John Rust

John Rust has spent a lifetime exploring and living in earth’s most wild places; pristine and primeval areas where both predator and prey exist. He has visited Yellowstone National Park and Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness a multitude of times. He has hiked and paddled the wilds of Alaska over two dozen times including backpacking Denali National Park, kayaking near tide water glaciers in Kenai Fjords National Park, explored Katmai’s desolate “Valley of 10,000 Smokes,” and paddled Katmai's backcountry and Admiralty Island’s “Fortress of the Bears.”

John has been charged by brown bears in Alaska and Bengal tigers in India. He has been confronted by growling wolves at night in Yellowstone and has spent lazy afternoons laying hidden in snow while large wolfpacks napped nearby. John has kayaked braided glacier rivers with Alaskan brown bears, paddled rivers alongside porpoises, freshwater springs with manatees, and estuaries with basking alligators. He has winter trekked the Boundary Water's maze of frozen lakes and hiked the Superior Hiking Trail while being confronted by wolves at night. All, with a keen eye towards observation and detailing wildlife in a journal.

John has Bachelor of Science degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science. His day-job is in IT quantifying geospatial risks for the insurance industry. He is the father of two children whom he has taken on many adventures. With his grandchildren, John plans to continue to explore nature anew through their eyes. John has organized many public events describing the beauty and wonder of nature and written articles for the Izaak Walton League of America describing nature, ecology, and the value of ecosystems, and was president of the Minnesota Division of the Izaak Walton League.