MacRae, Duane

From Spearfish Lake Tales Wiki

Duane MacRae, son of [[Jason MacRae]] and his first wife Jody (who had walked out on Jason and their son) grew up in Bradford and attended Northern Michigan University. His father spent time with him in Boy Scouts, and later on in independent outdoor activities including canoeing, whitewater kayaking, hunting, fishing, backpacking, skiing, and snowboarding. On a camping trip to Isle Royale National Park, Duane got to talking with a National Park Service ranger and decided that he would like to get a job with the service; he was told that it was easier to get into the service with law enforcement skills, which led to his choice of Northern Michigan University with a major in environmental conservation and a minor in criminal justice.

At NMU he was active in the outdoor club (serving as vice president in his senior year and chairing the whitwater group); he was close to Gary who was at NMU when Randy Clark and Crystal Chladek were upperclassmen.

Gary pointed him at the Nantahala Outdoor Center in Wesser, North Carolina for a summer job as a whitewater rafter, where he presumably was working with Scooter for three summers. Sometime in those summers, he also picked up some surfboarding skills on the NC Outer Banks, and then became one of the few NMU students who surfed Lake Superior in winter. ^HS07.

After graduation, he worked at the Nantahala Outdoor Center, quit to hike the AT and in spring of 2000 was working at a nearby McDonalds until the NOC got busy enough to hire him again, when Scooter, Crystal and Michelle came through on their way back from the Bahamas and recruited him for Canyon Tours.^RR34

In 2001, he became a boatman with Canyon Tours, after starting as a swamper the previous year; ending up with his own rafts for the last part of the summer.

Duane talked with Tiffany and Josh Archer the first day of Al Buck's wedding trip and expressed an interest in dog sledding. He had heard from Crystal Chladek about her time spent as their dog handler.^CF05 After a few days together, the Archers decided to make an offer to Duane to try being a dog handler in his off season with the possibility of running some races.^CF14

Duane hiked out with Barbie Tompkins, Andy Roney and Scooter at Bass Trail after the wedding of Karin and Al Buck.^CF16