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Ascend is a multimedia platform that spotlights the millions of outdoorswomen across our country who go hunting, fishing, hiking, camping, biking, running, and perform important conservation work every day.
Our web series and podcast feature guests who share their experiences with a focus on entertainment, education, and authenticity. Our viewers and listeners will get to know them and learn all about their passion for the outdoors. Whether you've been in outdoor communities all your life or are just getting started, Ascend is the place for you to follow your story!
Brought to you by Ducks Unlimited.
There was a woman who worked at, at Game and Parks whose name was Donna Trojanowski, and she was one of these rendezvousers. So, you know, the prairie woman skirts and the the muzzleloaders, and she had waist length, gorgeous gray hair. She she marched down to the Omaha World Herald wearing her prairie woman skirt and carrying her muzzleloader. And they took pictures of her and interviewed her about the workshop, and she was on the front page of the Omaha World Herald, and the workshop filled the the the next day.
Erin Crider:Heck yeah.
Christine Thomas:Where women could come and just be them. You just have to be fearless. What
Erin Crider:drew me to hunting was that it made me feel empowered. Presented by
VO:Ducks Unlimited. The women who come on to this podcast share their passion, their knowledge, and their stories.
Erin Crider:I share that love for wildlife. Clean water is important to them They just don't have a voice to tell us.
VO:I wanted to be in the mud, in the dirt. I loved it. This is ASCEND, connecting women to the outdoors.
Erin Crider:Welcome to the ASCEND podcast by Ducks Unlimited. I am your host, Erin Crider, and today we are talking about one of the most important questions in conservation. How do we get more women in the outdoors, and then how do we keep them there? Joining me today is Christine Thomas. If you haven't heard this name and you're an aspiring outdoorsman, this is the episode for you.
Erin Crider:Four years ago, I called Christine when I started Uncharted Outdoorsman. I was about a year in, and I was calling asking for advice because I had picked up her book, which you can also pick up. I use Thriftbooks. And she gave me some proven research of how to create safe spaces and more opportunities and better opportunities that keep women coming back for more. Her proven research was fascinating, and I'm so excited to share this information to you again and again because it is so important for other outdoorsmen and conservation organizations to absorb this info.
Erin Crider:Christine Thomas is a conservation legend and founder of becoming an outdoorsman, which is one of the most impactful women's outdoor skills programs in North America. She currently serves as senior vice president of conservation on the board of Ducks Unlimited, and I'm just gonna name off a few other bullet points I pulled out of her very long bio. She's named one of the 20 most influential conservationists in Wisconsin. Her past leadership includes Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Boone and Crockett Club, Wisconsin Natural Resources Board. She was a federal advisory appointment under the Bush and Obama administrations.
Erin Crider:She's a Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame inductee and professor and dean Amarita of the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point College of Natural Resources. Christine, did I
Christine Thomas:get some of those right? You did pretty well.
Erin Crider:So, Christine, you've you founded becoming an outdoorswoman. Walk us through, like, what sparked that interest?
Christine Thomas:Well, I sort of got roped into it. There were two professors. I I had just finished my PhD, and I was an assistant professor in the College of Natural Resources. And one of the wildlife professors at Stevens Point, Ray Anderson, and a psychology professor at University of Wisconsin Lacrosse, Bob Jackson, asked me if I would help them do a conference on women hunters. And, the the the sort of operative word there was help.
Christine Thomas:Well, mostly, they just got out of the way, and I ended up doing it. And, I thought, well, what is this gonna be? At this point in my career, I'm brand new, and I'm casting around for my my niche, if you will. What, you know, what am I gonna be known for? What can I make some summer salary doing?
Christine Thomas:You know, is there what can I have grad students on? What can be published? And I thought, well, what is this gonna be? Like like a convention of women hunters? And what we ended up doing was something called breaking down barriers to participation of women in angling and hunting.
Christine Thomas:And, we had 65 people from around the country come to it. And, we we broke out into, you know, sessions and generated, I think it was 21, barriers to the participation of women. Things like only the men in our family do this, or, I don't wanna pee in the woods, or, I don't know how to do any of these things. And when you broke down what the list, two thirds of them, 14, were education related, related to not knowing how to do it. And I thought, well, we're a university.
