We're near Alton Bay, New Hampshire, along an ancient trail that intersects with a contemporary story.

So stick around.

We're going to take a hike today with some folks who are partners with Summits in Solidarity.

[instrumental music playing] Welcome to "Windows to the Wild."

I'm Willem Lange.

Several years ago, Serena Ryan moved from Massachusetts to New Hampshire and started the business near Lincoln.

The Notch Hostel is a place for people who love the outdoors.

Along the way, Serena founded a program called Summits in Solidarity, and we're hiking with her today.

Well, what is Summits in Solidarity?

Summits in Solidarity is a hiking initiative for racial justice that anyone can participate in anywhere in the world.

Our mission is to identify and liberate from white privilege, entitlement, and supremacy in hiking and outdoor recreation.

You mean my white supremacy is under threat on the trail?

[laughter] Well, that's to be seen.

I hope so!

God, I hope so!

[laughter] Well, why don't we hike?

And there are several people with us who can talk about it along the way, so we'll do that, all right?

Awesome.

It'll be a learning experience for both of us.

[laughter] I hope so.

But not too painful, I hope.

No.

It's only a couple of miles, so we'll start slow.

That's painful enough.

[laughter] OK. We'll do it.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Let's go.

[instrumental music playing] I believe this is the second hike I've been on with Dex.

Oh, yeah!

Before we start our trek, let me show you where we are.

Pine Mountain rises above Alton, New Hampshire, just a short drive from downtown.

From the summit, you have a great view of Alton Bay.

The loop trail we're on is about two miles long and a fairly easy hike.

I started hiking in 2012.

Serena is an avid hiker.

She and her buddies took us up Mount Madison and Mount Adams about a year ago on a spectacular winter trek.

[instrumental music playing] Today, it's a lot warmer.

We're hiking with a group who are partners in Summits in Solidarity.

We'll get to the hike in a minute.

First, the introductions.

My name is Katie Ojikutu, and this is my son Dexter.

I'm talking to Ben Bacote and Elizabeth Robertson from PANTHER, which you're going to say, slowly, means-- Plymouth Area Network To Help End Racism.

Hello, friends.

My name is Denise Pulio, and I am the head female speaker, and this is Paul Pulio, the head male speaker of the Cowasuck Band of the Pennacook-Abenaki People.

Nice!

Summits in Solidarity was born in New Hampshire.

As Serena mentioned earlier, it's a hiking initiative for racial justice that anyone can join.

The goal is to create an anti-racist outdoor community.

It also provides funds for BIPOC organizations.

That's Black, Indigenous, and people of color.

Well, we are working on racial justice initiatives in hiking and outdoor recreation culture.

Ah, OK.

When I created Summits in Solidarity, it was in the wake of the George Floyd murder and the uprising around the country and the world.

That's when we started the initiative.

You're catching up.

[laughter] And as a result, this initiative was born which supports Black, Indigenous, and people of color, but also helps to engage white folks who are looking to engage in anti-racism in a way that's productive rather than harmful.

[instrumental music playing] It's for diversity and inclusion in the outdoors, and that's super important with me.

She amplifies BIPOC voices, puts that out.

So, I mean, I've run into like little microaggressions hiking myself, and just talking with Serena, and she'll put out that online, so people can look at it and be like, oh, OK, I didn't realize maybe that is a little racist-- [laughter] --or maybe I should think before I say something to this-- Like, what are you doing here?

That sort of thing?

Yeah.

Like, I'll go out, as a single woman myself, and I know sometimes women going out solo will get flack, but I somehow will get more flack being a person of color.

The people question whether I have enough equipment.

I was stopped going up here by some gentleman saying, you need to have some snowshoes on.

I clearly had them on the side of my pack.

He let a group of, like, teenage boys go in front of him.

He didn't say a word to them, but he felt like he needed to tell me I needed to put them on.

I had them with me.

I was prepared.

Just little things like that happens all the time.

Was that racist or gender?

What do you think?

I'm not really sure.

So, I'll talk with stuff like that with Serena, because she's a woman, she goes out solo by herself all the time, and she'll tell me she doesn't get even half of what I do.

No kidding!

So it's hard to pinpoint what it is, but-- But it is.

