"The sights and sounds and smells of nature very much drew me into the moment. It brought back happy memories from my childhood playing in the woods. It felt good to think about the timelessness of the woods, the ground, trees, and water." - Emily

True North Treks (TNT) incorporated as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization in 2008 after some amazing JD/MBA students from Northwestern University's Blum Legal Clinic helped Co-Founder and Executive Director David Victorson to think through, organize, write up, and file all of the necessary state and federal forms and payments to make it official. They did all this work pro bono and TNT has been doing its best to pay this incredible gift forward ever since.

Stepping back from this official birthday, the seeds of TNT were planted as far back as the 1970's and 80's in a small town on Little Bay de Noc in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where three brothers with the last name of Victorson were raised with nature at their doorstep. Having the Great Lakes and an abundance of rivers, brooks and forestland just minutes from their home, they spent much of their childhoods fishing, cross-country skiing, berry picking, camping, animal tracking, gardening, hiking and even hunting.

These experiences profoundly imprinted their souls with respect, humility, and appreciation for the natural world and its raw, asymmetric beauty. Being in the outdoors became not only a way of spending recreational time, but also a way of coping with some of life's difficult times. They grew up hearing their sweet Grandma Delilah recite a poem she wrote after the tragic death of her 1st son Dale, who was only 21 when he died in a car accident on his way home to visit her for Mother's Day while on leave from the military. She'd say that after his death she was so despondent she couldn't eat, sleep or speak for a long time. The only thing their Grandpa knew might help was to take her out into the woods where they picked wild blueberries and asparagus. It was there while sitting on a tree stump in a quiet forest that she began to notice everything coming into place. This is where she wrote her poem titled Forest Cathedral:

Forest Cathedral
by Delilah Victorson

Oh how I love to walk out in the woods
In its calm and still beauty I have long understood
As I look at the wonders our creator has made
All the hustle and bustle of this world seems to fade
Down in the meadow you hear the call of a lark
While high on the hill some deer feed on bark
There's winter green berries and wild onion shoots
An abundance of flowers and trailing green roots
Now if you go in the forest with the world you're off key
And you're quiet and still and you sit and you see
Here you know of God's love and you know by God's grace
Of all worldly issues you're able to face

Nature is a sacred cathedral. It can provide a spacious, timeless holding environment for crucial transformations and healing to take place. And as a modern society we have done an incredible job removing nature from our lives. Future TNT Co-Founder brothers David and Scott Victorson recall having many campfire conversations growing up about the negative effects of nature deficit disorder and one day bringing others who are struggling in different ways out into nature to know its big and restorative medicine.

Many years passed and David and his wife Gretchen Doninger (also a future TNT Co-Founder) both had several personally impacting encounters working with young adults affected by cancer during their psycho-oncology clinical rotations while getting their PhD's in Counseling Psychology. They had also begun formal training and practice in mindfulness meditation and its powerful ability to help a person learn to sit with difficult things (such as anxiety and uncertainty) with attitudes of openness, curiosity, equanimity, and acceptance. Witnessing firsthand the unique burdens, stressors, and social isolation this age group faces, and the lack of available age-appropriate supportive programming, they began to talk with Scott and his wife Gwen Victorson (also a future TNT Co-Founder) about the plight, fight, and might of young adults affected by cancer. They began planning how connecting with nature (after something as un-natural as cancer and its treatment), connecting with peers who have walked a similar path and "get it", and connecting with oneself through mindful awareness practices could offer new ways for young adults to navigate the confusing, disorienting, and scary maze that cancer creates. Scott and Gwen, both seasoned experts in outdoor leadership and wilderness medicine, provided invaluable insights on how to safely take groups of young adult cancer survivors out into nature.

The idea of TNT was born. Now they just needed to incorporate as a nonprofit organization so they could fund-raise enough money to create a website, get the word out, see if enough young adults would even apply to go on a trek, formalize all of the procedures and protocols, and eventually get out into the field to see if this would even work. After incorporating and establishing a Board of Directors, they began fundraising. David and Scott's older brother Mike and his wife Karin graciously tipped the fundraising scales with a very generous donation that made it possible to run their first trek, which was foreshadowing for their continuous and magnanimous generosity over the years. This led to TNT's inaugural trek in the fall of 2010 in Northern Montana. It was an amazingly huge success, and TNT has continued on ever since.