The Ultimate Outdoorswoman
/By Victoria Marin and Sheeba Joseph, produced by Out There Podcast
Released on June 17, 2021
Welcome to Out There Podcast. Our stories are written for the ear, so for those able, we recommend listening while reading along. Transcripts may contain minor errors; please check the audio before quoting.
WILLOW BELDEN: It’s a sunny day, and I’m out for a mountain bike ride. From the open prairie, I can see three separate mountain ranges. I get out my phone and open up an app called Peak Visor.
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(sound of wind gently blowing)
WILLOW: Okay, so that’s the Rawahs, and that’s Rocky Mountain National Park. Very cool.
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(wind noises fade out)
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(Out There theme music starts)
WILLOW: Hi, I’m Willow Belden, and you’re listening to Out There, the podcast that explores big questions through intimate stories outdoors.
Everyone knows Harriet Tubman as an activist and freedom fighter. We all learned about her in school growing up — how she led slaves to freedom on the underground railroad.
But there was a lot more to her than what you probably remember from history class. She was a daughter, a wife, an entrepreneur. And she was something else too…
ANGELA CRESHAW: When you think about it, she had to be the ultimate outdoorswoman to do what she did.
WILLOW: That’s right: an outdoorswoman. We don’t often talk about Harriet Tubman in that light. Or if we do, it’s a cautionary tale. Her experiences in the outdoors were so awful — so why would any sane Black person want to go into the wilderness voluntarily? It feeds into the narrative we often hear, that African Americans are not outdoorsy.
But what if there’s more to the story? What was Harriet’s relationship with nature? How does that shape the way African Americans engage with the outdoors today? And how might a closer look at Harriet offer a new perspective on who belongs outdoors? Victoria Marin has the story.
(Out There theme music ends)
VICTORIA MARIN: So this story was inspired by a podcast called Following Harriet, which is about Harriet Tubman. The show pulls back the curtain on Harriet’s life, giving listeners a deeper context to her story — a story that I think is more layered, and probably more relatable, than many people realize.
(sound of quiet music and footsteps from Following Harriet)
CELESTE HEADLEE: Most of us enter Harriet Tubman’s life when she was in her 30s, 40s, 50s and oftentimes we don’t think about how she came to be Harriet.
You know, I think for people of my generation, people who grew up in the 1970s, we first met Harriet in a photo in the corner of a textbook. She looked old. Her skin was stretched tight on her face, her mouth was pinched. Her head was wrapped in a dark kerchief.
We read a couple of paragraphs about how she freed herself from slavery and then became a conductor in the underground railroad. She saved the lives of many other people, guided them safely from slavery to freedom. That was it. That was the whole story we were told, but Harriet Tubman was so much more than a small woman with a lantern in the woods.
She was a wife and mother, an entrepreneur, a soldier, spy, nurse, and an activist who fought for women's right to vote.
VICTORIA: But what I want to talk about today is Harriet as an outdoorswoman.
I used to teach history, so I love digging deep into esoteric historical questions. But this is about more than that for me. I wanted to explore Harriet’s relationship with nature in order to better understand my own relationship with the outdoors. Because that relationship for me — and I think for a lot of Black Americans — has always been a little complicated.
(music fades out)
The outdoors was never part of our family lifestyle when I was growing up. I grew up in LA, so we went on short hikes very occasionally, but rarely did we even do stuff like going to the beach – even though we lived just a few miles away. We definitely never went camping. I actually didn’t get a chance to do that until I became an adult. (More about that later).
My parents also come from wildly different backgrounds, which had a huge impact on my ability to find my place in the world. My mom is a Black woman who grew up poor; my dad is white and comes from a middle class family. Those differences often made it hard for them to really connect with each other, and as a result I felt very untethered throughout my childhood. I spent a lot of time searching for where I belonged.
For me, struggling with a sense of belonging as a biracial Black girl made the outdoors seem especially off limits. I always felt like I was so different from everyone around me that I didn’t want to add another layer of complexity to who I already was. I didn’t see many people who looked like me, period, much less many who looked like me embracing an outdoorsy identity.
So I spent most of my young life indoors.
