Eric Holst

Eric’s twenty years’ maritime experience includes over a decade as a bridge officer and naturalist on expedition cruise ships. He has been drawn to water since childhood, spent where Minnesota’s boreal forest gives way to the cold, inscrutable expanse of Lake Superior. Scrambling around the waterfront of a busy port and learning the outdoors on family camping trips set him on course for a life in nature and on the sea. Eric began working on boats at 17 and was captain of a 250-passenger excursion vessel at 23. As a teenager he embarked on weeks-long canoe voyages in the wilds of the Canadian shield; after college he took to the back roads of North America, ranging across the continent for months at a time. These journeys stoked a desire to roam further, and expedition cruising connects his affinity for water with his interest in wild, far-flung places.

Eric is fascinated by the earth’s physical systems, especially where multiple disciplines of inquiry converge at the study of oceans, climates, landforms, and the planet’s deep past. On his own time, he connects with roots in the north woods, revels with kindred spirits in the Pacific Northwest, and borrows other people’s pets whenever possible. He’s just as likely to be enthralled by a quiet brook as a stormy seascape; any place where earth’s processes reveal themselves, whether with arresting scale, astonishing fury, or tantalizing intricacy will do. Eric strives to encourage others around him toward those moments when a new understanding of our world unfolds, and previously fuzzy concepts come into focus. He relishes the chance to participate in them.