Christine Thomas:If there's something somebody doesn't know, we ought to be able to figure out a way to to fix that. And so we did the first becoming an outdoors woman workshop, at our field station, Treehaven Field Station in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. And, basically, to answer the question, does it do do any women want to know how to do this? And, so there there was nothing really magic there. The the place would hold a 106 people, and we divided up the courses into a third fishing, a third hunting, and a third other, which might be things like photography or camping or, outdoor cooking or Map Encompass.
Christine Thomas:People did Map Encompass in those days. And we I borrowed a $150 from my dean to print flyers. The Internet was basically in its very earliest stages and of no use for anything like this. And sent out sent them out, and no one responded. And I began to wonder if we were you know, maybe no maybe no one was gonna come, and how was I gonna pay the $150 back.
Erin Crider:Sometimes I think the same thing.
Christine Thomas:Then, one of our most premier at the time outdoor writers for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Jay Reed, liked me. And, he saw the press release that we sent out and did an article about about this workshop. And the next day, three people answered the phone all day long. And by the end of the workday, the 106 slots for the for the workshop were filled. And we answered the question, does anybody wanna know how to do this?
Christine Thomas:What year was this? That was 1991. Okay. And, and then, it was we can talk about the workshops, but it was very successful, but and also very stressful. You know?
Christine Thomas:Imagine being in charge of the happiness of a 106 women for three days. And, you know, logistically, you know, I just I just pressed my my husband, my friends, people that I knew into service to teach these classes, and they brought their own stuff for equipment. You know? So, you know, think of it. You know?
Christine Thomas:Bow you know, the the the bows, the shotguns, the ammunition, the all the things that would you know, the tents, the compasses, everything, the maps, everything it would take to do, you know, four different classes, four times over the weekend, it was very tiring, and but also very exhilarating at the same time. And so this was not a a mission. You know? I stumbled into this. And, then, going back to the barriers workshop, there were two women from Nebraska that came to that.
Christine Thomas:One was Gloria Ericsson, who was chair of the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. And the other was Dee Carlson, and I think her husband was on the board of directors of the NRA. And, I'm gonna back up here a little bit. So a person that I contacted when I started this, his name was Bob Delphay, and he was head of the National Shooting Sports Foundation. And he told me after we did the first workshop that if I could find, matching funds, he would give me matching money to do a a workshop in another state.
Christine Thomas:And, Gloria Ericsson got Safari Club to match him and invited me to come to Nebraska to do the second becoming an outdoors woman workshop. So in 1992, we did another one in Wisconsin, and we went to Nebraska, and we did one there. And we experienced almost the same thing. We sent out our press releases. This place was in at at a four h camp in Halsey, Nebraska.
Christine Thomas:And if it's not at the edge of the earth, you can see it from there. K? So this is way far away from Omaha or any other, you know, urban kind of place. And, we sent out the press releases, and nobody registered. And the the the gentleman we were working with at Nebraska, Game and Parks, told us, Gloria and me, if you can fill this workshop, we will keep doing it.
Christine Thomas:K? And so Gloria and I, we would have gone to Omaha and paid people to go to this workshop if we it had taken that, but it didn't take that. There was a woman who worked at, at Game and Parks whose name was Donna Trojanowski, and she was one of these rendezvousers. So, you know, the prairie woman skirts and the the muzzleloaders, and she had waist length, gorgeous gray hair. She she marched down to the Omaha World Herald wearing her prairie woman skirt and carrying her muzzleloader.
Christine Thomas:And they took pictures of her and interviewed her about the workshop, and she was on the front page of the Omaha World Herald, and the workshop filled the the the next day.
Erin Crider:Heck yeah. So,
Christine Thomas:that's how we ended up moving out of Wisconsin. And, over the years then, I got some grant money, and and I learned that it's probably gonna kill you if you have to go to 50 states and help them get started. So we started doing workshop coordinator trainings at our workshops in Wisconsin, and and other states started sending their people to to us. So I don't know if that helped get you started or where you want me to go from there.
Erin Crider:Well, so you becoming an outdoorsman, also known as bow, ended up in all 50 states. Right? No. How many did it end up in?
Christine Thomas:Becoming an outdoors woman, I think at its height was in maybe 46 states and five or six Canadian prom provinces. We did a couple in The Bahamas. New Zealand did at least one. Oh, cool. But not all states.
