Legendary mountain climber Jim Whittaker and his wife, photographer Dianne Roberts, are featured in the first episode of a KCTS documentary series, “Remarkable People.”
The show is an opportunity to remember many of Whittaker’s accomplishments or, if you’re relatively new to the area, to be introduced to a Northwest legend.
Emmy-winning Jean Walkinshaw originally created the series in the early 1990s, and has returned to that format with eight half-hour episodes focusing on Northwest residents.
In addition to their individual stories, it’s possible to get a sense of how those featured have been influenced by the area’s landscape and spirit.
“Nature is the best teacher … the best cathedral,” Whittaker said. He’s had to take the good with the bad in his extraordinary life, and the video portrait reveals the peaks and valleys.
After training on Mount Rainier (“like Everest in every way except another 14,000 feet in elevation”), he became the first American to summit Mount Everest.
Whittaker guided Robert Kennedy on climbs and was a pallbearer at Kennedy’s funeral. He was the first full-time REI employee, and he guided seven blind climbers and one amputee to the summit of Rainier in 1981.
His sense of humor and candidness shines through the film, whether talking about the pain of a divorce and separation from one of his sons or discussing getting older and have both knees replaced.
“Age sucks,” says Whittaker, 20 years older than his wife and still giving lectures. He wants one more crack at Rainier this summer. At age 78, he would make his 81st ascent.
“Life should be an adventure,” he said.
Roberts was the first woman on a K2 expedition when she went with Whittaker as the photographer. They talked about the resentment her presence generated for some on the team.
A free spirit with an active life, Roberts credits her husband for encouraging her to have children at age 35; they now have two sons and live in Port Townsend.
They also talked about investing in a business deal that was a disaster. They lost nearly everything, then bought a 54-foot sailboat and headed to the South Seas with their teenagers.
Footage from Whittaker’s Himalayan climbs as well as some of Roberts’ images of expeditions and sailing are woven with studio interviews of the couple. Music includes “The Climb” by Michael Tomlinson
The Whittaker/Roberts episode starts at 9 p.m. tonight on KCTS, followed by an episode on photographer Stefani Smith, who has captured her way of life (crabbing and fishing in the Bering Sea) on film.
The rest of the series will be shown in pairs at 9 p.m. on Feb. 8, 15 and 22, showcasing the founder of a popular choir, an inventor of lifesaving technologies, a philanthropist, a humorist and newspaper columnist, a poet and a painter/sculptor. Two of the episodes are encore broadcasts.
Crows and ravens
The birds will kick off the Everett Public Library’s Reading in the Rain series Sunday. John Marzluff, author of “In the Company of Crows and Ravens” and a professor of wildlife science at the University of Washington, will talk and show slides. He’s spent decades in the field and traveled worldwide to study bird behavior.
Marzluff has led studies on the effects of military training on falcons and eagles in southwest Idaho, the effects of timber harvest and recreation on goshawks and marbled murrelets in western Washington and Oregon, and the effects of urbanization on songbirds in the Seattle area.
“Big, bold and boisterous, crows and ravens are hard to miss, and my talk is intended to answer the many questions they conjure up in all who have watched them,” Marzluff said.
The free talk starts at 2 p.m. Sunday in the library auditorium, 2702 Hoyt Ave., Everett. For more information, call 425-257-8000.
Columnist Sharon Wootton can be reached at 360-468-3964 or www.songandword.com.
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