Julia Miracle's pursuit of a more accessible outdoors
by Abby King-Kaiser (she/her), Communications Manager
On a dim, foggy November morning in Juneau, Coppa, a local coffee shop, lights up like a cozy beacon inviting you in. The smell of fresh-baked pastries fills the air outside, and the coffee chases away the damp cold of late fall in a temperate rainforest. Following the Fall Regional Retreat, I caught up with current JV, Julia Miracle. Julia (she/her) grew up in Ohio but studied geography at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec.
Julia has personally seen how being outside can invite her to be her whole self, offer healing, and create community. Serving with SAIL nurtures those passions in a way that is tangible in the world.
Julia teases that she found JVC Northwest by googling “live for free in the Northwest.” Her water bottle speaks for her on the table, covered in stickers promoting social and ecological justice, backcountry safety, and the beauty of the outdoors. Julia is strong and laughs easily. It would be easy to feel intimidated by going on a hike with Julia, if you only noticed some of these surface level things. When you talk with her, you get a whole different picture of what it means to be in nature, who should have access to it, and the role of the outdoors in her life.
“I think I always struggled with how to still have fun in the outdoors without feeling this pressure to be the best at it.
People think of me as this super-outdoorsy person who is always looking to new heights. But really, that is actually not the case. I have no desire to climb hard mountains and ski hard things, I just love doing it because it is fun, and I want to keep it that way. This position has been super-rewarding and grounding. You can have fun outside.”
Julia reflected on the achievement-oriented culture she noticed in some outdoor communities. Without a painful, sweaty, steep climb, it wasn’t a “real” outdoor experience. And, if that feels true, then being outside is often about struggle and even pain.
At McGill, Julia was not just in the Outdoors Club but became a leader. As she stepped into that role, she discovered traditions that made it hard for beginners to feel included, or even to access the outdoors at all. “The outdoors can be a very exclusive place if you have not grown up in it.” Julia increased her experience in the outdoors at the start of the pandemic with her friends in Ohio, but she found that experience to be disconnected from the skill that her Canadian peers had picked up in the backcountry before they even hit 18. The club’s trips and experiences often focused on people who already had skills at the highest level. Julia tried to develop options that were low cost, accessible to campus, and where you could gain skills. She experienced pushback from others in the club, that her approach was just not what the tradition of the club was about.
For Julia, “that is not what I want to outdoors to be for me or for other people.”
In her Service Interest Form conversation in the JV admission process, Julia spoke with Anna Jurken, a JV Program Coordinator, about the ORCA position at SAIL. With the volume of positions offered, Julia hadn’t even noticed SAIL or ORCA as she explored the roles. “I am really grateful to Anna Jurken for talking me through the positions.”
Known locally as SAIL, Southeast Alaska Independent Living has been a partner agency over decades in both Sitka and Juneau. SAIL describe ORCA as a program that plans “a wide-range of adaptive outdoor pursuits for all abilities and interests.” From bonfires to ski trips, ORCA creates community and fosters independence. For Julia, the opportunity to serve as a JV/AmeriCorps member with the ORCA program at SAIL brought together her interest in the outdoors with her passion for making it accessible to as many people as possible.
“You really can facilitate independence and confidence in people when you take them outside. They figure out they can do it… It is never a question of if a consumer* can, but how. And that’s the philosophy we have with everyone we take outside. We know they can do it, we just have to figure out how. And when the consumer is given the opportunity to try and realizes they can do it, that’s the best feeling ever.”
Julia lit up remembering the late fall training kayak trip. It was late enough in the season in Juneau that…while many people were still enjoying fall…most of them were staying out of the water. That didn’t stop the ORCA staff from taking out the kayaks and practicing wet exits. While they were out, Julia noticed a lingering Forest Service boat, the only other people they saw out on the water all day. She laughed as she imagined what they were thinking. The group was practicing wet exits and assistance in a way that might have made them look like they needed help…eventually the Forest Service moved on. Julia giggled at the memory.
As the ORCA JV, Julia has led everything from late Autumn kayak trips to berry picking, to bingo (link reel). Another part of her dynamic role is supporting pre-employment transition services for middle and high school students, particularly those at the detention center in Juneau. Julia has accompanied them on outdoor trips like mountain biking, and to career-focused experiences like visiting the fire station and KTOO. They all have treatment plans that address their mental and social wellbeing, alongside the trauma they may have experienced. “Everything you do in outdoor recreation can be applied to how you succeed in the workplace – communication, perseverance, trying and failing, just putting yourself out there and being uncomfortable – that all translates to job skills.”
“To see people that aren’t necessarily the most “outdoorsy” people … they end up liking it because they realize what all of it means —to be surrounded by community, to be an independent individual in a way they aren’t recognized in other aspects of their life. That’s so rewarding for me to see… and it reshapes my idea of what it means to get outside and to lead trips.”
Many thanks to Julia for sharing her stories and service with me, and to SAIL for supporting and hosting JVs.
*The independent living movement uses the word consumer because it implies choice, and the agency to make a choice matters.
