The campus community will have the opportunity to listen to master storyteller, nature advocate, and self-proclaimed River Rat Kenny Salwey on Oct. 22 at 6:30 p.m. in the Heritage Room at the Jackson Campus Center.
Those who attend will have the chance to hear Salwey speak about his thirty years living off the land as a rugged woodsman along the Mississippi River and his love of nature. Included is a meal and a book signing.
Judy Schultz ‘72 proposed the idea of bringing Salwey to campus.
“He is passionate about nature and caring for the environment, a storyteller with so much experience of the outdoors – something very lost to most of us. We all can learn from him. He is truly the last of a certain breed, hunting and fishing and living in the rhythm of nature, all along the Mississippi River,” Schultz said.
In the documentary about his life Mississippi: Tales of the Last River Rat by BBC, Salwey expressed his love for the river.
“My home has always been the Mississippi River. And here I’ve survived all my life as a hunter, trapper, fisherman, and writer. The river is my lifeblood and indeed it is the lifeblood of our nation. The river is a nursery of life, a place that has intrigued me, a mysterious, magical place, a place where every season has a different story to tell,” Salwey said.
Salwey’s lifestyle is extremely unconventional in today’s modern society. He represents a viewpoint that most students, who heavily rely on their laptops, smart phones, and lighted and heated dorms, have not been exposed to. Bookmark Manager Molly Yunkers is especially excited to hear Salwey speak for this reason.
“The idea of being a river rat just sounds kind of messy and dirty, but at the same time I think very intriguing. How does someone do this? How often do we panic when the lights go out or when the power goes out or at the thought of running out of gas somewhere and not knowing how we’re going to get to our next spot? That’s not how Kenny Salwey lives and so that to me makes it very intriguing about how you truly become very self-sufficient,” Yunkers said.
Salwey is interested in inspiring people of all ages through speaking and writing books, to preserve this fragile ecosystem we live in.
“He’s like the Lorax, he speaks for the trees. I think that Kenny Salwey could be compared to someone who speaks for nature,” Yunkers said.
Salwey is very passionate about the way he chose to live his life; connected to nature in a way that very few people are these days.
“I never fit into what folks call the real world. But, then I’d like to think that this is the real world here in the Mississippi back waters, for nature is always real,” Salwey said.
According to Molly Yunkers, Kenny Salwey is a “profound storyteller” and will be very interesting to listen to. This talk is one of the many valuable experiences that this college offers us to learn beyond the classroom.
“I think one of the greatest benefits of being a student here at Gustavus is the opportunity to learn in so many different ways and to learn from different people and to get the opportunity to hear from someone that you would not normally intersect with in your daily life. Any given day there are people on campus sharing knowledge and experiences and this is just another opportunity to get to hear from somebody who lives very differently than we do. That, I think is the best reason to go,” Yunkers said.
His books will be for sale at the event. For more information about the event and how to purchase tickets, check out the Gustavus Calendar webpage.
-Rachael Manser