The Freeflow Podcast

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.

In this third mini-episode of the Cold Weather Craft Series, Leeanna Torres, a writer and advocate from New Mexico, shares a rich, four-part writing prompt, inviting you to consider the concept of Querencia, exploring ideas of home, belonging, roots, and our deepest knowing.

Freeflow's Cold Weather Craft Series is a midwinter deep dive into the maintenance and renewal of creative practice. In this second mini-episode, artist and musician Karima Walker leads an exercise that invites you to adjust your breath to your environment, to listen deeply, and to enter into dialog with the sounds and space around you.

Freeflow's Cold Weather Craft Series is a midwinter deep dive into the maintenance and renewal of creative practice. In this first mini-episode, Freeflow Institute's director Chandra Brown leads you through a short visualization to help you clarify the constituent parts of your creative life; to imagine what might be lying dormant, beneath the stuff of obligation and routine; and to consider committing to a short, attainable objective of building more negative space into your days.

So far in this first season of the Podcast, we've focused our attention on the rivers of the West. To close the season we are sharing a piece by Jessica Zephyrs, a writer, marketer, and Oklahoman living out her Rocky Mountain dreams in Montana. Jessica paints a portrait of a wild river so far and different from the ones that flow through our western landscape - she takes us to her native Oklahoma, to a river you've likely never heard of, the Cimarron, which is itself a very distinct, very non-western expression of wild water, and to the people who have shaped and been shaped by her home place.

Freeflow Institute's mission is to connect people to wild or precious places, and also to connect people to one another: emerging writers to professional writers, creatives to conservationists, educators to students, established mentors to the next generation of leaders. So much of what we try to do is build cohorts of thinkers who might, together, effect change or come up with good ideas. And at the center of all that we do are stories. So today, we are happy to offer up a second alumni showcase - stories from two Freeflow alumni, Alli Hartz, whom we met last year on the Rogue River with Brendan Leonard, and Erin White, who was on the Blackfoot in 2019 with David James Duncan.

In this second half of their conversation, the pileated woodpecker follows producer Rick White and David James Duncan to the banks of the Bitterroot River. They meander and dip into discussion of great teachers, the spiritual life of literary characters, the endeavor to illuminate truth, and David's new novel as an "asshole free zone." David reads his ethereal essay, "Cherish This Ecstasy," and birds of all sorts - ravens, Canada geese, and vultures among them - visit Rick and David during their talk. As a bonus - and as an antidote to the gravity of quotidian life - on this episode of the Podcast, we hear David James Duncan make loon, raven, and falcon sounds. It doesn't get much better than that.

After 15 years in the making, David James Duncan's third novel, the 1200-page marvel Sun House, is nearly poised to make its entrance into the world. Producer Rick White caught up with David last year to discuss the evolution of his writing life; structure and solitude; education and fishing; and his decision to never write a long book again. Also, David reads, through tears and to the wingbeats of a pileated woodpecker, the first pages of Sun House.

In the summer of 2018 the Freeflow community established its roots. Our mission is to connect people to wild or precious places, but also to connect people to one another: emerging writers to professional writers, creatives to conservationists, educators to students, established mentors to the next generation of leaders. The students are the heart of our community. They raise good questions and challenge us to be better as an organization. They also collect and create really good stories. And so today on the Podcast we feature the stories and voices of two of our alumni. Both of these stories are, ostensibly, about birds. Dippers, or water ouzels, specifically. And both are also about so much more. Thanks to Lauren Smith and Zoey Greenberg for contributing these beautiful essays to the Podcast.

In his essay On Edges, writer Joe Wilkins reflects upon the differences between the wild Klamath Mountains and the eastern Montana plains that raised him. He explores, within the contexts of these Western landscapes and parenthood, concepts like freedom, wildness, liminal spaces, failure, and doubt. Joe helps us draw a parallel between the freedom in wild water and the freedom that children need in order to find their edges, to fall, to get back up, to understand the limits of the physical world and the limits within human societies.

Since 2019, Freeflow Institute has partnered with river conservation organization American Whitewater to provide scholarships to creative people who are passionate about rivers. The American Whitewater Scholarship supports Freeflow students who have good ideas for enhancing and expanding public awareness of issues facing watersheds or landscapes; or igniting public dialog; or encouraging the general public to celebrate, experience, and protect the rivers of our country. Today the Podcast features the voices of two past American Whitewater Scholars, Allison Fowle of Idaho and Jack Henderson of North Carolina. Allison and Jack share stories about the Wild & Scenic Rivers program, grassroots stewardship, education, and creative conservation. We hope you're as inspired by these two superstars as we are. To check out the American Whitewater Scholarship program, visit http://freeflowinstitute.com/the-freeflow-podcast-scholarship/. Thanks for listening!