(reflective music begins)
I hear a lot of other Black Americans express something similar: that “the outdoors” is a white-people thing — that Black people don’t do nature. Our ancestors worked hard so that we don’t have to sleep on the ground, so why would we want to?
It makes sense, in a way. After all, the first Black people in America didn’t exactly have a good experience outdoors. Their interactions with the natural world involved working the cotton fields. Forced labor. Slavery.
Even much more recently, my own mother told me that while she did get to go to summer camp as a kid, that camp was segregated. The outdoors, for her, was yet another reminder of her status as a second-class citizen in her own country.
If bondage and segregation are what you associate with the outdoors, it’s no wonder that the outdoors would seem inhospitable.
And yet…I see another side to this history. A more nuanced side.
(music fades away)
Which brings us back to Harriet. She was even more extraordinary than I think a lot of us ever realized. And part of that had to do with her skills out in nature. I think if Black folks knew more about her, maybe our collective relationship with the outdoors might look a little different than it does today. Maybe we’d take more ownership of it as our own.
(sound of birds chirping)
ANGELA: When you think about it, she had to be the ultimate outdoorswoman to do what she did.
VICTORIA: That’s park ranger Angela Creshaw. She used to be an assistant manager at the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State Park. And she’s thought a lot about Harriet as an outdoorswoman. She says Harriet’s work on the underground railroad would have been the ultimate test of her wilderness survival skills.
(sound of footsteps hiking)
ANGELA: It's about 100 miles from South Dorchester County, to freedom in Philadelphia. And then after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, you had to go to Canada — you had to leave the United States. There is no way you could walk that far by yourself, or with people, and not be able to read the landscape, understand the landscape, communicate clandestinely with people, feed those people.
It's not like you — like I come to work and I pack my lunch; they probably did not do that. I make a sandwich the night before, I bring something I can put in the microwave. Impossible. You had to live off the landscape, you had to read the landscape. You had to be comfortable out there, because there were people that were after you.
(bird sings)
VICTORIA: In the outdoor community today, you hear about people doing thru-hikes. Thru-hikes have always sounded wildly difficult to me. You hike for hundreds, or even thousands of miles, through the wilderness, carrying everything you need on your back. Food, tent, clothing — everything. Now imagine pulling that off without being able to go to a gear shop and buy the things you need, without being able to stop in towns and resupply.
Imagine doing it while people are actively trying to hunt you down. As Angela pointed out, that was Harriet’s experience.
ANGELA: It's not like she could go to the store and pick up anything. She was a wanted individual, once she self-emancipated in 1849. So every time she came back to emancipate other folks, she was risking her life and the lives of those that were helping her, as well as those that were on that journey of mercy with her.
(sound of crickets chirping and owl hooting)
When Tubman was out with the group, she had to notify them if it was safe to stay hidden. Or if they could come out.
(sound of barred owl hooting)
The barred owl is very common here in Maryland. So the barred owl sound kind of sounds like 'who cooks for you, who cooks for you'. So she would make that sound and folks knew what to do when they heard it.
(sound of barred owl hooting repeats and then cricket chirps fade away)
VICTORIA: Remember, this wasn’t just one trip, to free just herself — which was heroic enough on its own.
ANGELA: What amazes me about Tubman is she did it multiple times. Once is amazing. Twice is amazing. Three, four, but she got up in the double digits. And the fact that she was a woman too — there were very few women who were conductors on the Underground Railroad — and the fact that she was wanted herself. That's a big deal. That is a big deal.
VICTORIA: Even considering the pre-industrial time period, it kind of blows my mind to think about everything Harriet was capable of and everything she did. She could walk for hundreds of miles. She could navigate using only the stars. She could forage for all the food she and an entire group of enslaved fugitives needed, in the woods. She could imitate birdsong…
Given all that, why is there this stereotype today that Black people don’t know our way around the outdoors?
(inquisitive music begins)
If you ask my mom, part of it comes down to a lack of opportunities.
SHEILA: When I lived in St. Louis, Missouri, as a young girl, we didn't have much outdoorsy life. I think they had a slide, and maybe a couple swings, but so many families, and they never kept the things repaired. So somebody was always falling out of a swing that was never repaired.