Christine Thomas:Not everyone.
Erin Crider:46 is quite the accomplishment. It's still here in Colorado. They do, like, at least four big events a year.
Christine Thomas:That's cool. Yeah. Yeah.
Erin Crider:So you spent decades researching women in the outdoors. What experiences do you think are should be most available? Like, what should they look like? What what did your research prove that they needed what women really need to be like, okay. I I'm gonna sign up for this.
Erin Crider:I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna learn how to hunt. I'm gonna learn how to fill my freezer. I I wanna do this for conservation.
Christine Thomas:Well, let's start with why did we do research? Well, we were a university. I was a, you know, assistant professor. And, you know, I I took on a graduate student. I so we needed to do something academic associated with the workshops that we were doing.
Christine Thomas:So, like, three things happen at universities, you know, classroom education, outreach and extension, and becoming an outdoors woman would have been in the outreach and extension category, and then, you know, academic publishable research. And so my first graduate student, compared women who were on our various mailing lists, in in some of the beginning workshops, Nebraska, Wisconsin, maybe Montana, Texas. I think those Oklahoma, but possibly Arkansas. Those were the first states to do it. And looked at women who attended versus women who didn't but were on the list.
Christine Thomas:K? So some not just some woman out in the general public, but somebody who had expressed some interest but didn't go. And what we found out was they were, more likely to buy hunting and fishing licenses. The women who had attended the workshops were more likely to buy hunting and fishing licenses. They were more likely to actually go out and do things.
Christine Thomas:They were more likely to be able to identify who was their resource management agency. They liked their resource management agency more than the other women, and they were more interested in environmental protection. Those are the things we found out about the first women who attended, becoming an outdoors woman workshops. And we did lots of other stuff over the years. We looked at recruiting minority audiences.
Christine Thomas:That was really hard.
Erin Crider:I read that.
Christine Thomas:And, then after I retired, I subcontracted with or maybe partnered is a better word with Mark Duda at Responsive Management who's one of the premier social science natural resources consulting firms in the country. And we got a federal aid grant to look at the women are a growing audience in hunting and fishing and outdoor activities. But they also do what agencies call churn at a, higher rate than men. And what that means is, you know, I can't imagine not buying a deer license and going deer hunting every year. But I'm apparently not, necessarily, representative.
Christine Thomas:People go in and out of outdoor activities. They might buy a license one year. They might not buy one for three years. They they go in and out. And women go out at a higher rate than men.
Christine Thomas:So they're Mhmm. They're coming in at a higher rate, but they're going out at a higher rate. Their churn level is higher. So our grant was to look at 10,000 women and find out why they're churning. And after you sort out the reasons everybody churns, You know?
Christine Thomas:I broke my leg. You know, I'm putting my parents in assisted living. My job is overwhelming me. I moved across the country. I've got three kids under five years old.
Christine Thomas:You know? All the things that cause anyone in the general public to go in and out of hunting, fishing, and outdoor activities. Now I personally think those things affect women at a higher level than they do men. But, but everybody goes in and out for those kind of reasons. After you sort that all out, the reason that, women are churning at a higher rate is because they don't feel, confident enough to go out and do this on their own because they don't feel like they're competent enough to go out and do this on their own.
Christine Thomas:So, you know, I used to be a hunter education instructor, and we we mostly taught women. But once in a while, one year I ended up having to go to the gun range with one of the 12 year old boy classes that were, that another instructor was teaching, and I I took the he took the shotgun range, I took the rifle range. So I got a whole dose of 12 year old boys that day, at the rifle range, and the level of their confidence versus the 20 year old women that I had in my class was unbelievable. I mean, you know, the women stand around, and they listen to what you have to say, and and they're hanging on every word and they wanna make sure they do everything right. The boys sounded like thunder coming down the trail to the to the, you know, to the rifle range.
Christine Thomas:And one of them walked right up in my face and said, I wanna be first. I wanna be first. You know? It was just it's just a whole other psychology. And some of that is that they have been doing it since they were six months old.
Christine Thomas:Okay? And some of the women in our classes may have never actually seen a gun before in person. Right. So, so when you take 100 ed class or you go to to a one becoming an outdoors woman workshop and you take full an a 2.5 introduction to something, you're not at least you don't think you're ready to go out and actually do this on your own. And so Right.
