Paul Forward

I grew up in Eagle River, Alaska, and from an early age was skiing, hunting, fishing, and paddling with my family, developing a deep connection to the wild places that define the state. Although skiing and whitewater kayaking have taken me around the world, I’ve always returned to Alaska and now rarely find reason to leave. For the past two decades, I’ve structured my life around extended wilderness travel in Alaska, including dozens of multi-week solo bowhunting trips, along with remote river and ski expeditions, increasingly shared with my wife and our young children, born in 2019 and 2024.

For the past 14 seasons, I’ve also worked as a professional heli-ski guide in Alaska, spending extensive time in remote mountain landscapes. Over those years, I’ve witnessed rapid change in the places I care about most, particularly in Arctic Alaska, which led me to become involved in climate advocacy. Much of my work has focused on engaging the hunting community, often among the first to experience these changes, yet historically reluctant to discuss climate change openly. These themes are explored in the short film The Hard Way, which weaves together bowhunting, conservation, and the impacts of climate change on Dall sheep.

Professionally, I am a rural family physician and have spent the past 15 years practicing full-spectrum medicine in rural Alaska, including the last decade in the Northwest Arctic. There, climate change is reshaping both the landscape and the health of our patients, and I am involved in several projects examining its impacts on human health in the region.