From Climbing Dirtbag to Leading Conservationist, Celebrating Doug Tompkins

Doug Tompkins, co-founder of The North Face and Esprit, died of hypothermia in a kayaking accident on General Carrera Lake in the southern Patagonia region of Chile last December, at the age of 72. Tompkins helped grow two of the world’s most influential apparel companies, but his true passion lay in adventure and conservationism. To him, nature was everything.

A Wild Legacy spreads the word on Doug’s colorful life. Not everyone’s familiar with his lasting impact on Patagonia’s wild landscapes, but they should be. The man’s heroic, and his efforts warrant attention.

Since the early 1990s, Doug and his wife, Kristine McDivitt Tompkins, the former CEO of Patagonia, Inc., have worked doggedly to protect 2.2 million acres. That, my friends, is more land than any other individual has ever protected.

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Doug wisely said, “If anything can save the world, I’d put my money on beauty,” and that’s why he, Kris, and their partners created five national parks in Chile and Argentina, and are in the process of creating five more. He was a funhog, but no hog when it came to the outdoors; he wanted to make beautiful lands accessible to everyone, and forever.

To honor Doug, the Telluride Mountain Film Festival presented A Wild Legacy to audiences on May 24th. The 15-minute film’s moving, but, most of all, it’s encouraging and enlightening.

Doug was made a Chilean citizen two weeks after his passing. Although locals initially thought Doug and Kris simply wanted to take over a huge chunk of Chile to replace the local cows with American bison, they soon realized the duo were one of the best things to ever happen to the country.