on the brain. It’s just about high season for hitting the trails, and there’s no time like the present to start gathering your gear and upping your skills. Not sure how to get started? Hit Play on these podcasts. And if you’re a seasoned backpacker seeking to go bigger this season—hitting tougher terrain for longer periods of time—you’ll find wisdom in these episodes, too.

Read the piece on SierraClub.org.

National Geographic Traveler: Garden State VarietyOct. 2015

We're treating our kayaks like floating La-Z-Boy recliners, the three of us leaning back, legs stretched out on the decks. Here on the Delaware River, New Jersey lies to our left, Pennsylvania to our right. It's been several minutes since we needed to paddle. As Interstate 80 comes into view, we dip our paddles into the water to guide our boats around one of the thick concrete pillars of the highway overpass, the noise of cars rushing overhead crowding out the river sounds. "It's all right here," says my friend Leslie.

Indeed. That is the best and worst of New Jersey summer up. With 39,000 miles of public roadway paving the 8,723-square-mile state, it's easy to get to everything and, it can seem, hard to get away from anything. 

Read more about my NJ road trip on the National Geographic site or in the October National Geographic Traveler. 

The New York Times: At Katmai National Park in Alaska, Bears RuleAugust 6, 2015

 

Katmai National Park sprawls over four million acres in southern Alaska. So why does its only established campground allow for just 60 people per night — a limit that leads to an online booking fray every January? The answer is also one of the park’s main draws, and its primary claim to national fame: bears. Lots of them — about 2,200 at the National Park Service’s last count, with 60 or so regulars that hang around Brooks Camp every summer. In theory, you can camp elsewhere in Katmai, but the campground has an electric fence and constant activity, making it an unlikely place to find a bear too close to your tent for sleeping comfort.

By last spring, just about a year into my life as a full-time Alaskan, I had designs on spending time at Brooks Camp, long considered one of the state’s premier bear-viewing spots. 

Read more about hanging out with the bears at Brooks Camp.

Every Day with Rachael Ray: The Happy Camper HandbookJuly/August, 2015

Curious about camping but not sure how (or where) to begin? My camping 101 piece will help you figure out what to do, what gear to buy, and, best of all, some of the country's best spots for first-time (or, for that matter, all-the-time) campers. Now go on and get out there. You'll be glad you did. 

 

Smithsonian: Hoofing ItMarch 2015

Wood bison aren’t the most accommodating of animals. When bothered, these super-sized versions of America’s sweetheart, the plains bison, can become as solid as Stonehenge, refusing to budge, or they might take off running—at up to 40 miles per hour. It’s an impressive feat for North America’s largest land mammal (bulls weigh up to 2,600 pounds), but it’s exactly the type of balky behavior that Tom Seaton, a mukluks-wearing biologist with Alaska’s fish and game department, is trying to avoid.

Beginning later this month, Seaton will chaperon 100 bison, bred to be genetically diverse to boost their shot at survival, across nearly 400 miles to a new home in Alaska’s wilderness, where they have not lived in the wild for more than a century.

Read more in the March 2015 issue of Smithsonian magazine or on Smithsonian.com.

Cummings Veterinary Medicine: Call of the WildWinter 2015

The Japanese tourist had decided to take a solo beach-camping vacation at the northernmost point in the United States: Point Barrow, Alaska, 1,200 miles from the North Pole. There were problems, though. The thick sea ice had hidden where the beach stopped and the water started, so his tent was planted on top of the Beaufort Sea. And there was a hairier problem wandering about: polar bears.

Cheryl Rosa, now deputy director of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, was also in the area for the first time, working on her dissertation about the health of Arctic bowhead whales, which the Native Iñupiaq people have hunted for thousands of years. It was 2000, and she had moved to Alaska to pursue a combined Ph.D. and wildlife residency at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

 

Read my profile of Rosa and her work in the Arctic in the winter issue of the Magazine of Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University.

American Way: Into the WildSeptember 2014

An essay about my turning into an outdoorsy type. Sadly, the piece isn't online anymore. But here's how it starts...

The tent looked like a rejected prop from an episode of M*A*S*H. No. Worse. If Charlie Brown went tent shopping, he would have walked out with this one. It was the Charlie Brown Christmas tree of tents.

Last year, my mom found a photo of the tent. It’s the only evidence proving that my family’s collective memory of the relic isn’t just some sad legend that’s grown since the mid-1970s. We borrowed the tent from the family friends who had convinced my parents that we should all go camping together. Like most snapshots from the era, the photo has faded into a uniform brown-green. In it, a few trees leaning behind the tent look embarrassed, like they’re trying to duck out of the photo. The army-green tent is the classic inverted V-shape. When kids draw pictures of tents, they draw our tent.

 

Every Day with Rachael Ray: Cruise Alaska for LessJune, 2014

You haven't been to Alaska yet? What are you waiting for? In this eight-page photo-packed feature, I fill you in on a slew of ideas of things to do and the how-tos of taking a ferry trip through Southeast Alaska. Come on now. Go book your tickets. Jump into the piece on page 94.

The Magazine: How to Move a Wood BisonMarch 12, 2014

It's been a century, perhaps two, since wood bison roamed the wilds of Alaska. But that could change soon thanks to the efforts of Alaska Fish and Game employees and staffers at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. In this piece for The Magazine, I report on what it takes to move a wood bison back from the brink--and to get a checkup. (Stubborn old things.)

Read the piece on The Magazine on Medium.