An Interview With Monica Sanders
We committed in a large way a couple of years ago to lowering our own carbon footprint with a 90 kilowatt solar array that powers nearly all of Camp Denali’s electrical supply. And now that the sun is powering our grid, we are pursuing additional carbon reduction initiatives to further lower our reliance on fossil fuels. Such initiatives include borrowing from the RVing community a rechargeable battery-powered LED bulb retrofit for traditional propane lamps in our guest cabins and the use of electric induction burners and immersion circulators for food items that would otherwise be cooked on propane stovetop or oven. We have also installed passive solar heat collectors on our kitchen and laundry buildings to preheat cold water before it enters hot water boilers.
According to the University of Colorado, “Those who are most affected and have the fewest resources to adapt to climate change are also the least responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions — both globally and within the United States.” Promoting climate justice is an incredibly important environmental responsibility that is slowly becoming more and more recognized. In this interview series, we are talking to leaders who are helping to promote sustainability and climate justice. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing
Jenna and her husband, Simon, took over Camp Denali in 2008. They are committed to the vision of its founders: stepping lightly on the land, offering warm hospitality, and building awareness of the fragile sub-arctic ecosystem around them. Camp Denali is a special place with a decades-long history. The founders were three incredibly strong, capable and intentional people. It was a choice to honor their legacy and continue their vision, which still resonates today. They also wanted to bring their kids up in a pretty incredible place. At Camp Denali, Jenna and her husband and their team are able to provide an experiential education. It’s a platform for guests, who get inspired on a spiritual level to learn about Alaska’s political and environmental challenges. They want visitors to feel a connection to the land and understand the importance of human communities and land stewardship. Visitors come to the wilderness but are struck by the community of people, the hospitality, and rich traditions. It surprises them. Hopefully the wilderness experience is foundational for them, so they can recreate it by investing in public lands, community parks, natural areas, wildlife and landscapes close to their home landscape.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about how you grew up?
Camp Denali was my summer home from age 2 through my teenage years, and definitely a formative place, community and ethic that has shaped my professional and personal life. I learned many practical skills as well as a work ethic and an eagerness for learning about place, wherever I might find myself. The staff were an extended family of cool grown-ups that weren’t my parents, important especially into my teenage years.
Everyone has a cataclysmic moment or marker in their life which propels them to take certain actions, a “why”. What is your why?
My husband’s and my decision in 2007 to take on my family’s business, Camp Denali, was a decisive moment in our 26 years together and one that has defined the trajectory of our personal and professional lives. Taking over a family business is not an easy thing to get out of once you’re in, so the decision was a big one. Most compelling for us was the opportunity to carry on a legacy of stewardship in a place so incredibly worthy of caretaking and to continue to provide a unique, memorable, and oftentimes life-changing experience in this place for Camp Denali’s guests, staff and our family.
You are currently leading an organization that is making a difference for our planet. Can you tell us a bit about what you and your organization are trying to change?
We provide an opportunity for visitors to unplug and reacquaint themselves with a simpler way of living (fetching their own drinking water from an outdoor spigot, building fires in their cabin wood stoves to warm themselves, walking two to seven minutes between their cabin to the public spaces, route-finding with them across a trailless tundra landscape) from a place of comfort, hospitality and community. We showcase from our kitchen and bakery and on-site greenhouse and gardens what locally-sourced, tasteful, from-scratch, elegant meals look and taste like at a fly-in lodge in the middle of a sub-arctic wilderness park in Alaska. Our guests and staff have endless opportunities to learn about the place where they have come to visit for a few days or work for an entire summer, with highly-trained naturalist-guides, a revolving door of guest speakers, an in-depth library of natural and cultural resource books and materials. If the experience we provide can help to open a window to the benefits of immersive experiences in nature, the joy of in-depth learning about a place, and the camaraderie of community.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company or organization?
The most momentous event in Camp Denali’s operational history happened in the fall of 2021 when our road access ceased due to a massive landslide that made a 400-foot section of the Denali Park Road. Described in great detail on the Park’s website, this section of road passed over what used to be a slow-moving rock glacier. In the five years leading up to the road failure, the slide began to accelerate from year to year. As the National Park Service describes it: “Tthe rate of road movement within the landslide evolved from inches per year prior to 2014, to inches per month in 2017, inches per week in 2018, inches per day in 2019, and up to 0.65 inches per hour in 2021.”
That fall we lost out on the last two and a half weeks of our guest season and had to shut down everything in haste in order to evacuate our staff over the road. That winter we puzzled over the logistical hurdles that would enable us to become a fly-in lodge– securing an air taxi partner, increasing our rates in order to cover the increased costs of flying everything from eggs and toilet paper to people and propane, paring down and reprioritizing our building projects, and developing contingency plans for poor flying weather.