VICTORIA: My mom lived in the projects — in the middle of the city — as a kid. It’s not like she had easy access to beaches or trailheads. And remember, the camps that did exist were segregated and poorly resourced. As for spending time in the urban outdoors? My mom said that just wasn’t safe.
SHEILA: A lot of violence and gangs and police brutality, you know, forced a lot of young Black folks to just stay home. It was safe. Your mother made you stay home because you hear gunshots.
VICTORIA: I guess the upshot of all this is that my mom does not consider herself outdoorsy. But she doesn’t think that it’s because of her personality alone.
SHEILA: Product of environment has a lot to do with whether or not you want to go skydiving, or climb Mount Kilimanjaro, or anything like that.
VICTORIA: Products of our environment.
(music fades away)
But Harriet was a product of HER environment, too.
(nature sounds begin)
According to Angela, she had a leg up when it came to learning how to survive in the woods.
(sound of wood being chopped)
ANGELA: Her father, Ben Ross, was a respected timber foreman, meaning he would cut timber, haul timber. He was so highly respected that when he was emancipated, he was given 10 acres of land, which is nearly unheard of.
So she would work in the timber fields with her father. She said she could do all the work of a man, she cut wood, she hauled timber, she floated things down the canal, and she actually led a team of oxen. She said she could cut half a cord of wood a day.
So while she was out working in those timber fields, she would have learned the skills necessary to become a successful conductor on the Underground Railroad.
(nature sounds fade away)
VICTORIA: Again, my mind is blown thinking about Harriet’s life. Learning about her childhood made me reflect on my own — which was spent in the lap of luxury, comparatively. I grew up in the ‘burbs; my parents did white-collar work; I never had to explicitly fear for my safety. And I certainly never had to rely on wilderness skills to survive.
Which brings me back to this question — if Harriet Tubman and many of her contemporaries were so good in nature, why do the outdoors seem so off-limits to Black people today?
It might have something to do with an assumption we make. The assumption that, even though Harriet was good at navigating her way through the woods, it wasn’t an experience she would have enjoyed. After all, you don’t exactly get to relax and enjoy the birdsong, if you’re on the run. There’s this implicit assumption that Harriet was outdoors not because she WANTED to be, but because she HAD to be.
But is that really true?
(thoughtful music begins)
Here’s historian Catherine Clinton from Following Harriet:
CATHERINE CLINTON: Harriet was a very intrepid, independent person and she was quite happy, for example, to be working on a canal, because it meant she didn’t have the close supervision of a white master or mistress, which she found unpleasant and abusive.
(music continues for a few moments and then fades away)
WILLOW: Hey, it’s Willow. We’ll hear the rest of the story in a moment. But first…
If you are a parent of small children, chances are those children will want to be carried in your arms sometimes. And that means your arms are going to get tired.
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The company was started by two guys who were proud to be married and wanted to showcase their commitment to their spouses…but were irritated by their metal wedding rings.
So they decided to make rings that would give active, outdoorsy people a safe, comfortable option.
Qalo sent me a few of their rings to try out. And I should say, I’m not married, but I am wearing one of their rings right now. It’s a simple black silicone band, and I really like how it looks and feels. Plus, I know it’s safe for adventures, because it’ll break after it exceeds a certain amount of pressure, rather than injuring my finger.
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And now, back to our story.
(music begins)
VICTORIA: We’ll probably never know for sure exactly how Harriet truly felt about being outside. But there’s a part of me that wonders whether she might have relished the chance to be out in nature, despite the danger. Maybe it factored into her decision to keep going back over the Mason Dixon line, continually risking her life on behalf of other people’s freedom.
Maybe being courageous in the outdoors can be a source of freedom in itself.
This quote — read by a voice actor on Following Harriet — encapsulates this point for me:
VOICE ACTOR: When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything. The sun came like gold through the trees and over the fields, and I felt like I was in heaven.
(music swells and then fades away)
VICTORIA: I can’t say I’m anything close to as brave as Harriet was, or do work that’s as important as what she did, but I can identify with those feelings she describes.