But it is, yeah.

That's nice!

[laughter] What a pain!

Yeah.

Oh, dear.

I don't get that much, except, like, what are you doing up here?

You're too old!

Well, good for you!

[laughter] I want to be doing it at your age!

[instrumental music playing] Just looking for a level spot here.

[instrumental music playing] I'm gonna do a big step!

You got it!

How'd you get involved with Summits in Solidarity?

We were a part of a COVID task force, and once we started getting in the Zoom environment, we started to meet all kinds of interested people.

[laughter] And the Summits in Solidarity was in the North Country, and we have a deep kinship with the people up in Coos County, so we joined them as well, and we had partners from other groups.

We're always working on racial equality, environmental justice.

It's part of our whole tribal script right now.

Yeah.

We try to educate and we try to work with social justice and environmental justice.

Do you think you're getting anywhere?

Well, it's an uphill battle, Will, eh?

I know that.

I'm just asking if you're making any progress.

Oh, yeah, I think we are.

Our issues are always trying to build partnerships with what we call BIPOC community leaders, you know, Black Indigenous, and people of color.

Yeah.

We're all in the same canoe together, and we think that we all have to paddle together and not sink the canoe.

So we embrace everybody.

It was part of the Abenaki tradition going way back.

We were very righteous and welcoming to other people.

Summits in Solidarity reached out and we had a mutual issue with the hiking, and canoeing, and waterways, where people of color were not being welcomed onto the trails.

So we partnered together with Serena and the New Hampshire Panthers to raise BIPOC awareness that these trails are not just for one specific race, but they're for all of us to enjoy, and many of these trails are Indigenous trails, so they were started by BIPOC people.

Yeah.

So a lot of that history needs to be brought out and brought to the focus.

[instrumental music playing] There's a lot of history that needs attention.

Let's start with the National Park Service.

It wasn't until the late 1940s that all the national parks were desegregated.

Even now, Black, Indigenous, and people of color make up only about 23% of the visitors to the country's national parks.

One name famously associated with the outdoors is John James Audubon.

He was a naturalist, painter, and a champion of birds.

He also owned slaves and stood against abolition.

That's history that the National Audubon Society wrestles with today.

[instrumental music playing] My name is Doug Bechtel.

I'm the president at New Hampshire Audubon.

And we're standing on a trail at our McLane Center headquarters in Concord, New Hampshire.

So, this is just a different set of habitats that we manage.

And it was on these trails that hikers in the fall of 2020 encountered racism.

Last October, we found on trail signs around the trail system bumper sticker-sized stickers that had messages of racism, and anti-Semitic messages, and messages of hate.

One of the bumper stickers said, "Hate is not a crime."

And I would say that was the least offensive, if there is such a thing, of the various stickers we found.

And we got a call from someone who was just enjoying our trails and told us about it, and we had one of our volunteers go out, and he found a bunch more, and then I was actually walking with my daughter a few hours later and we found some more.

Staff at New Hampshire Audobon removed the racist stickers and called police.

I was reacting to this both as a father and as the president at New Hampshire Audubon.

And, you know, like any conversation about race and racism, it was a challenging time for New Hampshire Audubon.

It was tough for me as a father to talk to her about why people feel such things.

And we did think about it long and hard before we put out a public message.

Some people thought that this was a one-time incident and we'd never see it again.

But we are committed to not only welcoming people, but reacting publicly when we see things like this.

This is one example why participants in Summits in Solidarity do what they do.

I hope you can forgive us old characters, because we never saw anything but people like us in the woods when we were, well, gee, all the way through college.

It just was all there was.

And now it's changing, and some guys don't handle that very well.

No, they don't.

But we are of one planet.

We're of one race and one humanity, and the creator gave us this planet for all of us to use.

And humankind will depend on it.

That's right.

[laughter] We're all in it together.

We're all gonna sink or swim in one way, and I like to think that we're gonna float and keep swimming.

God, I hope so.

I do too.

There are days I doubt it, you know?

But-- Oh, no.

Keep the faith.

OK. Keep the faith.

[instrumental music playing] Well, we're starting to get back in public again.

