A nunatak is a small rock formation jutting above a glacial field, a miniature mountain rising out of the snow. It gives definition to the bleak and barren, blinding white landscape, often used as a point of reference for explorers in such featureless terrain. The Nunatak is also the print journal you are holding.

Though the idea to start some sort of independent publication had been floating around in my head for a while, the official genesis of The Nunatak began on a ski mountaineering expedition in the Canadian Coastal Range, where our basecamp was dug into the ice at the foot of a proud standing nunatak. Among my companions on that trip was Mathias Gruber, a longtime friend and partner. Mathias and I met in our early 20s; he was a budding outdoor photographer and I was a budding outdoor journalist and we were both young, insatiable climbers. We began adventuring together immediately, and within a few months his photographs were being published alongside my articles. This is to say that we have not only spent the entirety of our friendship as climbing partners, but as creative partners as well.

During that week living and skiing in the Coastal Range, Mathias and I talked extensively about the state of outdoor media. We both felt uninspired by the words and photos we were seeing published in the mainstream, and on a personal level, I wasn’t feeling moved or motivated by the things I had been writing. Mathias also had the desire to create an independent journal where we had the freedom to write and publish as we pleased, and give other creatives we know a platform to do so as well. Thus, The Nunatak was born.

I had my first “outdoor article” published when I was 19 years old. It was a lightly journalistic piece about trout fishing in Southern Michigan printed by the Detroit Free Press. Short and sweet and likely a little lackluster, but I wrote it and there it was, in print, in a newspaper I could hold in my hands. For nearly a decade now, I have been writing outdoor based pieces for an array of publications. This was unequivocally my dream when I was 19, wholeheartedly my goal of which I was singularly focused. A goal that seemed somewhat out of reach for a kid who grew up in the suburbs of Southeast Michigan—to write and publish adventure stories. My heroes were writers and explorers who left behind legendary tales that captivate the imagination. Though I could never believe myself of the same caliber as these heroes, I strove to create something worthwhile.

What I didn’t realize in my late-teens and early-20s, but is now clear to see in retrospect, is that I caught the last breaths of a dying era: the end of print as we know it. In my tenure writing for both outdoor and general interest magazines, publications that used to print monthly dropped down to quarterly, then annually, then not at all. All the while these titles that used to exist independently and express independent voices were gobbled up by large media conglomerates, merged with other titles, or dissolved altogether. The content that is now produced by these titles is published on the internet, and is created with the intent to appease corporate interests (read: to make money). Much of the content that is produced for the internet is written formulaically to check off criteria for a search engine optimization algorithm, or is simply “click-bait” (Famous Athlete Breaks Record), both of which are meant to drive traffic to their website so that advertisers will pay more money. Needless to say, writing articles to please algorithmic bots was not the dream that my teenage self set out to fulfill. 

I don’t say these things to be slanderous to digital media or any publication; there is still quality content being created by reputable writers, editors, and photographers. I believe there is and always will be a place for digital media. Any breaking story is so much more relevant online under tight turnaround than in a print periodical. The ability to instantly share stories across a global audience is unparalleled. (And of course, there are still a few great bastions of print media whose example we humbly look up to.

However, the vision of The Nunatak is to exist outside of any commercial confine. To be unadulterated by corporate interests or the desire to make money. We are self-funding a print magazine in 2023 after watching dozens of magazines go broke in the last ten years; this is not about the money. It’s about creating something worthwhile. It is about breathing life back into the longstanding tradition of storytelling in the adventure realm.

So that is what The Nunatak strives to do. To tell stories. Stories about the human experience. About life and love and loss and purpose. About why we travel to magnificent places seeking the sublime, and about the relationships and musings we discover along the way. We will not publish trip reports, gear reviews, sponsored content, or anything that lacks a soul. We will not try to sell you anything other than the journal in your hands. In these pages, you will not read about the hardest sport climb on Earth or the results of the Freeride World Tour. We want to move you. We want you to arrive at a different place emotionally from the time you begin reading to the time you finish. In the editorial process I have read the essays that occupy these pages many, many times. Still, some make me laugh, some make me cry. This is not the news cycle. These are love letters.

So, maybe it is a metaphor, a work of literary merit to offer some definition to a bleak and barren landscape. Or maybe it’s just where we stood when the muse struck.

Bennett Slavsky

October 1st, 2023

Driggs, Idaho