A guru for the good Life Outdoors

When Steff Merten isn’t kayaking or canoeing, she is climbing a tree. During winter, she spends time cross country skiing and snowshoeing.

These aren’t hobbies outside of her job. For Merten, this is her work.

“Basically, I get paid to play,” she said.

Merten is the adventure education manager at Riveredge Nature Center in the Town of Saukville, and there may not be a more perfect fit.

“I went camping for the first time when I was 3 days old,” she said. Her parents kept her in a laundry basket in a tent.

By the time she was 1, Merten was tubing down a river. Within the following year, she was going canoeing.

Merten, a Fond du Lac native, is the youngest of three girls. She said her parents were farm kids who wanted to make sure their three daughters were raised to understand different ways of life.

Weekends were spent connecting to nature in some form, and the family’s travel covered much of the country.

“By the time I was 10 years old, I had been to 45 states, most of them twice,” Merten said.

After earning a degree in recreation management from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, Merten kept leaving the state, only to be brought back by family each time.

She worked at a resort in Florida, then came back to Wisconsin. She went to a YMCA nature center in Pocanos, Penn., and returned to Wisconsin. Then it was off to San Diego to work at Sea World and the Maritime Museum. She came back to work as a program coordinator and naturalist for a 4-H camp at Wisconsin Dells.

There, Merten met Jessica Jens, who was the camp’s executive director at the time. Soon after Jens was named executive director at Riveredge, she wanted to expand its programming. That’s where Merten came in.

“This position was kind of created for me,” she said.

Merten has been at Riveredge for six years. Among her duties are teaching paddle sports, which have boomed in popularity during the Covid-19 pandemic because they allow for easy social distancing.

When it comes to kayaking, Merten said, she sees one common mistake.

“The biggest thing is that people plan for the best-case scenario,” she said. Instead, people should prepare for what can go wrong.

That starts with the proper personal flotation device.

A true life jacket, Merten said, “makes your head float above rough water for two weeks.”

When choosing a life jacket, Merten suggests trying them on. Just because someone’s weight falls in the range of a certain jacket doesn’t mean it’s the right one. The jacket should fit the person’s body type and buckle at the correct locations.

For children, Merten said, it’s important to look at their body length more than their weight.

Proper life jackets will differ depending on the activity. A jet ski life jacket will be different than one for kayaking, she said.

Kayaks differ as well. The inexpensive short and wide models often found at big-box stores are designed for rivers, she said.Sea kayaks, which are longer and skinnier, are made to travel through waves on lakes rather than make tight turns.

Merten teaches classes using a crossover version that can handle rivers and lakes.

When kayaking on rivers, she said,. it’s important to learn how to read the river. Water can get high and fast, which brings trees and rocks into play.

Regardless of the type of kayaking, Merten said, always check the weather, which on the water can change in an instant.

“It looks calm. It looks beautiful. But it’s Wisconsin,” Merten said.

On a small lake with open water, Merten said, the wind will blow kayakers to the other side of the lake, whether they want to go there or not.

Merten advises people to make sure someone knows where they’re going and when they’ll be back. The buddy system is a good idea too.

“Anytime you’re around water it’s better to have someone with you,” she said.

For those heading into Lake Michigan, Merten recommends taking a satellite phone. The lake can be cold and people will need to be rescued quickly, she said.

Carrying a whistle helps as well. “You can whistle a whole lot louder than you can yell,” Merten said.

Merten said she thinks everyone taking up paddle sports should learn how to swim as well, at least “enough to be able to save yourself,” she said. She has been a lifeguard for 17 years.

Merten also teaches canoeing, which is similar to kayaking but makes it easier for those with limited upper-body strength.

Outside of her job, Merten gets plenty of recreation practice with her own kayaks and canoes. She lives in Waubeka and only has to make her way through a cooperative neighbor’s yard to get to the Milwaukee River.

Merten is passing her passion for the outdoors to the next generation as a foster parent.

“There’s a need in our community to make sure kids and families are supported,” she said.

If she could, Merten would move her family to Hawaii, where oceans and snow-capped mountains coexist.

Since that’s a long shot, Merten will continue to enjoy teaching and connecting people to nature at Riveredge, where 98% of her job is spent outside.

“It’s not behind a desk. I get to be outdoors and have fun. It’s pretty much perfect,” she said.

For more information on Riveredge, visit www.riveredgenaturecenter.org.