His uncles agreed that if he paid the taxes, the land would be his. Hanson got to work earning money by harvesting spruce and other lumber, eventually becoming a landowner at a very young age.
While it might have been easy to continue logging the property for profit, Hanson had a different vision. Having grown up there, he wanted to protect and preserve it. “I would have liked to have been an early explorer and to have discovered new lands in exotic places, but I decided to explore my own backyard,” Hanson says. “For years I searched for waterfalls, rivers, brooks, and nature’s wonders. My zodiac sign is Aquarius, which seems so fitting and appropriate because I am that water person.”