Ken Dawson

For more than two decades, Ken’s primary occupation has been developing and operating a small, organic vegetable and cut flower farm in North Carolina. Besides farming, his passion is hiking and paddling, exploring North America’s wild places, and organizing trips for others to experience what he enjoys so much.

Ken made his first trip to Alaska — with Joe Jacob in 1999 — and just as Joe predicted, has never come all the way home. The following year he turned operation of the farm over to a long time employee, and took a year long sabbatical, making an 18,000-mile road trip to Alaska and back. With canoe, backpack and fishing rod, Ken spent the summer months traveling around the north country, hosting several groups of friends and family who came north to share the adventure. Hiking alone through the snows and fall colors of September in Denali, his thoughts turned to opportunities to return and bring others to share the wonder. He knew he would be back again and again.

“My experience of the vast, wild beauty of the North lives in me in a way that transcends place,” says Ken “The inner landscape of one farm boy from North Carolina is changed forever.”