We joined the world in celebrating International Women’s Day (IWD) earlier this year by shining a spotlight on women in the outdoors and those who make it a better place for all. We shared the stories and words of advice and encouragement of leaders, role models, mentors, mothers, sisters, and daughters to uplift and empower all the women who share the outdoors. We have met and gotten to know many more incredible women since March 2022, and we simply couldn’t wait until IWD 2023 to introduce you to more Women in the Outdoors! One of the women we are proud to call our friend at Savage is Erin Holmes. This is her story!
Erin Holmes
From a landscape level, I work to restore balance to degraded lands and help create/restore/maintain habitat for wildlife. From the field level, I do this by working to connect people to the land around them by learning about it and their role in the system. I do this both through my work at the US Fish & Wildlife Service and through an initiative I work on with friends and colleagues, Sharing The Land. (Missouri State Coordinator/Partners for Fish & Wildlife)
My advice for women in the outdoors: Find your space outside, whatever that looks like, and embrace it. Then find your community and immerse yourself in it. You don’t always have to be comfortable to have a good time!
How the outdoor industry can support women: Provide the community-based opportunities women seek out. Women learn better from other women, and we create long-lasting relationships that provide support to one another. This creates a framework to encourage women to explore, step outside their comfort-zone, and break any preconceived notions about the outdoors.
How women can get involved in the outdoors: There are so many places that have great resources for women but here’s a few I’m familiar with that have a national presence.
How I Got Started: I’ve been fortunate to have worked with and for some really great people that were, and still are, more than happy to share their land, their wisdom, and life experiences with you. I worked and volunteered with these folks wherever I was living so I could get as much local knowledge as possible. It seems intimidating from the outside looking in, but the industry is kind and welcoming to those looking to explore the world around them.
How I support other women: During my career I have been able to use my voice to stand up for women needing our own space and tools. I’ve met many women that I was able to provide support for to explore hunting more, hike more, botanize more, hire, supervise, and help find that next job. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have worked places that were supportive of myself and others hosting women’s workshops and events, creating initiatives, and helping to break molds. It seems silly to call that out since it was (and is) still such a natural thing but I fully recognize that this is not the norm elsewhere. The best part is the women I’ve worked with that I now call my friends. We created together, supported each other, and now we hunt and adventure together. I have several ladies’ groups that hunt together but the first was my Doe Camp ladies. We all met through conservation work in Wisconsin and come back to hunt the antlerless season in mid-December together. The weekend is just a hunt but it’s the framework that brought us all together and the impact infiltrates all other aspects of our lives. Relationships, jobs, issues, highlights, we’re always there for each other. I chose this example to share because it’s not ‘I’ that lifted or encouraged, it’s ‘we’. That’s what being a woman in the outdoors is all about, that’s what’s important about women only spaces.
Why I’m proud to be a woman in the outdoors: It makes me proud to have my path in the life. I have many interests and a few talents, but all things outdoors are what makes me who I am. It took me a long time to figure that out but once I did, I knew I’d found me. I’ve spent the rest of my life being the best version of myself that can which means always growing and learning. I’ve worked really hard to become a good ecologist as well and I put a lot of my self-efficacy into my work. I’m really proud that I can pull my love of adventure and my love of ecology together.
Challenges women face in the outdoor industry: The industry has not always been welcoming to women and it historically promotes conformist behavior, which excludes many groups of people not just women. To be blunt, it’s been a male dominated industry for far too long and the market that has followed it greatly reflects that. It’s bad enough to not have your own gear much less have states passing laws to permit women to wear blaze pink in the woods and thinking that’s some type of equality. The generation that still thinks of women as the “fairer sex” is still very much a part of our society and that influence still throws up challenges for employment and opportunity. I like to think that’s more at a local level these days, but recent events have lead me to think otherwise.
How I overcome challenges: Find your community, find your space outside, find your confidence. While there are still challenges out there, none of them are insurmountable anymore. Your people are out there! Also, embrace being wrong. You can’t challenge yourself to try if you aren’t willing to be wrong once in a while. Super easy to type, much harder to do in practice but I have faith in you!
Follow Erin Holmes on Instagram @woodsprite29 and Facebook @erin.holmes.79.
Check out her work on Sharing the Land.
Read more Women in the Outdoors stories!
