About Us

This is an independent website I created out of my own interest in the Pebble Mine issue. I receive no funding from any organization for this. I am personally opposed to the Pebble project, but strive to keep this site accurate and fact based. If you see something you think is wrong, please tell me.

I got involved in the Pebble issue in 2005, when I read a brief article about it in the New York Times. I am a confirmed addict of the Alaskan backcountry, and with my husband I have hiked about 3000 miles of it over the past seven years. See my Alaska Trips. Southwest Alaska has been my favorite place on earth since 2001, when I first hiked down the Alaska Peninsula. When I started reading about the Pebble Mine project, I was dismayed to find that it was getting much less attention than such an enormous project deserved. And for those of us who don't live there it was very difficult to find any pictures or any information on what this remote region was actually like. So I decided to go out and rectify the situation. I took a six day photography trip to the region in August 2005. And in June 2006, I took a month-long journey by foot and raft through the 500 miles of watersheds downstream of the proposed mine. You can find stories and photos from those trips. I have also researched and compiled an extensive set of facts on the Pebble project, and written articles on a few key issues.

In January 2008 I will return to the Pebble Valley and follow the proposed route of the mine road to Cook Inlet, as part of a four-thousand-mile expedition: Journey on the Wild Coast.
Read below for more about me (Erin McKittrick), and my husband and collaborator (Bretwood Higman).

Right now the thing dominating both of our lives is our upcoming nine month, four-thousand-mile expedition: Journey on the Wild Coast, which will take us from Seattle to Unimak Island (first in the Aleutian chain).
Hig is finishing up his PhD in geology at the University of Washington, so we can leave this June (2007). We both attended Carleton college, where we met. We were married in 2003, and took a trek in the Brooks range as our honeymoon. In addition to all the other stuff we do, we also run a small business called Sundrop Jewelry, crafting glass jewelry using solar energy with a giant magnifying lens

Erin (Erin McKittrick)

Most of this website is my fault, though Hig and I collaborate on the pictures. I'm 27, a Seattle native, and grew up hiking with my family in the Cascade mountains. I have a masters degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology, and am a jewelry artist, among other things. In addition to trekking and photography, I like to paint , and I study aikido.
My main project these days is using my wilderness treks to raise environmental awareness of the issues facing parts of Alaska and the northern Pacific coast, through photography, writing, and the web. Our next big projcet is: Journey on the Wild Coast, whice will cover a four-thousand-mile span of coast from the Puget Sound to the Bering Sea.
We're starting a new organization: Ground Truth Trekking to pursue these environmental projects.
Contact me at mckittre at gmail dot com.

Hig (Bretwood Higman)

Hig is a grad student in geology, studying tsunamis and the sand deposits they leave behind, and hurrying to graduate by June 2007 so we can leave on our next adventure. In the course of his research he's traveled to Kamchatka, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Thailand, studying the signs left behind by tsunamis, particularly the giant 2004 Sumatra tsunami. You can check out news and pictures from his Sri Lanka trip.
He's 30, and grew up in the small town of Seldovia, AK. This would explain why we've done a lot of hiking on the Kenai Peninsula, dropping in to visit the folks on the way to or from various wild adventures. His hikes started with short forays into the woods behind his house, and have steadily expanded in scale to the hundreds of mile treks we do today.
You can get in touch with Hig at hig314 at gmail dot com.