Events
October Chapter Meeting in Calhoun County, featuring “Comedy on the MI NCT!”, with Jo Oosterveen
Our final guest speaker for 2023 is our entertaining and endearing NCT hiker Jo Oosterveen! Jo has solo-backpacked Michigan in its entirety and has great comedic hindsight of her wild encounters on the trail.
This meeting with our Chief Noonday Chapter will be hosted at Stirling Books & Brew in Albion as our annual trek to Calhoun County. We hope you will join us for this great event that’s sure to bring a smile to your face and maybe encounter a new friend to hike with! As always, our meetings are open to the public, so please consider bringing a friend, neighbor or family member along!
A brief chapter meeting follow Jo’s presentation.
****. Jo’s Personal Bio ****
As a life-long resident of Kalamazoo, I have always loved the outdoors. My grandfather instilled in me the need to always look for the next outdoor adventure. Because of his influence, I spent most of my childhood getting dirty, ultimately landing me at MSU getting a degree in Biology. There was a short side adventure when I met and married the brother of one of my friends. This led to another degree in Biomedical Science and working as a research scientist at Upjohn, along with my husband who was in human resources. Two kids later, it was my husband who encouraged me at the age of 35 to go back outside and have fun. Surviving 5 Outward Bound courses, I learned to hike solo and began to hike all the beautiful trails that Michigan holds. As I started my 60th year, I met a fellow hiker traversing a trail that I had never heard of – the North Country Trail. Soon, I started looking at the website, and slowly started to day hike sections of the trail. After catching “blue blaze fever”, I decided to hike all 1150 miles of the Michigan trail before I turned 65, or I died. Fortunately, I made it alive. An old lady solo-hiking all the miles in Michigan… what could go wrong? Reflecting on the adventure after I finished my goal, I could only remember the humorous events that happened on the trail, and I realized that hiking is the funniest sport out there. Join me for an evening of laughter and taking a lighthearted look at walking down the trail from Ohio to Wisconsin.