What do you Actually do to, you know, get rid of-- Well, when you think about New Hampshire, a lot of the things you think about are, you know, the White Mountains, or recreation, or winter sports.

You think about, frankly, white people.

But that's not always the case.

You know, New Hampshire's history, even going back, has always had people of color, Indigenous people here living here amongst us, and Plymouth Panthers, NH Panthers we're here trying to promote the stories of Black and Indigenous people, youth of all stripes, to show that we're here too, and our stories matter, and our lives matter.

We're here supporting all of our communities, and our success is the community's success.

And so as we get to tell those successful stories, as we get to tell and highlight youth of all stripes, it gives other people excitement to go out and do things bigger.

And it also gives people pause.

You know, you can't necessarily be racist on the side of the mountain when you run into us.

[instrumental music playing] Do you think you're making any progress?

I think so.

I mean, I put out a little mini blog thing on her thing, and the people that have commented back saying, so relatable, like, other people can relate being mixed raced or a person of color.

So, I mean, even just having people to be able to be feel like they're not alien alienated or alone is something in itself.

So I think that's huge.

Oh, yeah.

I bet.

I would love to have you over for dinner and we could talk about, like, what's for the best.

Yeah, definitely.

How long have you been-- Well, how long have you been hiking?

Well, about almost four years now.

I started really getting into it after I had Dexter here, because it's a great activity to do.

So you're gonna stick with it?

Oh, yeah.

Definitely.

It's very important to me.

Good.

Thank you.

And you're gonna raise him to do it too.

Oh, yeah.

[instrumental music playing] Do you have any sense that anything you're doing is making any kind of a dent?

Absolutely.

I mean, we're here on the side of the mountain, talking to each other, having this conversation.

[laughter] We wouldn't be here if we weren't making a difference.

You're right.

So it's been little by little, where we've transferred from protests and street movements, to supporting other organizations, to having our own little fundraiser here with Summits in Solidarity.

But seeing people come together, you can tell that we're making a difference.

[instrumental music playing] Serena, from Summits in Solidarity, brought together a number of different groups who have all been organizing in different parts of the state over the last year, since the murder of George Floyd, and we've been able to connect and support one another as we do this work, and now she has used her fundraising prowess to support our Black Excellence Fund.

The Black Excellence Fund is an initiative of New Hampshire PANTHER.

Our Black Excellence Fund is going to support some kids who might be in that situation.

Well, what are you doing here?

Why are you here?

What are you doing on the side of the ski slope?

Yeah.

There's a young Black skier, a freestyle skier, and a young female who's going into the firefighting academy.

Or the Air Force.

These are places where, traditionally, you might not necessarily see people of color, especially youth of color, venturing into, and we want to highlight their stories and show other kids that you can dare, you can be as bold as you want to be.

You know, there's communities out there like NH PANTHER, like Summits in Solidarity, who are going to have your back and help support you to live your goals, no matter what those goals might be, no matter what you look like.

[instrumental music playing] What are these kids are actually doing?

The kids you sponsor, what do they do?

Keagan Supple, he just graduated high school.

He's a freestyle skier.

His goal is to ski in the X Games, or maybe the Olympics one year.

Coming from New Hampshire, he grew up skiing in ski clubs, and was usually the only Black kid in his ski club.

So forging ahead and continuing to stay with the sport that he loved was kind of awkward and uncomfortable for him, but as he's continued, and just continued, and continued, he's found success.

And we want to support people like him who are just gonna go out and follow something that they love doing, no matter what it takes, and just keep following that goal.

If you're going to be passionate about something like that, we want to support them, no matter what you look like.

[instrumental music playing] Hikers thrive on goals.

They often look for new and more challenging ways to test themselves.

One goal that's near the top in the list of difficulty is called "redlining."

That's when a hiker completes all the trails in the Appalachian Mountain Club "White Mountain Guide," nearly 4,500 miles.

[instrumental music playing] But, of course, there's a much larger meaning to that term of housing discrimination and outlining neighborhoods in red that the banks wouldn't give loans to, basically resulting in Black people having no intergenerational wealth.

And so, you know, it's been really amazing to see.

We wrote this article about the history of the term and why it's problematic to use that term for hiking, because it really turns off and alarms people who know the real, true meaning of the word.