(sound of waves crashing)
On my honeymoon a few years ago, we went out with a group hoping to swim with whale sharks. The group leader ferried our boat to the middle of the ocean and directed us to jump into the water when she spotted the shark. The water was really choppy, and we were quickly separated from the boat. I remember looking around at the vast expanse of water and waves around me, and even though I knew I was in some kind danger, in that moment I felt so...free.
(waves fade away and twinkly music begins)
And something similar happened a couple years later, when my fear of heights kicked in while I was hiking on a steep and slippery mountainside. I pushed myself, even though I was literally shaking. And it was another moment that was really terrifying for me, but also deeply freeing.
And there was my first time camping, with my now-husband, about 10 years ago.
(crickets chirping)
It was a pretty rugged experience for a first-timer looking back — we camped on a hiking trail, so we didn’t have access to our car or running water, and we only had things like beef jerky and trail mix to eat. It wasn’t exactly comfortable...but I clearly remember being comforted by being out there, feeling one with nature and at peace with my surroundings — even when we heard a pack of coyotes start howling nearby.
(coyotes howl in distance)
There was just something about those moments, even when they were tense with discomfort or fear, that made me feel fulfilled.
(cricket noises fade away)
Looking back, now that I’ve had experiences like that, I realize just how much being outside demands a willingness to step outside of your comfort zone.
Growing up, I didn’t want to put myself in positions to be uncomfortable, or challenge what I thought of as established social norms. So I let a certain amount of gatekeeping, first by my parents, and later by society, hold me back. Society told me that being outside wasn’t for me, which kept me from accessing the fulfillment...the freedom...that comes with the outdoors.
(quiet music begins)
Harriet defied the norms and laws of her time. She established herself as a person who deserved freedom on this land, even though so many other people didn’t think she did.
It seems like stories like this one, and shows like “Following Harriet”, demonstrate that there’s new interest in getting a fuller picture of Harriet Tubman’s story.
And all around the country, it seems like there’s more collective interest in the plight of Black Americans — both in the dangers we face due to racism and white supremacy, but also in our cultural identities, and whether we are included and welcomed in traditionally white spaces.
(music ends)
Let’s be clear: not all Black Americans feel trepidation about the outdoors. Angela Crenshaw is a great example. Unlike me, she’s always felt comfortable being outside and claiming it as part of her identity, first as a Girl Scout, and later as a park ranger. But she’s the exception, not the rule.
ANGELA: I acknowledge that there are very few African Americans working in the outdoor industry, and having worked at Tubman and other parks, I hear that every other week — if not every single week — you know it’s, “I didn't expect to see you, it's good to see you.” And I know what people are saying when they say that. They're trying to be polite, but I know exactly what they mean. So I find that when I'm doing interpretation and sharing Tubman's life, if what I'm interpreting doesn't mean much to me, that comes through. But if I can connect my own personal story with that, my passion and my emotional connection comes through. And that really speaks volumes to people.
(music begins)
VICTORIA: Teaching people about Harriet’s history — and weaving in her own experiences — is Angela’s way of subverting the traditional narrative of who belongs outdoors. And hopefully forming a legacy of her own.
ANGELA: This history has been hidden on purpose. And I see a big part of my job as turning a light on it, and letting people know that it's out there, and that these people did these amazing things and that we are indeed standing on the shoulders of giants. I would not be here if it was not for Harriet Tubman.
I lived in Church Creek, Maryland, which was a town built on creating and building slave ships to go back and get more enslaved people from Africa. I was living there, I was thriving. I was telling people this, that story, that is not lost on me.
VICTORIA: History isn’t a static thing. It’s an often-changing story we write together as a society, and our personal experiences can influence our interpretation of it. It’s important to recognize that history’s stories can change over time as we learn the nuances of what happened, through new lenses.
Learning about Harriet Tubman, the outdoorswoman, has offered me new insight into what she means symbolically to Black Americans. Harriet is a beacon of what so many of us see in ourselves. She symbolizes strength, courage, tenacity, and freedom itself, all of which is exemplified in her relationship with nature and the outdoors.
