Lisa Wallis is a charming, accomplished woman who held the position of WAKE president early in the millennium. Together with her husband, Andy, they form a strong paddling duo. Lisa is very busy with her work as a Cardiology Nurse Practitioner but I still managed to wrangle her into a sitting down for a beer at the Boundary Bay Brewery.

Dawn: Lisa, through my time at WAKE, I’ve heard people refer to your presidency in hushed tones. Ah when Lisa was president, they’d whisper.

Lisa: (Lisa laughs.) I was president 2001 through 2003 or somewhere thereabouts. I was on the board for three years and president for two of those years.

Dawn: Was there anything special during that time?

Lisa: Well we started the idea of Demo Day. WAKE already had an annual swap meet and it just seemed like a natural progression. Andy was in the business, we had a relationship with Werner paddles. I think the only thing we didn’t do was advertise it enough. It could become quite an event with enough publicity.

Dawn: I’m excited about Demo Day. I’m especially pleased to have surfskis in the boat mix.

Lisa: Oh I totally want to try a surfski. I’ve never been on one before. What do you paddle, Dawn?

Dawn: An Impex Currytuck and a Romany. What kind of kayak do you paddle?

Lisa: They don’t make it any more. I paddle an Arluk; the same model that John Janney uses. I like my boat, even in rough water. It does fine, I just have to brace more than with the Brit style boats.

Dawn: Where did you live before you and Andy moved to Bellingham?

Lisa: We lived in Billings Montana. That’s where Andy and I got married. Andy went to Billings on a ski scholarship. We got married in the mountains. Camped out the night before. Had a great little outdoor wedding.

I’m from Williston, North Dakota, originally. Real close to Canada. Ten miles from Montana. At the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers. I grew up on rivers.

Dawn: Did you paddle them?

Lisa: No. I didn’t start kayaking until I met Andy. I swam and floated on them. I started paddling at age 32. I’d been in canoes and inner tubes but not kayaks. Andy was paddling and skiing since he was a little kid. He got me started. We bought a couple of Seaward kayaks. A lot people don’t realize that you can use your sea kayak in Montana on lakes and rivers. There’s Yellowstone Lake, Lake Mary, Devils Canyon in Wyoming, and the Green River. Lots of places. I’ve done the Yellowstone River all the way from the headwaters to down to Billings. So many beautiful places to go.

Dawn: How often do you get on the water these days?

Lisa: Andy and I average about 30 nights a year tent kayaking, not always together because of schedules. Last year I went on a nice long trip with friends because of schedule conflicts.

I’ve done the Green River trip three times. You can be 95 and practically blind and do that. The worst that happens is you get stuck in the mud. Then you put your hands down, push, and get started again. It was funny on the Green River because you’re an ocean kayaker and you land and haul your boats up the beach because of the tides. But there’s no tide in the river. Other people just left their boats at the water. We wondered why we kept pulling them way up. We came up with reasons like concerns about the wind but it was just comical. We’re so conditioned.

Dawn: Why do you enjoy kayaking so much?

Lisa: I’m not an adrenaline junkie. I do it to backpack on the water. Fresh air. Nature. Andy does it to surf and challenge himself. I don’t do that.

Dawn: How did you get end up in Bellingham?

Lisa: I finished grad school. Andy is a 4th generation Puget Sound boy so we moved back this direction and I love it here. Andy’s family is huge. There’s no shortage of Wallis relatives in the Puget Sound area. I’m not a big city girl although I love Seattle. I just don’t want to live there. And Bellingham had a great job opportunity.

Dawn: Not many people speak the words *great job opportunity* and *Bellingham* in the same sentence.

Lisa: I was a new graduate nurse practitioner. I went into nephrology. It was the most intense internal medicine experience I could hope for. I was there for five years.

Dawn: What made you decide to change to cardiology?

Lisa: It’s a bit happier. You can have a heart attack and still go on a cruise in a week. Nephrology is sad. But I loved it. I loved the patients. I cried when I left. I was in nephrology when I was president of WAKE and I had a lot more free time then than I do now.

Dawn: Did you do Andy’s Saddlebag paddle a couple of months ago?

Lisa: No, I was at the opera. I’m an opera girl. I love opera. I go to every opera in Seattle. I make a day of it, doing the Seattle Art Museum, this and that, and then attending the opera.

Dawn: Is Andy an opera man?

Lisa: (She smiles.) The worst thing in the world is to do something that you love with someone who doesn’t love it. I do it on my own.

Dawn: How cultured of you.

Lisa: My great grandfather who came from Oslo was a concert pianist and an author. He played for the Boston Symphony. He loved Chopin. We had tapes of him playing the piano. We were prairie people but we knew good music. My great grandmother was nurse and ended up in North Dakota because of the Norwegian potato famine. She delivered over 500 babies by horse and buggy. So I guess I grew up with music and medicine.

I played trombone when I was little girl. My brother played the sax and my other brother played the French horn. I wanted to do something different. And I didn’t want to be one of those pansy flute players or violinists. I was a terrible tom boy. I didn’t want to do what the girls did.

Dawn: From music to medicine to kayaking. I wonder how you have time to manage the Lummi DNR camping site for WAKE.

Lisa: I learned about the site because my neighbor was head of the DNR in this region when the budget cuts were happening. They kept cutting and cutting until there were just pennies left. The only option was closing the site or finding volunteers to take care of it.. So WAKE took it over. It was a controversial decision at the time. Everyone thought it was way too much. But we pushed it through and it has gone quite well. WAKE has tended the site for five years now. It’s not as hard as it first seems. The site is pristine. You can only get there by boat so we don’t have hoards of people coming in. Those that do visit tend to be sensitive about the environment. They’re nature oriented. My neighbor and I came up with this plan and it worked.

Dawn: How much effort is put in to maintain it?

Lisa: We usually work in a few big maintenance trips every year, depending on storm damage over the winter and what needs to be done. Last year we rebuilt a couple of staircases. We did a lot of work. I sanded those bloody bathrooms. But there’s a lot of informal maintenance as well, people dropping in and replacing toilet paper, making sure things are clean and picked up.

I’m finding myself a little negligent in the paperwork side but on the physical side we’ve done a lot. I feel vested in it and want to make sure it continues. I just don’t want it to fall by the wayside or have someone take it over and then decide it’s not worth the trouble. I mean, I love that place. There are hummingbirds and owls. We don’t have raccoons trying to dig into peoples stuff. It’s just such a beautiful spot. It feels very good to help out.

Dawn: It was great chatting with you, Lisa. I don’t see you very often.

Lisa: I know. It’s my schedule. I have a hard time making meetings these days. But now that Andy has weekends free we’ll be paddling more.

Dawn: Backpacking on the water?

Lisa: (She smiles). Yeah.

Lisa Wallis is truly representative of WAKE. She’s a solid, independent, skilled sportswoman who loves the outdoors and the freedom it brings. She's also an individualist with a unique appreciation for all of lifes creatures; case in point -- her favorite Northwest critter is the slug. I suspect that the slugs like her in return.

Thanks for everything, Lisa. Especially Demo Day and the DNR. Good job.