From sales to dogsled racing in dream job tryout

Like many new graduates, Andrew Boston, AS ’03, spent some time in career limbo directly after graduation, first trying his wings in the tight job market of San Diego, then heading back East to Philadelphia to take a position in corporate advertising sales.

Although he realized 14 months into his first “real” job that he “just wasn’t happy every day,” he never lost sight of the sort of position that might bring him inspiration—even if it meant he’d have to invest in more training.

Following this logic and a stubborn streak of wanderlust, Boston quit his initial job at the beginning of June 2005, applied to the prestigious National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) and, soon after, traded his apartment in Philadelphia for a tent in the Canadian wilderness.

“Actually, NOLS was an option that was suggested to me while I was still at UD applying to law schools,” Boston, who majored in criminal justice, says. “NOLS is not common as a postgraduate pursuit. Still, it’s training that every astronaut will complete by the time he or she is considered by NASA, and it’s training that many outdoor writers and entrepreneurs also complete.”

The NOLS course completed by Boston took him from five degrees south of the Arctic Circle to 420 miles downstream in a white-water kayak in 25 days. From there, he trekked for 25 more days through wilderness, living on strict rations.

Fifty days later and 26 pounds lighter, Boston found his way back to Philly. But, this time, he says, he was better prepared for any sort of daily grind.

“If you can imagine regimented living, eight hours away from anything, with your food air-dropped in every 10 days and leading a group of peers through treacherous situations, that just about sums up the NOLS experience,” Boston says. “When I went out into the wilderness, I’d only been camping once, but I like to do things a little off-the-cuff.”

It was just this sort of enthusiasm that also impelled him to apply for and win a slot on the Travel Channel’s reality show, This Job’s a Trip, which was filmed on a dogsled ranch in northern Alaska.

Singled out from more than 1,000 other applicants, Boston was informed by a phone call late last March that he had five days to prepare for his stay in Alaska. While there, he’d learn to mush and handle sled dogs under the merciless eye of the camera and the mentorship of Vern Halter, who is well-known in Alaska for running the Iditarod and the Yukon Quest.

“The idea was to bring two different people from two different jobs out to Willow, Alaska, to try a new experience,” Boston says. “But, while it can be fun to be thrown into a task for which you have no experience, it becomes more challenging when you know you’re being filmed.”
Boston says he has a new appreciation for the hard-working sled dogs, and he found them to be ideal course mates when canoeing 70 miles on flat river. The NOLS alumni magazine quoted him as saying, “Encouraging the dogs was the same thing as motivating your course mates, but you never hear a word of sarcasm out of them, and they never quit on you.”

Boston says that his competitive spirit stood him in especially good stead toward the end of his stay, when he was abruptly told he’d be finishing up his training with a 25-mile race.

“When this was sprung on me, I could barely stay on the back of a moving sled without falling off, so it was rather intimidating,” Boston says, “but you’d be shocked at how much more determined you get when you know that your efforts are going to be aired on TV. I ended up winning by a decent amount, and it felt good.”

Now back at work in Philadelphia, Boston, whose segment aired on the Travel Channel in August, says he hasn’t lost the inspiration the experience gave him, or the sense of adventure it delivered.

— Becca Hutchinson