What If Trails Are Health Infrastructure?

As the Regenerative Outdoor Visioning Project continues, one theme keeps surfacing across nearly every conversation: A regenerative future ultimately depends on healthy people and healthy communities.

That may sound obvious, but it opens a much bigger conversation about the role outdoors already plays — and could play even more intentionally — in physical health, mental health, behavioral health, cultural continuity, resilience, belonging, and overall community well-being across Alaska.

That’s the focus of our next session:

Outdoors as Prescription (Physical, Mental & Behavioral Health)

Tuesday, May 26 | Noon–1:30 pm

LINK to register

We’re especially excited about the pairing of guest weavers Jim Beck and Danielle Stickman because they approach this conversation from two very different — yet deeply complementary — directions.

Jim Beck serves as a Senior Program Officer with the Mat-Su Health Foundation, where he has helped shape investments connecting outdoor access and community health. Over the last decade, the foundation has invested heavily in trails, parks, and active transportation projects throughout the Mat-Su, helping support the growth of the Mat-Su Trails and Parks Foundation and broader efforts that recognize outdoor access as part of building healthier communities.

Danielle Stickman, Executive Director of Qizhjeh Vena Alaska in the Lake Clark region, brings a perspective grounded in reconnecting people with lands, waters, culture, and traditional knowledge. Her work centers the idea that relationships with place — through subsistence, cultural practices, language, intergenerational learning, and time on the land — are deeply connected to healing, identity, and well-being.

Together, they create a powerful foundation for a conversation Alaska is uniquely positioned to explore.

Not simply whether outdoor recreation is “good for you,” but how relationships with outdoors intersect with broader questions of prevention, healing, community resilience, and what healthier futures could look like in Alaska.

We expect the conversation to touch on everything from trails, parks, and walkability to subsistence access, youth mental health, addiction recovery, loneliness, cultural connection, active lifestyles, and the importance of gathering spaces and outdoor experiences that strengthen both individual and community well-being.

Like all sessions in this series, this is not a webinar or lecture. It’s a facilitated working conversation designed to help inform a regenerative outdoor visioning framework and toolkit for Alaska. Participants are encouraged to bring examples, programs, observations, and questions into the discussion.

Whether you work in healthcare, behavioral health, outdoor recreation, trails and parks, tribal wellness, education, community development, or simply care about the future health of Alaskans, we hope you’ll join the conversation. No preparation is needed — just bring your experience, curiosity, and perspective as we explore how healthier relationships with outdoors, culture, land, and each other might help shape a more regenerative future for Alaska.

Outdoors as Prescription (Physical, Mental & Behavioral Health)

Tuesday, May 26 | Noon–1:30 pm

LINK to register