Arctic Wild: Our Guides

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Bill Mohrwinkel, Co-owner/Guide
Bill has been working as guide/ instructor since 1989. He has worked for various environmental education programs, including Outward Bound and The National Outdoor Leadership School. He has been guiding in the arctic since 1994 and for Arctic Wild since 2000, becoming part owner in 2006. Bill has been active in working to protect the arctic for the past 10 years, and for the last 6 years has toured the country with a slideshow about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He owns a home and lives in Palmer Alaska. In the winter Bill is a concert promoter for Whistling Swan Productions, bringing folk music to south-central Alaska.

 

David van den Berg, Co-owner/Guide
David van den Berg graduated from Furman University and came to Alaska in 1989 to help clean up oil from the Exxon Valdez.  In 1990, David moved to Fairbanks to work as an intern for the Northern Alaska Environmental Center to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil drilling.  To learn the country, he immediately started working in the Brooks Range with renowned Alaska guides Wilbur Mills and Ron Yarnell, and eventually created the guiding company Arctic Wild in 1999.  Working with Bill and Michael and the rest of the Arctic Wild crew, David has consistently leveraged Arctic Wild to protect Alaska's arctic wilderness.  In 2005, David followed his passion for wilderness into an office, re-joining the Northern Alaska Environmental Center as its Executive Director.   David has to count his vacation nowadays, but still guides a trip or two a year.  

 

Michael Wald, Co-owner/Guide
Michael loves sharing his knowledge and passion for wild places. It is this love of teaching that has led Michael to work as a wilderness guide, educator and researcher from Alaska to Labrador to the Antarctic. Michael has taught science courses at the high school and the undergraduate level, and has participated in research projects ranging from marine mammal studies to songbird habitat characterizations. Michael is able to draw on these diverse experiences to help others understand the intricate and fascinating ecology of Polar Regions. (You can ask him about penguins!). When not at work guiding Michael is likely to be found exploring the wilds of Alaska with his wife Sally and son Leo.In the winter Michael does the scheduling, booking, and logistics for Arctic Wild

 

Sally Andersen, Office Manager

Sally is the newest employee of Arctic Wild, yet being married to long-time guide and co-owner Michael Wald, she is no stranger to the business. And as a lifelong resident of Fairbanks and a field research biologist with a Master’s Degree in Botany, she is no stranger to the arctic. But, as mother to 2 year old Leo, she is keeping a little closer to home these days, working part-time as the Office Manager of Arctic Wild, and Project Coordinator to the Chena Flats Greenbelt Project.

Ron Yarnell, Lead Guide
Ron started exploring Alaska’s Brooks Range, Baja, and Belize long before other guiding companies as owner of the guide business Wilderness Alaska-Mexico, which eventually morphed into Arctic Wild when David bought the business in 1999. Now Ron can concentrate on what he likes most, showing participants the magnificence of the arctic wilderness.  In addition to leading trips for Arctic Wild, Ron guides trips in Mexico, Belize, Nepal, and Thailand through his business, All About Adventures.  Additionally, Ron is fulfilling a lifelong dream of building a log cabin on a lake 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle in the central Brooks Range. Ron enjoys helping people experience the wilderness and sharing his knowledge of animals, plants, geology, and local history.


Cameron Baird, Lead Guide
Raised in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah Cameron Baird grew up playing in the wilderness.  He has since been guiding trips in Alaska for the past ten years.  With a formal education in Environmental Studies from the University of Alaska Fairbanks he holds a deep love of the land inspiring those around him to experience the natural world with renewed wonder. Cameron and his wife Becky call Fairbanks their home.

Dori MacDannold, Lead Guide
Dori is a long time wilderness enthusiast who has kayaked, mountaineered, and hiked through the wilds of Alaska, Wyoming, and Mexico, and now makes her home in Palmer, Alaska. She has been an instructor with the National Outdoor Leadership School and with the University of Alaska Wilderness Studies Program and has guided wilderness trips with several Alaska companies, including Arctic Wild since 2000. Dori is currently a yoga instructor, massage therapist, and sole proprietor of Hoop-n-Hula Milk-n-Cookies.

Dan Ritzman, Lead Guide
Dan found his way to Alaska after completing an undergraduate degree in Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning from the University of California at Davis University and a Graduate Degree from the School of Forestry at the University of Idaho.

 

One of his first jobs in Alaska was with the Northern Alaska Environmental Center in Interior Alaska as the State Lands Coordinator. Dan and David van den Berg shared an office in the old Northern Center house and met Ron Yarnell on a “lobby” trip to Washington, DC. This proved to be very fortuitous for Dan who found himself guiding a trip on the Hulahula the next summer. Dan feels very fortunate to still be friends with David and Ron and to have returned to the Brooks Range and North Slope every year since. When not introducing people to the beauty and wildness of Alaska’s Arctic Dan spends his time advocating for its protection as the Sierra Club's Northwest/Alaska Regional Director working to protect wild public lands.

 

Dave Shaw, Lead Guide
Dave Shaw first came to Alaska in 1998 after graduating from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. His first summer in the great land was spent working as a bird bander in Denali National Park. He fell in love with the state and moved up full time in 1999 to work as a field biologist.  Dave attended graduate school at the University of Alaska Fairbanks where he received his Masters in wildlife biology in 2006.  He has a love of extremes, which has taken him from the Himalayas of Bhutan to Antarctica and the Amazon. He has worked as a naturalist guide in Antarctica, the rainforests of Central America, the Rockies of Colorado, and in Alaska.  While at home and depending on the season, Dave can be found skiing the trails, slopes and mountains around Fairbanks and the Alaska Range, fly-fishing Alaska’s rivers, backpacking along remote ridgelines, poking under mossy rocks, or waiting for the perfect light with his camera.  He makes his living as a wildlife biologist and freelance photographer/writer/wilderness guide. Check out his website at www.wildimagephoto.com.

 

Mike Bassett, Lead Guide
Mike Bassett is a naturalist, river guide, traveler and carpenter who divides his year between Moab, Utah and Alaska. His love of wildlife and wilderness first brought him to Alaska in 1994 and he has been guiding in Alaska for the last five summers. He leads trips for Alaska Wildland Adventures in Denali National Park and the Kenai Peninsula. His favorite Alaska animal is the Wood Frog.

 

Garrett Jones, Assistant Guide
Garrett came to Alaska in 2005 to experience the Brooks Range first hand. He has a Bachelors of Science degree in Recreation, Parks and Tourism from Radford University Virginia and an Associates Degree in Environmental Science from Mendocino College in California. His eleven years of guiding experience range from working as a fishing guide in Montana and Wyoming, as a wilderness instructor in Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Puerto Rico and Alaska, and now as a guide with Arctic Wild since 2006. Experiencing Alaska and the arctic is a life changing event and he loves sharing this amazing journey with others.

 

Alice Bailey, Assistant Guide
Alice first experienced the Brooks Range in 2005 and immediately fell in love with Alaska’s Arctic. She has been guiding for Arctic Wild since 2006. Alice’s past experience includes guiding and instructing wilderness leadership courses in California, Virginia, Puerto Rico, and Alaska. She loves to cook (and eat) and has also cooked at the University of Alaska’s arctic field station north of the Brooks Range. Alice earned a Bachelor Degree in Studio Art, with a concentration in Photography from the University of Virginia. She loves the endless time and space of the arctic, the intensity of this wilderness, and all of the little surprises it brings.