Kris Holstrom
By Suzanne Cheavens

It’s no secret that human impacts and our ravenous consumption of natural resources are compromising the environment. Overpopulation, poverty, disease, illiteracy and world hunger are undeniable truths. The future looks grim unless you are a “pragmatic optimist,” as Kris Holstrom describes her worldview. She is a solar-powered, organic farmer, Telluride Daily Planet columnist (“A Growing Concern”) and a mother. Her farm—Tomten, derived from a Swedish legend of a gnome-like creature said to guard farms and their inhabitants—provides food for area restaurants and Telluride Farmers Market shoppers and hosts schoolchildren and others who come to observe the intricacies of a working, high-altitude off-the-grid farm. Additionally, she is the region’s new sustainability coordinator, a position suited to this dynamic, hale woman whose mission it is to help communities live in harmony with the Earth.

Holstrom’s path to what, for many governments and communities, is a novel position, is one that has always kept her close to nature and the planet. Michigan born, but a Colorado denizen since early childhood, Holstrom first learned the value of natural resources from her father, who was professor of watershed management and then dean of the College of Natural Resources at Colorado State University.

With her family, she saw the world. “When I was seven, we spent a blissful year in New Zealand while my dad was on sabbatical. A year or two later, we spent two months in the backwoods of Argentina helping to set up a forestry summer camp,” says Holstrom.

Her education closely mirrors her father’s. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Forest Management from Utah State University. She then earned a master’s degree in horticulture at Virginia Tech, and it was while living near Blacksburg, Virginia, that she first discovered her green thumb. “That’s where I had my first real garden and discovered a passion for growing and for striving for self-sufficiency,” and, “They weren’t quite sure why I wanted to work in season extension since they have a 180-plus-day growing season, but I knew I wanted to come back to the Rockies.” She made her way West and stayed with family in McElmo Canyon. A trip to see Jerry Jeff Walker in Telluride resulted in a dance and then courtship with “a Jeremiah Johnson-looking guy” named John Holstrom, who she married. Together they purchased land on Hastings Mesa, where—after a series of jobs and the birth of their children, Kirk and Kelsey, in the early ’90s—they’ve lived full time. Life in the mountains, however, presents a myriad of challenges, particularly for those trying to grow food. “The main issues are short seasons and cold temperatures,” Holstrom says. “And now I would add season variability.”

As difficult as high-elevation gardening can be, Holstrom and her interns enjoy few insect pests, though weeds, such as bindweed and thistle, result in hours of work. A typical summer morning at Tomten starts at 7:30, when the day’s tasks are determined. “We have a watering schedule. We are continuously planting things. There’s always weeding to do. If it’s a harvest day, we’re up earlier—we’ll make sure our harvest buckets are clean, pull back the row covers on the beds. Then we hand harvest our salad mix. That’s rinsed twice and spun before being bagged. Other crops are harvested after the salad, washed, put in coolers and loaded into a vehicle for transport to the Telluride Farmers Market.”

In addition to running Tomten, Holstrom created recycling and composting programs for two of Telluride’s largest festivals—Bluegrass and Blues and Brews—and ran last year’s Telluride Mushroom Festival. In 2005, she co-directed Sustainability Now! for the Telluride Institute in collaboration with the Out Loud Lecture Series and Sheep Mountain Alliance as they hosted a real-time link with the California Bioneers Conference.

As sustainability coordinator, Holstrom recognizes she must hit the ground running. The Telluride eco-region, she says in a word, is “vulnerable.” Her quiver of ideas includes encouraging public-private business partnerships, incentives to develop renewable energy, developing a better understanding of where our food comes from, and enhancing opportunities to help ranchers and farmers market their goods locally. “I intend to be completely accessible and out in the community gathering ideas constantly. I believe we have, right here in our communities, nearly all the talent and creativity we need to weave a bright future.”

Her views on sustainability are powered by hope, good ideas and their implementation. “We must remain hopeful, or what’s the point?” Holstrom says. “I can be an optimist because I’m prepared. So I’m prepared for the worst—I can make my own energy and grow my own food—but I truly believe we have a good shot at turning this immense ship of our society in a new direction. A small change in the angle of the rudder can take us to a whole new place.

Holstrom’s favored quote of late comes from Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller: “If the future of this planet and the humans on it depended on me….How would I be? What would I do?” She believes answering those questions is the key to a sustainable future.