| Summary: | This chapter considers Lenny Kohm’s life story, from growing up in the Seattle Jewish community during the postwar years through his career as a jazz drummer and member of the countercultural scene in the San Francisco Bay area. It then follows him to Sonoma, California, where he moved in 1977 and later pursued a career as a photographer. Much of the chapter focuses on what Kohm called his epiphany—a 1987 trip to Alaska and the Yukon that inspired his refuge activism. That summer, just as the Ronald Reagan administration called for drilling in the coastal plain, Kohm visited the Arctic Refuge, hoping to take pictures that he could sell to Audubon magazine. A chance stopover in the Gwich’in community of Arctic Village, Alaska, followed by a trip to Old Crow, Yukon, completely changed his perspective on the issue. Returning home, Kohm desperately wanted to figure out how to make a difference in the Arctic Refuge struggle.
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