Brittany Aäe

Founder

Magnetic North 

TBD

Steering Committee Member

The Basics

Nonprofit Name: Magnetic North
Location: Nlaka'pamux and Mətxʷú land otherwise known as the Methow Valley, Washington
Founded: 2012
Full-Time Employees: 2 & a network of contributors
Products: Personalized endurance coaching for mountain athletes
Social: Instagram
Claim to Fame: : Introducing the idea that the female reproductive cycle (menstruation, pregnancy, and postpartum) is the ultimate performance enhancement. Also, through over six years of coaching, not one of our clients has experienced an injury during our coaching engagement.

The Culture

The best thing about working at Magnetic North is: “Working from home” means worshipping on the banks of the Cwáx on breaks.
When we’re not working, we’re: Run-fish-running, backcountry skiing, rope soloing, making maps, lingering with our favorite pines, meditating, speaking with ravens, writing, stoking the fire, and snuggling our kids.

What we’re reading:  “Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle” Thor Hanson, “The Dispossessed” Ursula K. LeGuin, “Emergent Strategy” adrienne maree brown (again!)
What we’re listening to: “ATW” All Them Witches, “Above” Mad Season, “Broken Twin” Broken Twin,  “Opal” Vinyl Williams, “Her Fantasy” Matthew Dear, “I Can’t Stand the Rain” Ann Peebles, “To the Wolves” Vasser, “Oczy Mlody” The Flaming Lips
If they made a movie about our workplace, it would be called: “This, too”  a Sci-fi Drama flick.
Inclusion in the outdoors matters because: At MN we’re strong believers that if we can all plug back in to the earth we will remember that we come from the same place and that through mindful endurance practices we learn to control our autonomic nervous systems, allowing us to engage difference with curiosity rather than fear or violence. Also because all bodies are athletic bodies; it doesn’t matter whether you’re old, young, pregnant, menopausal, Black, Indigenous, white, fat, thin, non-binary, straight, differently-abled. All bodies are capable bodies deserving of sovereignty.

Five years down the line, it’s our hope that: Marketing materials in the outdoor industry represent those who move in the mountains and that our collective ideas of what an athlete looks like have shifted.