Jon Bowermaster
Photo by Jennifer May
Writer, filmmaker and adventurer, Jon Bowermaster is a six-time grantee of the National Geographic Expeditions Council. One of the Society’s ‘Ocean Heroes,’ his first assignment for National Geographic Magazine was documenting a 3,741 mile crossing of Antarctica by dogsled. Jon has written a dozen books and produced/directed more than fifteen documentary films.
His Oceans 8 project took him and his teams around the world by sea kayak over the course of ten years (1999-2008), bringing back stories from the Aleutian Islands to French Polynesia, Gabon to Tasmania, and more, reporting on how the planet’s one ocean and its various coastlines are faring in today’s busy world.
Jon lives in New York’s Hudson Valley. He is the Executive Producer of Oceans 8 Films and President of One Ocean Media Foundation, Chairman of the Advisory Board of Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation and a Board Member of Mark Ruffalo’s Water Defense.
3 words to describe Nature?
BIG. ALL-ENCOMPASSING. AT-RISK
3 things Nature taught you?
HUMILITY
APPRECIATION OF QUIET
RESILIENCE
3 most treasured Nature spots?
ANYWHERE ON THE EDGE OF THE OCEAN
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
THAT PLACE WHERE BLUE-MEETS-BLUE: CALM
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
DARK AND MYSTERIOUS
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
VIOLENT
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
SUNRISE = EXCITED / SUNSET = AT PEACE
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
EXCITED AND A LITTLE FRIGHTENED
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
CALM
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
OCEAN
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
FIRST SAILINGS ON CRYSTAL BLUE LAKES OF THE NORTHERN MIDWEST; FIRST KAYAKS ON THE SAME BODIES OF WATER. AS AN EARLY TEENAGER.