And, as a result, it was actually changed this year.

Now people call it "tracing" the trails instead.

[instrumental music playing] Some people are resistant to it, and, certainly, it's not about calling out people for being racist for using the term.

It's more about, hey, like, how can we as a community learn about some of the words that we're, using the actions that we're taking, and how those may be harmful?

[instrumental music playing] This is a historic trail for the Abinake?

You know, trails were all over the place in New Hampshire, and most of the trails now are highways and byways.

But every place where we had an outlook, where we could actually see the landscape, you know, whether it was we're looking for fires on the horizon or looking for, like, the colonials coming to attack us, every one of these places where we had an open clearing like this, we'd use these to keep an eye on the topography, what's coming at us.

[instrumental music playing] So what I've done is we're working with a collaborative group at Indigenous New Hampshire to create an interactive map.

And so one of the projects that I've taken on is to list all the place names that we have available in our original language to the locations within New Hampshire.

Oh!

We're focusing on New Hampshire first, but then we plan on expanding into Maine, Vermont, and Massachusetts, and we're hoping that other tribal groups will join us in this effort, so that maybe some of the Maine tribes, or Massachusetts tribes, or New York, or wherever, wherever they happen to be, would be interested in helping share some of their language and their history and bringing their information to the forefront.

[instrumental music playing] There's a strong movement to rename all the mountains of the Presidential Range with Indigenous names.

Unfortunately, Indigenous people didn't look at the mountains as the same.

Our place names are really based on food resources.

Yeah, right.

A lot of the names are related to fishing and the villages where we had fishing going on.

So mountains were known for their lithic materials, not necessarily village sites.

So that's why you don't see many of the mountains named "Monadnock."

You know, we do have some that are named, and they're out there.

[instrumental music playing] Summits in Solidarity is making its way across the country.

Serena calls that progress, but says that we're far from being finished.

Oh, but you're right.

We've got a long way to go.

We do, but it's also been really inspiring to see hikers in the White Mountains, and also now across the country, that are rising up to challenge the dominant culture here, people of all colors, white people, people of color that are getting out there, you know, taking up space unapologetically in mountains and standing up for what for human rights.

So-- Hi.

I am Kathy Rone, and I am currently hiking in Maine, and I've participated in Summits in Solidarity for the last two years, and it's been really meaningful for me for a few reasons.

The first is that hiking and a lot of outdoor pursuits are often very white and white male-dominated, and as a woman of color and a Vietnamese American woman, I haven't always felt as safe, or as comfortable, or even as welcome as I would have wanted to be, especially in this last year and a half during COVID-19 and the racist and xenophobic rhetoric that have been surrounding all of us.

And so finding Summits in Solidarity and being a part of a commitment to raising racial justice awareness and ensuring that the outdoors are inclusive to all people and people with multiple identities has been really impactful for me.

And the second reason is that being part of Summits in Solidarity really helps me hold myself accountable to being anti-racist all year round.

It's not just a hike day, but really a commitment to being anti-racist.

We have a long history here in the region that we now call New England, and it's time that all of history is included.

You know, if we want to have a unified future, then we have to have a unified past, and the only way to have a unified past is by sharing all of our stories, because all of our stories have made up what we call the United States.

And so once we share all those stories, we'll all be that much smarter and that much more appreciative of each other and move forward as one people.

[instrumental music playing] Well, we have achieved the summit, after a perilous ascent, and we've got sound effects right behind me here.

That sounds to me like Dexter.

Am I right?

[laughter] OK!

We're all here.

But we've come to that part of the show that I really don't like very well, and the time we have to say goodbye, so we shall.

Thank you to everybody, everybody who came today and helped us learn some more about, well, what is probably one of the major problems of our world, let alone society, eh?

Anyway, we're gonna have to go.

I'm Willem Lange, and I hope to see you again on "Windows to the Wild."

[instrumental music playing] Support for the production of "Windows to the Wild" is provided by the Alice J. Reen Charitable Trust, the Fuller Foundation, the Gilbert Verney Foundation, Bailey Charitable Foundation, the McAninch Foundation, and viewers like you.

Thank you.

[instrumental music playing]