Getting to know this side of her story makes me hopeful that I can recalibrate my own relationship with the outdoors to be one of empowerment and belonging...and for the first time ever, as central to my identity. I’m not an outsider when I go outside after all — the complete opposite is actually true: when I go outside, I’m home — I’m free.
By telling a story like this one, one that centers the complex experiences of Black women in the outdoors, I hope I’m able to show my own daughter, who’s just a couple months old now, that she’s not alone or an outsider either. That this legacy — one that started with Harriet and our enslaved ancestors and is carried on today in different ways by me, by her grandmother, by ranger Angela, and by so many others — is hers, too, if she chooses to embrace it.
(music continues for a few moments and ends on a hopeful note)
WILLOW: That was Victoria Marin. She’s a writer and audio maker based in Brooklyn, New York. You can find her on social media @vixmarin. That’s v-i-x-m-a-r-i-n.
This story was co-produced by Sheeba Joseph. Sheeba is an independent producer and marketer in New York, and she’s also the audience growth director for Out There. This episode was her idea, and she spearheaded the collaboration between Out There, and the folks behind the Following Harriet podcast.
Speaking of which, I’d like to give a special shout-out to Tanner Latham and his podcast studio at INGREDIENT. They produced Following Harriet for the Virginia Tourism Corporation, and Tanner has been SO helpful helping us make this episode a success.
Speaking of Virginia Tourism, we’d like to extend a special thank you to their team as well: especially Caroline Logan, Taylor Paul, Jane Lammay, Andrew Cothern, and Patricia Anderson. You can listen to the entire series of Following Harriet wherever you get your podcasts.
And if you’d like to learn more about the rich history and land in Virginia as it relates to the Black experience, visit Virginia.org/blacktravel. The folks at Virginia tourism have created loads of interesting resources, such as sites connected to the underground railroad and Harriet Tubman, and even a black history walking tour. Again, you can check that out at Virginia.org/blacktravel.
(music begins)
If you enjoyed this episode, I’d like to invite you to check out a playlist we put together called “Black and Outdoorsy”. It’s a collection of stories we’ve run over the past few years that highlight Black experiences outside. For example, there’s an episode about a Black thru-hiker on the Appalachian Trail, there’s a love story involving a Black kayaker, there’s a piece about the unexpected benefits of walking to work, and much more. You can find that playlist on Spotify, and at our website, outtherepodcast.com. Just click on the blog. I’m also linking to it in the show notes. And again, that playlist is called “Black and Outdoorsy”.
(music fades away)
A big thank you to Phil Timm, Doug Frick, Tara Joslin, and Deb and Vince Garcia for their financial contributions to Out There.
Listener gifts make up nearly half of our operating budget. Your contributions go directly toward paying for the stories you hear on this show.
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Thank you so much.
Support for Out There comes from Peak Visor. Their app helps you figure out what you’re looking at when you’re out in the mountains.
I recently used it while I was out on a mountain bike ride. The app took a moment to figure out my location, and then it showed me what mountains I could see from my vantage point.
(sound of wind blowing)
WILLOW: Oh, and then this tells me how far away everything is. Okay, so Long’s Peak is 73 miles, as the crow flies. Clark Peak is only 53 miles. Gosh, that’s funny. It takes like two hours to get there.
(sound of wind grows louder for a moment then ends)
WILLOW: Mountain names and distances are just a few of the features Peak Visor offers. THey also have topo maps, and a peak bagging feature, which lets you check in at summits and keep track of your accomplishments.
If you’re one of those people who likes to know what you’re looking at when you’re out on an adventure, check out Peak Visor in the app store. You just might love it.
(Out There theme music starts)
If you’re new to Out There, check out the “Best of Out There” playlist. This is a collection of some of our favorite episodes of all time — and it’s a great introduction to the range of stories we do on the show. You can find “Best of Out There” on Spotify, and at our website outtherepodcast.com.
That’s it for this episode. Our audience growth director is Sheeba Joseph. Jessica Taylor is our advertising manager. Cara Schaefer is our print content coordinator. Our ambassadors are Tiffany Duong, Ashley White, and Stacia Bennet. And our theme music was written by Jared Arnold.
We’ll see you in two weeks.
(Out There theme music ends on a last whistling note)
