Blake Everson was dreaming of Papua New Guinea long before he first set foot on its soil. As a university student majoring in anthropology and environmental studies, he was captivated by stories from his lecturers about PNG’s diverse lands and people. His curiosity and fascination led him to finally visit in 2006, arriving with nothing more than a backpack and an open heart.
With no prior contacts in Papua New Guinea, Blake relied on his warm, kind, and authentic personality to quickly endear himself to everyone he met. Over two months, he walked from Kerema to Lae and then traveled on to Hela, sharing stories, eating garden kaikai, sleeping in the homes of his new friends, and immersing himself in their lives. For Blake, the reality of PNG’s unparalleled beauty and the friendliness of its people far exceeded his wildest imaginings.
In the nearly two decades since, Blake has explored PNG’s myriad rivers, mountains, volcanoes, caves, reefs, and rainforests. Over the past 18 years, he has visited PNG countless times, developing lifelong friendships with Papua New Guineans from all walks of life in all 22 provinces.
Blake has guided filmmakers, researchers, adventure travelers and VIP tourists to the remotest parts of Papua New Guinea. With an anthropological mindset and an environmentalist perspective, he is fascinated by how tribes form part of the living, breathing landscapes they’ve inhabited for thousands of years.
Blake has a particularly close bond with the Kasua villages around Mount Bosavi. He and his wife, Kate, were married in a traditional Kasua wedding ceremony in 2011. He has children named after him, and Blake and Kate’s son is also named after one of the villagers. Blake is one of only a handful of non-Indigenous people to have been inside the Bosavi Crater since a BBC documentary film crew entered via helicopter in 2009.
An explorer and avid hiker—Blake competed in cross-country ultra-marathons throughout his 20s—he spends his time outdoors in the Americas when not in PNG. He has trekked through most of the wild lands of western North America, from Mexico to the Yukon. Blake believes the idiom "road less traveled" is fundamentally flawed; for the real adventure starts where roads have never existed.
“Niu Nature is what I’ve been working towards for the last 18 years, before the opportunity existed or I could have ever really had clear sight of what it was. To walk this incredible country, spend extended periods in villages working closely with entire communities to help them protect their environment and preserve their irreplaceable cultures… It’s the dream. And if we don’t, and we let the languages, cultures, and everything special about traditional PNG societies fade out, simply because we didn’t value them enough to save them? That is not just Papua New Guinea’s loss, that’s a loss for the entire world. It will be a scar against this current generation for the rest of human history.”
Blake, Catherine, and their two young children currently reside in Sun Valley, Idaho, USA