Well Guided: Conversations with Top AC Guides
This month: Eric Rock, Natural Habitat Adventures
A great guide can transform a journey. Eric Rock takes travelers into the heart of the north for Natural Habitat Adventures. Eric has been living and working in Alaska since 1989. He has studied river otters in Prince William Sound, sea birds of the Pribilof Islands, and the breeding biology of waterfowl on the Yukon River Delta. Other research projects have included the winter ecology of Alaska’s small mammals and the breeding biology of Alaskan moose and reindeer herding. He has also been the head naturalist at Kantishna Roadhouse Lodge in Denali National Park. Now, when not guiding for NatHab, he keeps busy as a freelance documentary photographer.
How long have you been a guide?
I started my professional guiding career in 1994 at a fly-in lodge located in Alaska.
How long have you been a guide for NatHab?
I came on as a polar bear guide in 1998.
As a guide, what do you do?
Pretty much everything it takes to ensure travelers experience a safe and fulfilling natural history trip.
What area/trip is your specialty?
I like to think I am pretty diverse, but I would have to say exploring and sharing northern ecosystems?
What is it about this area that most appeals to you and that you love most to share with your travelers?
Bears! These great animals are an excellent way to get a better understanding of the wonderful complexity of our natural world and the everyday challenges that life presents.
Can you give an example of any special experience or connection you have that you have been able to pass on to your travelers?
When I moved to Alaska I was lucky and worked my way through the state within the framework of many different ecological studies. These opportunities allowed me new insights into the complex workings of nature in the north. It was during this time that I realized there was a lot more to the natural world and sought a way to bring others in hopes of allowing them to see this world in a new light. When I had the chance, I would take anyone along who agreed and we would head off onto the tundra or into the forest with our cameras to learn.
Can you give me an example where you think you made an important difference for the travelers on one of your trips?
On every trip I make it a point to lead a walk in the forest. One particular walk stands out. Not that long ago I was traveling with a Natural Habitat Adventures guest who just recently had lost her husband. Early on, she stated that she wasn’t sure if she wanted to be on the trip. Then later, after spending some time with the group and observing bears in their natural wilderness, she turned her grief into appreciation for a new understanding. She confided with the group that while on a nature walk in a particularly large stand of old growth cedars, she came to peace with the feeling that everything in life had purpose and, when in close balance with nature, there is a cycle to life that even we humans undeniably participate in.
What are a guide's most important skills?
Communication and patience, listening to travelers share their experiences gives a guide a solid platform from which to lead an experience. All the guides at Natural Habitat are great at taking what they learn from the traveler and plugging it into the trip at hand. I think humor helps out a lot!
What does a good guide add to a journey?
Journey is an excellent word. I believe a good guide is able to take a traveler to a deeper understanding of place, so that it is no longer just a trip but a holistic experience.
What are the main challenges of travel in your destination?
Expectations! Helping the traveler relax and appreciate the natural world at hand. Even though we stay at the best lodging available and utilize the best restaurants in a given area, Natural Habitat Adventures’ trips are really about the nature of the area.
How do you overcome these challenges?
Communication. Natural Habitat guides are not alone on a trip. There is an amazing team working well ahead of the trip and well after to ensure that proper communication is done with our travelers. The care of this team sets me up to focus on the safety and experience of the adventure at hand.
What do you enjoy most about your work?
The traveler! I love the chance to share the rich tapestry of nature and to share it with others who have a curiosity for the natural world.
What has been your one most memorable experience as a guide?
I would have to say one of the most memorable times I have had guiding was while on a bear watching trip. It was a great day already and the group was agreeable to stay out a little longer on the observation platform. Activity at the river was slowing and there was good potential for bears who avoided the presence of the other bears in the earlier part of the day to appear for a chance at the supply of fish.
Shortly, out of the forest a female bear with two spring cubs appeared and proceeded into the river to feed on salmon. The cubs settled in at the bottom of the platform and quietly watched their mother fish. As the mother bear finished up her feeding she waded to shore and called the cubs up close. After a short greeting the mother rolled over, offering a chance to nurse. This all happened in close quarters of the group silently watching and listening to the hungry cubs suckling from their powerful mom.
When the mother finished up, she slowly rolled to a lumbering stand and turned to the forest with the cubs in tow. As the cubs were about to enter the tall vegetation at the edge of the clearing, one stopped momentarily and looked back at the group, then the second cub did the same. Then, as quickly as they had arrived, they vanished. The time we watched those cubs was slowed down and the rest of the world disappeared for us. The whole of the time we imagined the bears were oblivious to our presence, but that last look from the cubs was like an acknowledgement -- we were OK to share their world along the river.
How can travelers get the most out of an Alaskan adventure?
Come with a mindset that you want to get up early, stay out a little later, and get a little wet! I find that this is when the best of Alaska tends to happen.