The silver lining has been twofold. For going on three summers now we have wrangled the logistical hurdles of our necessary shift to a fly-in lodge, and we have successfully hosted about 600 visitors to Camp Denali for what truly is the experience of a lifetime. Because of grandfathered rights that allow us to traverse the now-closed section of the Park Road, our naturalist guides and guests are nearly the only people hiking and sightseeing over half of the Park. We have the Park largely to ourselves, providing tremendous opportunities for viewing wildlife and being immersed in wilderness landscapes.
What does climate justice mean to you? How do we operationalize it?
Climate justice resonates in Alaska among its rural and primarily Indigenous communities whose traditional lifeways and subsistence practices are negatively impacted by the climate crisis. Whether it’s coastal erosion and the direct damage and displacement of established communities, or the undependability of sea ice and the loss of subsistence harvest of marine wildlife, or the plummeting returns of salmon species to Interior Alaska’s rivers due to warming river waters, combined with overharvesting and ecological change in the marine environment, or terrestrial ecological changes affecting the timing of caribou migrations– the impacts of climate warming are disproportionately felt in Alaskan communities, thousands of miles away from the centers of industrial pollution, political power and decision-making.
Climate justice can be operationalized by giving power and voice and organized decision-making to underrepresented people and communities across the globe, especially those who still rely on the food resources near their home communities for physical and cultural survival. Individuals, small businesses or large corporations can also be more mindful of our carbon footprint and can begin to normalize direct action to counteract or neutralize the carbon footprint of our lives and work.
Science is telling us that we have 7–10 years to make critical decisions about climate change. What are three things you or your organization are doing to help?
1– In 2023 we initiated a partnership with the Fairbanks Climate Action Coalition to provide a carbon offset opportunity for our guests and staff, to offset some of the carbon footprint of their travel to Alaska. The Fairbanks Carbon Reduction Fund partners with a home weatherization company to provide low-income households with energy-saving, carbon-reducing home improvements. Our company matches guest donations and sponsors donations for staff travel to and within Alaska for summer work. One of the few tourism companies in Alaska with such a partnership, our aim is to normalize the inclusion of carbon offsets for air travel– for business or pleasure– which is one of the larger contributors of greenhouse gas emissions.
2– We committed in a large way a couple of years ago to lowering our own carbon footprint with a 90 kilowatt solar array that powers nearly all of Camp Denali’s electrical supply. And now that the sun is powering our grid, we are pursuing additional carbon reduction initiatives to further lower our reliance on fossil fuels. Such initiatives include borrowing from the RVing community a rechargeable battery-powered LED bulb retrofit for traditional propane lamps in our guest cabins and the use of electric induction burners and immersion circulators for food items that would otherwise be cooked on propane stovetop or oven. We have also installed passive solar heat collectors on our kitchen and laundry buildings to preheat cold water before it enters hot water boilers.
3– One of our biggest operational expenses is food. One of the main ways we can lower the carbon footprint of our food purchasing is by buying local or as close to home as possible and from responsibly raised or cultivated sources. In Alaska this is no small feat, being nearly 2000 miles from most lines of supply. However, for its short growing season and cold, northern climate Alaska has robust and growing agricultural production. For a number of years we have succeeded in purchasing 100% Alaskan raised or harvested meat and fish proteins for our guest and staff meals. We also purchase a variety of vegetables, barley, and mushrooms grown in-state. Beyond this, our lines of supply emanate from West Coast sources, prioritizing organic products whenever possible. For the most tender produce– lettuces, salad greens, herbs, edible flowers and peas– we employ one full-time grower and operate an off-grid greenhouse and gardens on-sit, supplying nearly all of our guest and staff salads throughout our 14-week operating season.
How would you articulate how a business can become more profitable by being more sustainable and more environmentally conscious? Can you share a story or example?
Becoming more environmentally conscious is a positive for the community and Alaska as a destination. Camp Denali’s Commitment to Sustainability includes being a member of Regenerative Travel and Adventure Green Alaska Camp Denali. They are firmly committed to fostering stewardship of Denali National Park. Camp Denali contributes direct and in-kind support to local and in-state organizations that focus on land conservation, education, environmental stewardship, advocacy, and community.
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!
About the Interviewer: Monica Sanders JD, LL.M, is the founder of “The Undivide Project”, an organization dedicated to creating climate resilience in underserved communities using good tech and the power of the Internet. She holds faculty roles at the Georgetown University Law Center and the Tulane University Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy. Professor Sanders also serves on several UN agency working groups. As an attorney, Monica has held senior roles in all three branches of government, private industry, and nonprofits. In her previous life, she was a journalist for seven years and the recipient of several awards, including an Emmy. Now the New Orleans native spends her time in solidarity with and championing change for those on the frontlines of climate change and digital divestment. Learn more about how to join her at: www.theundivideproject.org
How Jenna Hamm Of Camp Denali Is Helping to Promote Sustainability and Climate Justice was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.