Christine Thomas:Our second, research project was to try to determine whether if we provide if we could hook these 10,000 women up with the next step activity, would that turn out to be a stepping stone into feeling confident and confident and able to go out on your own? Or is the unconfident, excuse me, feeling, is that a woman thing? You know, I I don't know the answer to that.
Erin Crider:Well, I took your advice. And instead of just putting up duck hunts. Right? Because I'm oh my gosh. I found that there's another female waterfowl guide in the West.
Erin Crider:So I just met her in Montana. Now I have someone to call and ask, like, what the birds are doing. But it was really hard for the brand new outdoorsman to make contact. So after talking to you, what we did is we set up shotgun clinics, then we did a shotgun clinic before pheasant hunts. Right?
Erin Crider:Because you don't have to be there at 5AM. Then we did duck hunts, and our our contact rate or our harvest rate was significantly higher after that series of classes, and, like, now they're addicted to waterfowl hunting. Like, now they're in Wyoming. Now they're in Montana. Now they're in Nebraska.
Erin Crider:Like, they're all over hunting, and it's so like, that's what fills my cup is seeing these gals that have come through the programs and been like, here's my harvest, and look at the food that I made. You know? That and then they take their young kids. You know?
Christine Thomas:We couldn't find places to to find to send these 10,000 women. So that's a hole that we have out there. You know? Everybody, is excited about getting people that first experience, but at least with adult women that unless they live in a social climate where the people in their their friends and family around them are providing infrastructure, they don't have anywhere to go. So if you came to becoming an outdoors woman and you decided you loved shotgunning, well, now what?
Christine Thomas:Right? If you don't own a shotgun, now you gotta go to the store and be intimidated by how many shotguns there are and all the men standing around at the counter and the, you know, male sales staff. And then then what? Then where do you go? Right.
Christine Thomas:So I I you know, the the next steps thing is the hole that needs to be filled if we're going to successfully recruit women to the outdoors who don't already live in a social space where the people around them are are facilitating that.
Erin Crider:Right. And what I've seen is a lot more organized women's events coming to fruition, but they're hosted by women. And you still kinda you have to show up with, like, a foundational knowledge still. There's there's still I feel like there's still lack of, like, beginner classes or even I find that it's just so easy to extend the invite to her. Right?
Erin Crider:If you've been hunting your entire life and you've got this little spot out in turkey season, it's so easy to just be like, hey, girl. Do you just wanna come with me? And, like, I've got camo for you, and I'm gonna tell you everything that we work through even if we don't see any turkeys. Like, having her walk around seeing the shotgun and learning how to walk around on land. We're we have 48% public land in Colorado, so public land is like where it's at.
Erin Crider:And getting them more comfortable of where to go. You know? Right. This is a great conversation that we have going on, so let's take a break and hear from our sponsors. If there was one skill you could teach women we can't we can't do one skill.
Erin Crider:If there is, like, a beginner basic skill that you'd be like, do this, what would that skill be for a new outdoorswoman?
Christine Thomas:It would be a real confidence builder for, novice women novice outdoors women if they would figure out what are the basic safety things that I need to know to get myself out to the field and back all in one piece and happy. So I think, you know, some basic first aid, knowing what kinds of gear, you know, what's essential for you every time you go out by yourself, like your water bottle and some, you know, some food in case you're out longer than you think you're going to be, you know, gear that is, what gear is right for what you're trying to do because I I personally believe that that even your clothing is safety equipment, and, some basic skills that help you not get lost and be able to find your way back to your vehicle at the end of the day. I think that's the the basic stuff that you need to get going. Now none of that's particularly exciting. So it would be good if it was, paired with the exciting stuff.
Christine Thomas:You know? So, you know, you know, you you've been there. You've seen the first time a woman takes a shot. You know? And the first time that clay, that a clay target breaks and everybody around her cheers.
Christine Thomas:Right? You know, that's the exciting stuff. But if we could pair that with some of the other things, where to find a safe place to go. Mhmm. You know, how to get permission to hunt, as an example, on private land and, and to be sure that's gonna be a safe environment for you.
