Not long ago, my hunting and fishing buddy Jeff Doyle retired from his other favorite sport of marathon running. “The Kid” isn’t the kind of guy to let a little detail like months of training interfere with his sporting pursuits. I remember once when we were smelling the fresh, cold salt air while standing in a river estuary. The bright sun felt good, and catching a mess of small, early-season striped bass was a plus. The fish arrived a few days before the Boston Marathon.
“I think I might run the Marathon on Monday,” Jeff said in between hook ups.
“It’s in two days,” I said. “Huh? I don’t recall you running over the past few months.”
“The last time I ran was six months ago,” he said. “I’m just going to wake up and do it.”
Jeff did, and he ran it in three hours and 32 minutes. The fact that he’s a gifted long-distance runner has led him to run 16 marathons on all seven continents. He ran past penguins in the Antarctic just as easily as he ran along the Great Wall of China. The kicker was when he passed Doyle’s Pub at the 20-mile mark in Dublin, Ireland. The Kid stopped in for a pint followed by a second in the place that bore his name. Carbo-loading took on a new meaning that day, and though the pints of Guinness slowed him down a bit, Jeff still finished in 3:45.
What’s more impressive, though, is that Jeff’s marathons were part of a fundraising effort to combat leukemia. He solicited donations from friends, family members, and businesses, each pledging a dollar amount for each mile he ran. Not only did he raise awareness for the disease, but he generated six figures of revenue to help combat the illness.
Running the Great Wall of China Marathon to support leukemia research, as Jeff Doyle did, is not for the faint of heart.
While my own linebacker legs covered the Boston Marathon course one, and only one, time, Ed and Rebecca Gray’s newest venture is a bit more up my alley. Their nonprofit company is called Journey Gives (journeygives.org) and has a partner called Giving Journeys (givingjourneys.com). The combination is a fun and creative way to combine fishing, hunting, and outdoor travel while raising awareness and revenue for your chosen cause. I think of it as a sporting way to protect the environment, save a beleaguered species, or help scientists find a cure.
Their first fishing trip is to Alaska’s Nushagak River for a variety of big trout and salmon. Dave and Kim Egdorf will host two weeklong fishing trips in 2018 with the first running from July 31 through August 7 and the second running from August 7-17. According to Ed Gray, “Becky and I first fished with Dave and Kim in 1984, two years after he established his company, Western Alaska Sport Fishing. The Nushagak River and its tributaries are still as vibrant, pristine, and full of fish today as they were back then.
Ed and Rebecca Gray are combining sporting pursuits with fundraising through their new company, Journey Gives.
“We selected those two ten-day periods because it offers prime-time fishing for gorgeous native rainbow trout and grayling. Our experience is that many anglers travel to Alaska for king, chum, sockeye, and coho salmon, and this is the time when those species move into the rivers. The opportunity to catch seven-pound rainbows, two-foot-long Dolly Varden, and large salmon exists.
“Not surprisingly, the area is threatened by the Pebble Mine, and that’s the cause on which we’re focusing. The proposed strip-mining project has been resurrected; it’s enormously vast, and it threatens this pristine and remote part of western Alaska. If approved, the mine will be the largest in North America. The main environmental concern involves the proposed earthen dam. The impoundment will be the world’s largest, and it’s designed to hold ten square miles of poisonous tailings, a by-product of mining. Should there be any spillage or drainage issues then the Nushagak and other rivers in the watershed will be destroyed. Half of the world’s wild salmon harvest would be impacted.”
Alaska is known for its great fishing found in pristine wilderness areas.
The Grays launched Giving Journeys from their own personal experience. Some two decades ago, Becky was diagnosed with breast cancer. At that time, her primary focus was on survival, but that life experience created a pause in which they reflected on how they could best use their talents to leave the world a better place. Becky initially became involved in awareness campaigns and fundraising for cancer research. She has been cancer-free for 20 years, but her focus still includes cancer, although she’s now passionate about environmental issues and fish and wildlife, too. The Grays are lifelong hunters, anglers, and conservationists, so their new business is a natural transformation.
Dave Egdorf ties off his float plane in the remote Alaskan wilderness.
“Ed and I believe in what we call the ‘power of one,’” Becky said. “When one person works within his or her own sphere of influence, they become a dynamic force of many. One of the life lessons I learned from surviving cancer is that working for a bigger cause helps people reclaim the parts of themselves they lost during treatment. Our focus is on direct awareness, from which comes direct involvement. Our lifetime has been spent in the outdoors; Giving Journeys is one way for us to leave the environment and the world better than the way we found it.”
If you’re committed to raising awareness or money for a 501(c)3 charity, you can pull on your running shoes and knock down a marathon like Jeff Doyle. But if you’re looking to do the same while fishing and hunting, then Ed and Becky Gray’s Giving Journeys is a sporting way to go. Saving the environment while fighting a rainbow as long as your arm in Alaska? What could be better than that?