In this episode, Cody has a conversation with Olympian and climate activist Callan Chythlook-Sifsof. Callan’s life has been a mixture of snowboarding, social justice, and climate activism. She was raised in Aleknagik, Alaska, a village of about 300, just outside Dillingham. Aleknagik, like Dillingham, is a community that relies on fishing, and is located near Pebble Mine. So, Callan has been around the Pebble Mine controversy since it began, which led to her early involvement in activism. Alongside that activism, she’s worked as a professional snowboarder, competing in the Olympics, as well as medaling in many endemic competitions. In 2011, she started working with Protect Our Winters, also know as POW, as a climate ambassador. Since then, she has presented on climate awareness, and spoken to congress about climate awareness. In 2014, she unofficially retired from professional snowboarding after three back-to-back knee surgeries leading up to the Sochi Olympics, and then injured her knee during the qualifying Olympic season. She is currently the Head Coach for the Park City Boardercross Team.
Looking at Callan’s life, she’s always fought against injustice. She’s always been on the side of the under-represented and the disadvantaged. She knows that to achieve success, you need to be mindful of all the small decisions along the way. She understands that change can be slow and meandering, which is why patience is important. She says that “as humans we can get very narrow and very linear, and the reality is you can’t do anything if you have a linear perspective because it’s just not the truth of our world.”
