Yes. When I was about seven, my dad bought the family an Amstrad word processor, and I was pretty excited to have a computer in the house. But all you could really do was write on it! So that's what I did, and I wrote a story about four dogs on a trip down a river.

My dad was a writer and we joke that it's an inherited disease. I hold his opinion of my writing in high regard. If he likes something, it means a lot. I also had an excellent English teacher in tenth grade who liked what I wrote, and other teachers who helped me get a writing scholarship to the University of Minnesota. That encouragement goes so far for teenagers. I often say writing is the only thing I'm any good at, so pursuing it professionally seemed like my only choice.

In 2014, I broke the news of a massive expansion of an oil pipeline that crosses the St. Croix River and tributaries in northwestern Wisconsin. That had a big impact and that's always rewarding. Same with several articles that have shined a light on the risks of large-scale livestock farming in our region. I was also in the Boundary Waters in September 2011, due east of the Pagami Creek Fire, and provided photos and firsthand reports that got a lot of attention. Lately, I've been writing a lot of history and something I recently published about the métis culture in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota revealed a story that's largely been lost to history. 

Anywhere I can throw rocks in the lake. Sugarloaf Cove is really beautiful and natural, I love walking out on the rocky point there. My wife's family has also had a long relationship with Lutsen and we've spent a lot of time on the beach there. Last fall, I had a great camp at the Forest Service's Temperance River campground; I love anywhere I can sleep to the sound of running water.

I loved Jonathan Slaght's book "Owls of the Eastern Ice," and am intrigued by the wild areas and rivers of Russia's Far East. It seems difficult to reach, which means a lot of those rivers are not traveled often. Reading Ian Frazier's book "Travels in Siberia" also made me want to visit that huge, historic, but sparsely populated region.