Christine Thomas:I think some of the basic safety, survival, and, equipment related things in addition to how to navigate the places where you are and to be sure you can I I just had an experience, and I don't know if I told you this or not? When I turkey hunted this year, and I have a 123 acres. And, when I left here in the it's it's twenty minutes away. I left here, it was foggy and, really foggy. And when I got off the road onto the little two track that goes into our land, I could only see the two spots in front of me where my headlights shone.
Christine Thomas:I could see nothing on either side of the truck. And I have to wind down along the edge of the woods and and then on a trail along a ridge and finally turn into the two two track that goes to my little she shed that I hunt turkeys out of. I may I miss I missed a turn out in the fog on a place where I've hunted for twenty years. And the next thing I know, I'm in my Jeep going under a center pivot irrigation system in the middle of a field. And there are three of those systems in that field, and I couldn't remember how the farmer left them oriented for the winter and did not know which of them I was under.
Christine Thomas:K. So I I was essentially lost on property adjacent to my property after twenty years of being there. K?
Erin Crider:Yes.
Christine Thomas:And I felt a little bit panicky. You know? I mean, I knew that this was not life or death, but, you know, the sun's gonna come up, and I wanna be there when the turkeys come out. You know?
Erin Crider:And he he has adrenaline rush.
Christine Thomas:I I just sat for a second, and then I said, you know what, girl? You got a compass in this jeep. You know? And if you just turn northwest, you are gonna get back on track, and you will all will be well. And in thirty seconds, I had this problem solved.
Christine Thomas:K. So I what I'm saying is even the most experienced of us can get ourselves in trouble, and it would be good if you had, you know, enough, confidence and information so you could settle yourself down and get back on track. So
Erin Crider:And you had the confidence to do so. Right. You know? I would echo the navigation skills are huge. I use navigation every time I go out because I am exploring a lot of new public land too, but I'm starting from that same trailhead usually.
Erin Crider:Where my confidence came in is I had a flight home back from New York City from my old career. I picked up my truck at the airport. I had my tires changed, and my I came home, and I was driving, like, an hour to and from Denver. So I live in the mountains, and I worked in Downtown Denver or around there. And my I pulled up.
Erin Crider:My husband was like, are those mud tires? That's when he knew something was up because I wanted to feel confident no matter where I was in the backcountry, I could get out of that space even though I was still beating them up on the highway a couple times a week to drive down to Denver. Just having those tires, which I've probably only needed a few times in the last ten years, just having those tires, I was like, okay. I can get myself out of this sticky situation because I did not know it was me this money back here.
Christine Thomas:When I bought the, and I never thought about that, but tires are a good example. You know, when I bought this Jeep, it just had whatever came from the manufacturer on it because they figure out which ones get the best mileage and all I was stuck all the time. You know? I was always calling Stan to come and tow me out. You know?
Christine Thomas:And, and then I had, new tires put on there, oversized Wrangler radials with aggressive treads. I haven't been stuck since. And I would tell you, especially for those young single women out there, those big tires, those are a guy magnet. Okay? Total strangers, men always come up to me at gas stations and wherever and go, oh my god.
Christine Thomas:Look at those tires. You know?
Erin Crider:And Yep. It's true. Yeah. But I also like when girls, like, take a second look. They're like, is that a is that a girl driving that truck?
Erin Crider:With those big old is that that is a lot of mud. You know? It's like, oh, we were just we were just having a girl's day in the backcountry. It's fine. Wow.
Erin Crider:Tell us more about being on the board of Ducks Unlimited. What has your experience been? What is it what have you loved most?
Christine Thomas:I have really enjoyed my experience on the board of directors of Ducks Unlimited. I have been welcomed. I have been given, important jobs to do. I've been valued and respected. And, within two years of going on the board I've been on the board for eleven years now.
Christine Thomas:And after my first two year term, I was asked, by the then president Rogers Hoyt to be senior vice president for conservation, so chair of the Conservation Programs Committee. And, that has really been an honor. I mean, who wouldn't wanna be senior vice president for conservation for Ducks Unlimited? You know? We, do magnificent work all over North America, and the conservation side of the shop is, where it's at.
Christine Thomas:You know? Everyone else I used to say this. Everyone else everyone else in Ducks Unlimited does everything that they do so we can put money on the ground. And the money goes on the ground in the conservation side of the shop. And so it's really been an honor for nine years to have been senior vice president for conservation.
