Film Screening: Breaking Trail featuring alumna Emily Ford '15April 2, 2022 at 6:30–8 p.m.

The Departments of Geography and Geology, the Environmental Studies program, and the Center for Inclusive Excellence are thrilled to present a special free film screening of Breaking Trail, an internationally-renown 2021 documentary that follows Gustie alum Emily Ford (Geology '15) on her quest to become the first woman and person of color to complete a winter traverse of Wisconsin's 1200-mile Ice Age Trail. Emily will be back on campus with us for a post-screening Q&A to discuss her experiences on the trail and the film festival circuit. 

The screening and Q&A will be on Saturday April 2 from 6:30 - 8:00 pm in Wallenberg Auditorium (Nobel Hall of Science). The film trailer can be viewed here.

Breaking Trail was an official selection of the 2021 Banff Mountain Festival of Film and Book, which summarized the film:

As Midwesterners huddled safely in their homes to avoid the frigid chill of a Wisconsin winter and the devastating trauma of a world-wide pandemic, Emily Ford set out on a long walk with a borrowed sled dog named Diggins. Well acquainted with the hazardous weather of the upper Midwest, this professional gardener from Duluth, Minnesota aimed to traverse the length of the Ice Age National Scenic Hiking Trail (IAT), a distance of more than 1,200 miles through some of the coldest temperatures in recorded history. The new film, Breaking Trail, directed by Jesse Roesler, documents the achievement of a Black American queer woman who braved the frozen landscape of the Dairy State to warm the hearts and minds of people across the nation eager to be inspired by a true story of adventure.