Peter Illyn, Restoring Eden

Peter Illyn is executive director of Restoring Eden, a nonprofit working to make environmental stewardship a core Christian value.

Yesterday, I crossed the Canadian border with 12 students from a Baptist college in Florida. It was 40 degrees below zero with wind chill, and I was amazed to watch some the students strip off their jackets and shirts to race bare-chested back to the tour bus. We had to stop at the "Welcome to Canada" sign and wait for five minutes as every person snapped a group photo.

We saw bald eagles and mountain goats as we toured the wilds of Alaska, and I felt like I was starting to meet my goal -- to help the students understand the right of the wild to remain wild. For the first time, they really understand why "greenies" (as they are labeled in Alaska) work diligently to protect native ecosystems.

Coming to Alaska in mid-March was a gamble. I was warned that it could be warming into spring or that we could get the last blast of winter. We got the winter; right now, I am looking out the window at a swirling mass of snow. A blizzard came in overnight and there is now a foot of new snow on the ground. For people who grew up in Palm Beach, this is a treat, and they are putting on their "snow-clothes" and getting ready to have a snowball fight. While the students have regressed back to junior high, I am worried about how this storm may impact the rest of our time together.

Our volunteerism for today will involve moving a large, large stack of split firewood into the basement of the Alaskan Indian Arts Center. We were planning to go to a local church and help members begin to clean up some of its acreage to create a prayer garden and meditative labyrinth. But with a foot of snow, that ain't gonna happen.

If the weather lets up this afternoon, we are going to go visit a local artist and ecologist who has spent 30 years working to protect endangered species. He has rejected Christianity for many reasons, but one of his major objections was the lack of environmental sensitivity in the church. Some of the Christian students have become friends with him, talking about how it is their faith that actually caused them to become conservationists. They see the hand of God expressed in the natural world around them and in their love of God, they have found it easy to love creation. The students' faith is genuine and sincere, beguiling to those worn out with the cynicism of a lifetime of activism.

Looking outside, the view is phenomenal -- snow swirling around 130-year-old barracks at the abandoned Fort Seward Army base where we are staying. The snow has completely covered up the parade grounds and the Tlingit log house. Since I grew up in snow country, I plan on cloistering up today in the only heated bedroom to begin working on a grant that's due in two weeks.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!