M Norlund, Board Secretary

---

  M Norlund is a life-long resident of The Green World, parlaying a love of plants and nature into a 15-year-long career in nurseries and landscape design and installation. Family trips to the Adirondacks, which involved repeatedly hiking Algonquin Peak (for reasons passing understanding really), provided inspiration for work and deepened her connection to nature, creating a bond to a place of solace that always welcomed her back during years of challenge. 

M left the plant life in 2012 to become a Mental Health Therapist: the painful transition to a desk job was eased by the start of a passion for running that continues today. Initially driven by race training, or to become faster and run further than she had the day before, a shift to trail running in 2018 changed her motivation completely. M became captivated by all the unsung benefits of running, especially appreciating the opportunity to disconnect from life’s demands and devote time to a mindful appreciation of all that nature offers: witnessing the first touch of dawn light in a winter-darkened sky, marveling at the complex and complimentary chorus of spring birdsong, and being awed by the blaze of fall foliage color as the trees bid a gaudy farewell to another summer. Trail running also introduced the reward of connection to fellow adventurers who were thrilled to share the woods and take the trail less traveled, not with the hope of getting lost, but to be found. The trails became where M found a community and belonging, supporters and co-conspirators, challenge and peace, and where she is ever ready to invite new members to be part of the family. 

An enthusiastic hiker, M has completed the 46 High Peaks, the Firetower Challenge, the LP 9, Saranac 6, and Tupper Triad, as well as hiking the AT in Virginia and multiple White Mountain Peaks. She takes therapy clients out for hiking sessions, and maintains a presence in The Green World by moonlighting at a local nursery, cultivating gardens of her own, harvesting fruit in every season, and constantly, obsessively, bounding off the trail in enthusiastic appreciation of a plant or bloom or fruit that she spies. You’ll always find her Australian Cattle Dog, Algonquin, at her heels in the woods, and both will greet you as a fellow traveler in nature.