Christine Thomas:And the last three years, two presidents ago, Doug Schoenrock, asked me to do a to chair a presidential task force on how to double the pace of conservation at Ducks Unlimited. We were we were touching, conserving, whatever we do, easements, purchases, restoration, a half a million acres a year. And he wanted us to figure out how to make that a million acres a year. And three years ago and for three years in a row Oh, boy. On, on the watch with, the conservation programs committee, the great staff we have, and my partner, Karen Waldrop, we have conserved a million acres a year for three years in a row.
Christine Thomas:We did double the pace of conservation, and I am so honored to have been part of that team.
Erin Crider:Yeah. That's incredible. Right. He was probably like, well, better call Christine. She's the woman for this project.
Christine Thomas:I don't know. I don't even remember. I I joke about this all the time. I don't even remember, the commercial that this was, and this is probably twenty years ago. I don't remember what they were selling.
Christine Thomas:But there was this poor soul who said, you know, they were assigning him to go places. You know? Paris on Tuesday, I can do that. You know? Cape Town on Wednesday, I can do that.
Christine Thomas:Beijing on Thursday, I can do that. How am I gonna do that? And when asked us to take us from a 500,000 acres to a million acres, I I just thought, how are we gonna do that? But we did. We we figured it out how to how to get there.
Christine Thomas:And, it's just been such an honor to be part of something as positive and as good and as important as the work we're doing at Ducks Unlimited.
Erin Crider:Yeah. And it feels good to me coming the generation behind you to continue your work and not try and, like, start some new thing, but take what you've already done and all that knowledge and all that research and just push it a little farther. I think that that's huge for conservation because I see so many people try and reinvent the wheel. And I'm like, wait a second. There's already stuff out there, but it needs help.
Erin Crider:Like, we just need to push because the burnout can be really real in today's world. So what what advice would you give the next generation of outdoorsmen, whether they're in the field, becoming new outdoorsmen in the field, or looking at different conservation boards? What advice would you give to those gals?
Christine Thomas:I would say take a little time for you. Okay? So women lead really everyone leads a complicated life, but I think women lead a little more complicated life because even though I think we've gotten better about sharing parenting responsibilities and household responsibilities and those kinds of things, I still think the that the greater measure tends to be on women. And so what have we got, women in your both of your generations? You know, you better you may have a spouse.
Christine Thomas:You may have kids. You've got a career. You've got a, you know, maybe a house or a farm to keep up, and, you have all these roles in your life. And when we first started becoming an outdoors woman, many of the women coming there were in their fifties. And I the group has gotten younger.
Christine Thomas:But why was that? It was the first time in their adult life they had any money or time of their own. Right? Mhmm. So, we found then that many of them were not that I mean, they they were positive on conservation groups.
Christine Thomas:They weren't real excited about getting involved. Why? You know, they had to carve out the one day they could go deer hunting. You know? They had to ask somebody maybe to watch the kids while they did that one day.
Christine Thomas:They and their spouses couldn't do do it together even. They had to take turns. You know? And so adding one more responsibility onto the plate. I would so I would say, you know, take care of yourself a little bit.
Christine Thomas:Get Yeah. Go out and have some fun. Enjoy shooting. Sit on a stump and watch the sun come up. You know?
Christine Thomas:List you know, listen to the birds sing in the morning when you're waiting for that tom turkey to come in. Fire up your Merlin app and find out what those birds are. You know? Yeah. But then I would say once you get comfortable in your skin and a little bit of experience, give a little something back.
Christine Thomas:You know? I think it's really important for us to have women that hunt and fish care about the environment. Lots of people care about the environment. But I think it's important for it's important for sportsmen and sportswomen to care about the environment too because I think it's important to have the huntress's voice out there in the conservation world.
Erin Crider:Well, thank you for being that voice for all of us coming up, under you here. So, I know, like, one you're one of my role models in the outdoor world, and I took your knowledge from your research and implemented it into my little my microscopic little woman owned business and guide service, and it just blew up. Now we have 25% of our clients come back every year to learn something new. A lot of them I can't get rid of. Right?
Erin Crider:Like, they're coming back to shoot these
Christine Thomas:of becoming an apartment too. That's true there too. Yeah. Right? Because what Yeah.
Christine Thomas:Because they don't have another community to go to.