Nora Saks is a reporter and documentarian based in Butte, Montana and the host and creator of Richest Hill – a podcast about one of America's most legendary Superfund sites. Producer Rick White met Nora for a walk along Silver Bow Creek in summer 2020 to discuss longform journalism, and the work of documenting the complex histories of communities with compassion, empathy, and dedication to the story. They discuss the heartbreak that can accompany full immersion into a story, affection for the underdog, and Atlantic salmon. Big thanks to Nora and to Montana Public Radio for sharing excerpts from Richest Hill.

Heather Hansman literally wrote the book on the Green River. Two years ago, Heather finished an account of her solo source-to-confluence descent of the Green, from its headwaters in the high mountains of Wyoming to its confluence with the Colorado. Her book, entitled Downriver: Into the Future of Water in the West (University of Chicago Press, 2019), is the artful product of adventure, inquiry, and super solid reporting. On this episode of the Podcast we feature a discussion that Freeflow director Chandra Brown had with Heather in early March. They talk about Heather's relationship with rivers; the role of personal experience in the telling of big, universal stories; the art of mining truth from the darkness surrounding social justice and ecological issues; the importance of community in journalism; and systems for finding and prioritizing projects.

In this episode of The Freeflow Podcast, CMarie Fuhrman reads a new iteration of her essay, “Hells Canyon Revival,” which was first published in 2017. CMarie's story takes us to Hells Canyon on the Snake River, where she explores several dualities with her characteristically thoughtful prose. She considers the art and cultural histories that are buried beneath impounded water, the limitations of language, and one ancient salmon hidden behind bars, high above the waterline. CMarie's essay is a personal account of her relationship to the Snake River, the tension within the landscape and its history, and her place within its remaining wildness. After her reading of "Hells Canyon Revival," CMarie discusses the myriad binaries within the narrative and her own complicated history of relationship to rivers. To learn more: http://freeflowinstitute.com/the-freeflow-podcast-home/

This is part two of producer Rick White's conversation with Hal Herring, who led the first-ever Freeflow Institute course on the Missouri River in 2018. Rick and Hal rendezvoused on forested public land near Augusta, Montana in September 2020. Throughout the episode, Hal reads excerpts from his essay “Seasons with Bear,” about sharing a few years of his life with a beloved hunting dog. The conversation is far-reaching and expansive. Hal talks about life in Montana's Bitterroot Valley, as well as anarchism, citizenship, and public lands. He discusses activism, advocacy, communication, and creative work; making a living with stories (and how true hunger is often a distraction from creativity, rather than a driving force toward it); and the dissolution of ego in journalists – a function of the volume of failures and rejections that writers must endure. Rick and Hal touch on Larry Brown and Cormac McCarthy. They settle on the hard truth that artists must be sensitive enough to create something beautiful, while also being strong enough to withstand the brutality of the world.

Producer Rick White speaks with Hal Herring, one of our all-time favorite writers and thinkers. Rick met up with Hal near Augusta, Montana in September 2020 to chop wood and chat about the exquisitely agonizing work of writing. Their conversation uncovers some of Hal's history: his migration West, his forays into fiction writing, and his formative work in the woods. Hal is the host of the Backcountry Hunters & Anglers podcast, a contributing editor at Field & Stream, one of the most dedicated researchers of our time, and a fierce protector of public lands. Hal reads excerpts from his 2011 High Country News essay on white bark pine; an old fiction piece called "Vacation"; and his astounding 2016 account of the Bundy occupation at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge - arguably one of the greatest pieces of environmental reporting to come out of the last decade.

This is the first episode of The Freeflow Podcast, wherein producer Rick White speaks with friend and Freeflow Institute instructor, Chris La Tray. Rick walked with Chris on snow-covered trails through Council Grove State Park, just west of Missoula, Montana, on a February morning in 2020. Chris La Tray is a Métis writer and storyteller, a walker, observer, poet, teacher, and pillar of the Montana literary community. His first book, One-Sentence Journal: Short Poems and Essays From the World At Large (2018, Riverfeet Press) won the 2018 Montana Book Award and a 2019 High Plains Book Award. His next book, Becoming Little Shell, will be published by Milkweed Editions in Spring 2022. Chris is an enrolled member of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians.