How a Corporate Accountant Discovered Canada’s Deepest Cave with Explorer Katie Graham

For The Love Of: Trade-offs we make in pursuit of our passions

What does training for spending weeks deep underground teach you about the rest of life?

Katie Graham is a passionate cave and canyon explorer who discovered Canada’s deepest and second deepest caves. This feat was showcased in the 2023 documentary film “Subterranean.”

Katie is a fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society and president of the Alberta Speleological Society. As a former accountant, she left her corporate gig to spend more time underground.

We talk about:

• Is it caving, or spelunking?
• The pressure of working deep underground, especially with a film crew
• Breaking her leg days deep in the cave and self-evacuating for 3 days
• Hauling tons of heavy gear for weeks just to spend minutes in a cave section
• The mundane monotony of training for expeditions
• Finding balance between celebrating milestones and the training grind
• The mental game of cave diving
• Burning out with a passion and how to add fun back into it
• The scary days that kick your ass are the ones that matter most
• Why Katie started professional accounting and why she later quit
• The nuance of her team being kicked out of a village on a caving trip to Mexico
• The effects of living underground for weeks and manipulating your own circadian rhythm
• Making cool cave suits!

PSST! If you like this episode, you’ll love How Sunny Stroeer Transformed Her Corporate Skills to Advance Gender Equity in the Outdoors and Combining Art Forms and Identities with Drag Raptress Samuel Thrower, AKA Slutashia

Connect with Katie:

• Subterranean Film
• Katie on Instagram

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Shout-Outs:

-Music: The King of Sandwich Island by Shut-ins

-Thank you to The Ruins, the best wedding venue in Oregon, for supporting the show.

For full show notes and more: https://fortheloveofpod.com

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