By Cynthia Oi
Star-Bulletin
Last November, the crew of PBS' "Anyplace Wild" spent 12 days on the Big Island, filming what will likely be the season opener for the television series' third season, which premieres in June. This is the first of two stories about the women who headline that program.Chaos reigns on the first floor of the Manago Hotel. Like a college dorm at the start of a semester, duffels, clothing, towels and what not jam the walkway. Healthy, hearty men and women call out to each other, laughing, bantering, dodging in and out of the rooms.
Amid all of this sways Annie Getchell, clad in a powder blue tank bra, a blue-green-pink sarong tied snugly across her trim waist and hips. She wears a silver-and-turquoise ring, a thin gold wedding band, a silver link bracelet, earrings and an ear cuff.
Her short brown hair swings as she turns quickly to talk to someone, then falls into place precisely. The muscles on her shoulders and arms are well defined, her legs slim at ankles below powerful at thighs and calves. She looks like a model, and she is, but not for fashion.
Getchell is the climbing, paddling, swimming, skiing, hiking outdoorswoman who goes "Anyplace Wild," the title of the PBS television program she co-hosts.
Her job makes her the envy of those who savor the outdoors. Imagine -- getting paid to have fun in the sun, on the rivers, in the snow, on a mountain top. Imagine -- getting paid to paddle Hawaiian waters.
That's what Getchell is doing. She and a crew of seven are on the Big Island to film an episode for next season, and the hotel in Captain Cook is the first place in days where they've slept in beds.The shoot has wrapped and the "Wild" people have just a few hours to do the tourist thing before their planes take them back to their mainland homes, which for Getchell is Maine.
For most of their 12 days in Hawaii, the crew has been hard at work. Not that they don't have fun. The anecdotes and the laughing attest to that. Getchell's laugh is among the loudest.
Her animated, energetic TV persona is there. Her eyes -- however gentled by a wide genuine smile -- absorb and weigh; her mind churns on several levels. Though she is candid, the one-time visitor can sense that what's beneath those hazel eyes is parceled carefully.
Getchell is 36, "a high mileage 36," she says. "It means I've fallen harder and faster and more times than most people will in their lifetime."
No doubt. She is an expert backcountry traveler, a poet, an artist and a trailside cook. She's a registered Maine Guide, former Canoe Magazine staffer, contributing editor for Backpacker magazine and a regular contributor for AMC Outdoors magazine. She's also the author of "The Essential Outdoor Gear Manual: Equipment Care & Repair for Outdoorspeople."
In other words, she lives and breathes outdoors.
On the lanai of her room at the funky Manago Hotel, she tucks her feet under her as she settles on a lawn chair. She briefly inspects a small scratch on her muscular arm.
"The first day after a wrap is when you feel all those little wounds that you haven't allowed yourself to feel while you're shooting," she says.
Getchell grew up in Wisconsin, where she was "privileged to grow up in a really outdoors family," and lives in Camden, Maine, with husband, Dave, who is also one of the "Wild" producers. Dave isn't here, she says. "He's home, probably chopping wood, keeping the house warm."
One focus of the filming was Audrey Sutherland, an Oahu woman whose paddling experiences are chronicled in her two books, "Paddling My Own Canoe," and "Paddling Hawaii."
Sutherland and Getchell met 15 years ago. Sutherland's sister lives in Maine and Getchell's in-laws were acquainted with her.
"I always had this dream about coming to Hawaii because it's such an exotic place for us, being Northerners; to come to Hawaii -- the center of the ring of fire -- and work with Audrey on something."
The something turned out to be paddling and swimming along the South Kona coast.
For Getchell, swimming in the warm ocean was a discovery, which is how she sees most of her adventures.
Growing up in the North, she always loved to swim, whether it was in lakes, rivers, streams."If I'm around water, I'll swim -- in a glacial pool, if it's open. But I have never in my life had so much fun swimming than here. To be in the warm water and experiment and flip around and feel the texture of the water.
"Sometimes it's effervescent, and then other times it's this nurturing surrounding, an embrace."
She also discovered the ocean isn't always benign.
Having dived to the sea bottom to place an anchor for a kayak, she began playing, making like a seal underwater.
"I was loving the water. I was smiling. I was playing and going "Holy buckets! This is the most beautiful thing.' "
Then a surge swept her over a sharp coral shelf, whamming her around.
Luckily, a few days earlier, Sutherland's famous surf son, Jock, had given her a few ocean tips.
"I pushed up to let the wave carry me, like Jock told me to do. Otherwise, I would have been ribbons, but I'm not. The wave spit me out -- pooft -- like Jonah by the whale."
The "pooft" is part of the Getchell sound effects library. She punctuates her words with them. The words "crashing surf" comes with a "whooorvvuu;" a vehicle over a four-wheel drive road goes "jute-jute-jute-jute-jute;" shimmying down a cave chimney, "cheeweech, cheeweech;" and walking slowly, "ad-dud-duh ad-dud-duh."
Crashing waves, rutted roads and delicate cave wanderings are all part of Getchell's world and her job. When asked if she feels lucky because she is paid to pursue her passions, she says, "I totally know I am."
She says that she and other crew members "know we're in that rare place and we appreciate it and are grateful.
"But it's not just a cool job. It's more that each of us are doing the work we want to do and working with people who are doing what they want to do. And that's the gift.
"I get to profile people and places and show what's nice about the world and do it in a way that makes people feel good and tells them that they can do what they want to do, follow their own star."
"People need to realize their connection with the natural world. And that's what this program can do. It is relevant. We're not climbing Mount Everest with oxygen; we're going out into people's backyard and showing them what is there."
Getchell marvels at the warmth and spirit of sharing she encountered in Hawaii. She talks about local crew member Wayne Leslie and his family, the banana bread, the lei, the visit to the Leslies' Milolii homestead and other countless kindness.
"They were so giving and they trusted us to come into their world. We felt like we were embraced by these true Hawaiian people."
This sharing with people is what motivates her in her work.
"We want to make sure they are heard." she says.
"Anyplace Wild" tries to balance entertainment, humanity, relationships and beauty. "And there's always little bit of a place for a message. What we are trying to do is listen to the voice of the land and voices of the people of the land."
"We are from the land, even though some people don't feel it anymore. They don't have their cultural connection, a rootedness to a place. We grow up in a suburban place, that your family has worked hard for, to give us this privileged life, an education, life in a First World country.
"But we don't know where we are from. How will you know if you don't go out there and feel it.
Audrey Sutherland feels it, Getchell says.
"In our work, you get addicted to the quality of people ... you meet these people who are passionate about what they do. And Audrey is the ultimate metaphor for the kind of people we meet."
"You know what Audrey says? Audrey says this about Hawaii: 'I really believe that Hawaii was made for me from the beginning of geologic time.' " She laughs at the audacity -- and truth -- of the statement.
Getchell writes poetry and keeps an extensive journal, illustrated with her watercolors of scenes that have impressed her.
For now, her life's ambition is current.
Still, she'd "like to be able to tap my creative energies without excruciating effort." With the statement comes another Getchell sound effect: "Urarraahghgrah," she groans while making like she's pulling her guts out.
And 20 years from now. "I don't know. Twenty years from now, who knows. You don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. So I try to make sure that I have good revelation with each moment, each person.
"And I'd like to have been more places where the birch trees grow."
Next week: A profile of paddler-outdoorswoman Audrey Suther-land.
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