Pat grew up in Western Washington in an area noted for clearcutting and “tree farming.” Maybe it was the comparison with years of seeing those spindly, fragile trees that made the Tongass so compelling and convinced Pat that we need to avoid the ecological mistakes here that were made decades earlier in her home state. She studied at Western Washington University, became a registered nurse, and after a few years of working as an RN, moved to Alaska for a summer and stayed for 40 years of adventure and hard work commercial salmon trolling and longlining from the southern border to Unalaska. Pat always kept her art supplies with her and spent her spare time working to interpret the special place where the ocean meets the edge of land. Pat and her husband Howard built a home on an island outside of Sitka and homeschooled their two daughters involving them in all the aspects of life in Alaska from subsistence gathering and fishing to protesting water pollution with the Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior. Pat took a sketch book and some paints along in all their adventures and is so grateful for the incredible places she has been able to explore.