Quickfire Outdoor Interview: Walkin’ With the Wild Woman

Name or Online Code Name: Gretchen Steele

Blog URL’s: Walkin’ With the Wild Woman
Willie Says…
Through the Lens 

1) Outdoor Activity of choice? Wandering aimlessly.I have outstanding wandering skills! Oh dear; you mean like a true activity. Of course photography, .. foraging for edible and medicinal plants/mushrooms, and in all honesty most any kind of outdoor activity, fishing, hunting, camping. Truthfully, I just get nutty if I stay inside!

2) Outdoor Mornings. Up at 5 a.m.? 6…7…8…9…Or when the sun heats up the tent and you can’t take it anymore? Usually around 4ish.. earlier if it’s waterfowl season. Every daybreak is a reminder that I’m lucky and I’m still on this side of the dirt so I like to catch everyone I can.. doesn’t mater if it’s a rainy, foggy, morning or gorgeously colored sky.. I’m seeing another new day.

3) Snicker Bar or Granola Bar on the trail? Well..anything chocolate appeals to me ..but usually it’s a protein bar of some sort or another, a handful of jerky, and what ever I can forage along way .

4) Your Birthday is coming. What outdoor (dream) present should we all chip in to buy you this year? Well I’m just going to dream big here… A little houseboat with space enough for me and all three big dogs. What a life that would be navigating up and down the Mississippi and it’s tributaries! I am a river rat through and through..

5) Seven days in the Alaskan Wilderness or Seven days on a Tropical Beach? Alaska! Alaska! Alaska! I’m more of cold weather lover. Heat and sun melt me like jello..

6) What kind of Outdoor Store would you own? Thinking on a grand scale – one that catered to women in the outdoors, where all of the finest products -and fun ones too- that are available for women in the outdoors could be found in one easy spot; on a smaller scale, I love every little mom and pop bait shop I walk in.. I can see me as in my golden years as a little white haired old lady happily filling coffee thermoses, passing out minnows and fishing advice.

7) Finish this sentence: When I was a little kid, I loved to go outside and...gather up as many treasures as I could fit in my bucket and drag them home to show off. Just an aside.. no one in my family was very thrilled when I brought home a bucket of baby cottonmouths.

8 ) Do you have an Outdoor related item that is priceless to you? What is it and why? My late uncle’s field guide; all of the notes in the margins about locations, etc are priceless because many of those areas have been lost to mining or development. The notes to himself about how he was right and my mother was wrong about about various plants are hilarious.

9) Fill in the blank. When I head outdoors I need to have_________________with me? First and foremost a camera – but since there is a rumor that the camera was surgically attached some years ago, that’s a given. The other would be Willie, my companion, trailside entertainment, and service dog in training .

10) What’s the story behind your blog name? Walkin With the Wild Woman..came because what I really set out originally to do with that one was show people what life outside is like..as in “c’mon, just go for a walk with me” .. Willie Says.. Willie has been an opinionated little egomaniac since the first day he crossed threshold in my house. He’s a dog with lots to say! Through the Lens was mutually chosen between my Heartland Outdoors editor Jeff Lampe and myself, again in an effort to show folks what I see through lens of my cameras.

Courage Level Question: It’s You and a Grizzly Bear face to face on the trail. Knowing yourself, will you 1) Hold your ground and see who blinks first 2) throw your gear at the Grizzly and run for your life or 3) faint on the spot?

My mother always said I wasn’t brave, I just didn’t have enough sense to be afraid of anything; so I’m pretty sure as foolish as it would be, I’d stand there toe to toe until I was the bear’s lunch. I sort of dig staring contests with big unruly beasts.

Thank you for dancing in the fire for us Gretchen!

Be sure to check out all of the fantastic Outdoor Blogs
Gretchen writes in: Walkin’ With the Wild Woman~ Willie Says… ~ Through the Lens 

Photo’s credited to Gretchen’s “partner in crime”, second shooter,  and outdoor pal Adam Rutkowski.