What Brought You to the Island
By Jane Valencia
After 20 years of operation, the Vashon Wilderness Program has a new Executive Director, Nadja Vol Ochs. As I walked with her at the marina to her boat, Sophie, Nadja pointed out such waterbirds as mergansers, surf scoters, and more – describing what she had noticed about them recently, and sharing her delight in each one. Clearly, Nadja is at home on the water!
A job brought Nadja to Vashon, but of course there is more to the story.
For 20 years, Nadja had lived with her family on 55 acres in the foothills of the Cascade mountains. When her children left home, Nadja dissolved a marriage, and moved her mom and herself to West Seattle. From there, she could see Vashon in the distance, and the ferries going back and forth. It never dawned on her that she would end up on Vashon, but one day Warren Moon, executive director of Wilderness Awareness School (WAS), shared that Stacey Hinden was leaving the Vashon Wilderness Program. VWP was looking for an executive director.
“It was like a lightbulb went off. Coming over here to interview and to meet the team – it just felt like I was coming home in a really sweet way. And especially knowing that I wanted to live on my boat more and spend more time sailing – it was so serendipitous.”
Nadja had spent three years at WAS, including as a student in its nine-month Immersion program, and, later, serving on the leadership team.
“I wanted to be more in service to nature connection. When this position came up, the calling was loud: yes, you must explore this.
“I love it when things like that line up in life. This boat was that way, too. I knew nothing about sailing, I only knew how to windsurf, but it was one of the biggest yeses.
“I had people telling me, the best day is the first day you buy your boat and the last day when you sell it. I felt, no, don’t tell me that! La la la! So the fact that I got to bring Sophie – this boat here – and have her be a part of my life more, and also be able to do this work that called to me so deeply from having spent time at WAS. Reflecting on it, of course something like this would show up. I was asking for it, I was looking, and just waiting, and listening.”
What had drawn Nadja to nature connection work in the first place? How did she end up enrolling in the Immersion program?
”I raised my kids on acreage, in the middle of the forest, outside of Duvall, not far from WAS. I had grown up on a farm, so I was connecting to the land through agriculture, through planting, through growing things, through growing food. I was raising chickens and planting an orchard, and had started to explore a little bit around permaculture, what does that look like, and I was realizing there were other ways to connect to land that I didn’t know.
“I knew how to touch land and get my fingernails dirty and grow plants and food, but I didn’t know how to listen to the forest. I knew I had a relationship with birds, I was raising chickens, and I love birds. These winged beings have always been a part of my life.”
During her tenure as director of Carnation Farms, Nadja took a sabbatical.
“During that time, I was out at sea with my daughter, learning to sail with these crazy mermaid women sailors. I had my face down on the water, looking at the creatures that were under the sea, on the sand, and on the rocks. There were so many more layers to this world that I wanted to know about.”
Upon her return, she enrolled in the WAS Immersion program.
Her year in the program was transformational. On a personal level, it was a time of shedding. “Letting go of land that I raised my kids on, and gardened – I had tended that land for 20 plus years. Trees that were planted as saplings were now giants, and I had to learn to let go of that, but also have a bittersweet, long goodbye through my time at WAS.”
In thinking about her next work, she knew it needed to be connected to place. Her work had long involved technology; now it was important to connect it with nature, to make a difference in youth and people’s lives.
“My lens had been as a farmer, right? I had thought nature was for farming, a way to grow food. But it’s even more than that. Because we are nature, so there’s that.”
Next month we’ll talk with Nadja about her work as executive director with the Vashon Wilderness Program. Be sure to join the Vashon Wilderness Program for “The Wild Bug Ball” on Saturday, March 28, 5-9 pm at Camp Sealth, and do check out their online-only auction March 2nd – 31st. Visit vashonwilderness.org/events.
