The North Country Trail
Yooper Tours on the North Country Trail
Michigan's Upper Peninsula is where Alex Maier discovered hiking. For those who don't live in the area, the UP is a mysterious and completely forgotten part of the country, that's exactly how the local yoopers like it. The UP is a remote piece of land sandwiched between Northern Wisconsin and Lake Superior which is mostly wilderness. After completing his first thru-hike on the Pacific Northwest Trail Alex needed another hike to work on, so he chose the trail that ran through his backyard in Marquette Michigan, the North Country Trail. The entire NCT is 4,700 miles long running from North Dakota to Vermont. It runs across the whole Upper Peninsula so it made for a perfect path for Alex to traverse the place where he fell in love with hiking. He broke the 550 mile hike up into nine sections so he could spread them out throughout the year and experience the UP in all of its seasons. He started in July and finished in February.
Along the way, Alex explores the life lessons that can be found in the wilderness. He finds backpacking to be very symbolic for life itself and if one pays attention a lot can be learned by simply putting on a pack and going into the wilderness.
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Yooper Tours is both a 68 minute film and a 9-part series of episodes
The Feaure film is available on these platforms
The 9-part series is available on these platforms
A book about the lessons Alex has learned in the woods of Upper Michigan
Cultivating Intent: Learning the way of the woods - graphic novel
Cultivating Intent is a photobook with an equal mix of imagery and stories about finding a path of personal growth.
Going to school in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula was a transformational period for me. I went to Northern Michigan University where I discovered my passion for nature photography, so naturally I spent a lot of time hiking in this remote area. It started as small and infrequent hikes with friends. Eventually I was hiking for many hours almost every day. I tried to find a new place to go as much as possible so I left the trails and began to find very secluded areas. I always had my camera with me and I took over 100,000 photos during my time there. They were narrowed down to about 400 to go into this photobook, Cultivating Intent.
After countless hours in the woods I found a lot more than just pretty scenes. I found a metaphor for understanding life itself. The woods in the UP are a beautiful but harsh environment. They taught me how to be tough while still taking the time to stop and enjoy the scenery. At first the harsh conditions would turn me around and send me home, but the more time I spent out there the more I developed the skills and the mental fortitude to deal with the cold, the rough terrain, and the bugs. Especially the bugs.
I began to enjoy the challenge that the woods presented instead of dreading it. It was a fundamental change of perspective that allowed me to find a lot more enjoyment in the woods. It wasn’t long before that perspective spilled over into my regular life outside of the woods. I realized that the woods could serve as a metaphor for how to get the most out of life too. Cultivating Intent is a photobook about the woods in the UP, but it’s also about finding something you enjoy so much that it gives meaning to life and serves as a metaphor for how to live it.