Erin Crider:Mhmm.
Christine Thomas:Right. It's because there's a need that's not being filled somewhere else.
Erin Crider:Yes. And the more opportunities, the more safe opportunities, the more legal opportunities for women to buy that hunting tag, buy that duck stamp, and support conservation in public land in their state, the better. I've also like, going back to coming off of Mother's Day and going back to keeping women in conservation and having that community part, only women usually are the ones that'd like, hey, girl. I know you just had your first baby. I had two five years ago, and I know how hard it is to get back to the river and go fishing again.
Erin Crider:Let's go. And buy her that duck stamp for her birthday. Buy that that fishing license for Mother's Day. Those are great gifts because she's so busy with maybe a first, second, third baby that it it things can be really overwhelming and just I have veered away from being like, oh, she's probably too busy to, hey. I'm going, and you don't have to be in the goose blind till, like, 7AM.
Erin Crider:So if you've got things to do in the morning, no big deal, and it's in town, you know, come then rather than, like, the 04:30, the 03:30, the two hours driving in the middle of nowhere. You know, having those local places in your community to fall back to when things do get tough and complicated really brings women back to the forefront.
Christine Thomas:We, when we started becoming an outdoors woman, it was for women 18 and older, and there was a specific reason for that. We want women to take their kids and grandkids outdoors. We do. K? But we want her to have a chance to go outdoors, just her.
Christine Thomas:Because when you take your kids, you're mom We're babysitting. You're always mom every second that you take your kids somewhere. And when you go on your own, that's a whole different you. That's you doing something for you. And and we were trying to do to we were trying to provide an opportunity where women could come and just be them and learn and relate.
Christine Thomas:And that's one of the things we we, learned at that very first workshop. We were there to teach them the skills. K? But we we did some fun evening activities. We did an outdoor fashion show, and, you know, we did some other crazy, activities in the in the evening.
Christine Thomas:They laughed. They cheered. They had so much fun. And what we discovered was, did she wanna learn the skill? Yes.
Christine Thomas:She did. Women are very clear about that. They're reading the brochure, and they want they want they're they're checking off in their mind point by point. Did they get what they paid for? So, yes, they wanna learn the skill.
Christine Thomas:But they had so much fun. The evaluation said things like, I haven't had this much fun since I lived in the dorm. You can't believe what this did for my confidence and my self respect. So what we learned at that first workshop, and then we started planning that in, they they came for the skill and they learned the skill, but they they got addicted to the camaraderie, to the laughter, to the, you know, woman to woman fun, that they had at the social activities. So the community was, I think, as important as the skill set.
Christine Thomas:Mhmm.
Erin Crider:So We've really been working on community, this year at Uncharted. And another thing I'll add is this past deer season so I've been taking girls out for mentor deer hunts on public land with a permit from the Forest Service now for four years. And this year, when I went up there, there were two vehicles there, and they both had my uncharted outdoors woman sticker on them. And I was like, oh my gosh. This is great.
Erin Crider:There's first of all, there's there's women at the trailhead. Hooray. Second of all, like, to me, see no one else probably really noticed, but to me, I saw two women come together probably from one of my classes going out to the trail head that I took them to to go deer hunting on the same tag that I have that I'm like, please go get this deer tag. You can very easily go get it. And they're out there just living life.
Erin Crider:I didn't even see them. Nice. Also didn't see any deer.
Christine Thomas:Hopefully, they found the truck at the end
Erin Crider:of the ship. Hopefully, they found the truck. Yes. Yes. And I use that specific trailhead because there's a woman owned ranch right next to it that the animals are just thick in there.
Erin Crider:So if the animal does run off of public onto private, they could easily call her up or knock on the door and be like, hey. My deer is now on your property, and she'd like, oh, please come get it. Let me let me let me take your photo for you. Absolutely. Because she was a big time hunter back in the day.
Erin Crider:Nice. Well, Christine, this has been so much fun, so uplifting. I hope that if you're listening and you're a new outdoorsman or you're looking to put together an outdoors woman project or a business or a nonprofit, I hope you take information from here. Look up Christine's research. Put that to work, and you don't have to reinvent the wheel.
Erin Crider:We need help out here. There's already outdoorsmen that need help. I am one of them. So thank you for all of your time.
Christine Thomas:You bet. Thank
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