Live – Don’t Exist

An Interview with James Steyn

Chris found James inspirational and asked me to interview him for our Trail Food Company section of Trails, Tales & Legends. So, amidst a much longer, fascinating conversation, I extracted some pieces around guiding – as an industry, how to make a living, and James’ thoughts and involvement.

To lay the ground for this fascinating interview, here’s a quote by Jack London that James likes to live by: “The proper function of men is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

How long have you been a guide, and what brought you into guiding?

I’ve been a guide now for about 28 years. I was fortunate in the sense that I grew up on a cattle farm not far from here – a tiny place called Louw’s Creek, which is between Barberton and Malelane.

As a kid, we used to go to the Kruger on holidays, and my soul just naturally gravitated towards the bush and being in the bush. It’s almost a case of one day I woke up, and I was working as a guide, and that was just how it was meant to be.

I believe that for people that are destined to do something, it will happen; it’s the way it (life) works out.

What was training like 28 years ago?

FGASA was in its infancy when I started training, so as an organisation, it was very much trying to find its feet. FGASA was originally an offshoot of the old SATWA – South African Tourism Association.

SATWA had a guiding qualification structure, but it was very different, and the assessment method was not the same at all.

I have recollections of being assessed by a very stern-looking old lady with purple hair and a clipboard, who looked at you with a frown on her face and marked everything wrong. Believe it or not, it was quite a difficult qualification to get.

Compare then to qualifying now – no internet, no cell phones, no handy training manuals! Most of what you learned was self-taught in your initial five to ten years “in the industry.”

There were certainly no such things as mentors. Shared learning or knowledge exchange wasn’t really a thing back then. You were left to your own devices. You just had to get out there with books that we bought from the WWF at the time, and you pretty much taught yourself.

I was lucky that I got a job, and I quickly learned that guiding was a small industry. But it seemed to me that back then, people were trying to keep all the knowledge to themselves.

So, you’d watch other guides and steal with your eyes and your ears a little bit, you know. You’d listen to this guy talking to his guests, and maybe you thought, “I like that. Maybe I’ll use that.” And that’s how you built your knowledge – that, and spending time out in the bush.

So yeah, it was difficult back then. But I reckon if you’re a go-getter kind of a person and you start in the industry today, what took me ten years to learn, can take you five years now! And this is all because of how the guiding industry has grown – the support, books, internet, mentors, and courses. FGASA is an organization dedicated to a huge industry. It’s also professional now. Not that it wasn’t back then, we also thought we were professionals. But were we really, you know? Maybe, maybe not? I think it’s become a proper professional career now.

As an industry mentor now, was there anyone that you looked up to when you were a young guide?

Going back to when I was a young guide, there was, unfortunately, nobody that I looked up to. Today people can look up to other guides and think, “I’d like to learn from that guy. I want to be like that guy.” We just plodded along. And for sure, technology has helped as well, but for everybody from my era, 25 years and more – the bush taught you.

How long do you think it takes to become an “expert” in the guiding industry?

This is an experience-based industry. You need to learn everything based on experience. You can go and do a course if you like, and you can spend time with people as much as you like and learn this, that, and the other thing, but ultimately, the taskmaster is going to be experience out in the field.

How long? Well, how much time, how much effort have you put in over the years in this particular industry, especially walking? Walking is all about time and experience.

Can you tell us a little about your role in FGASA?

I was a director of FGASA for a long, long time. And I’ve been involved in the training and development of guides for about 14 years. I was one of the first assessors in the Lowveld North region and, for a long time, one of the only assessors.

I’m very fortunate that I’ve spent this amount of time in the industry. I’m in a position where I’ve been around the block, and I think I’ve got one or two things to offer, like all my other colleagues that have done the same sort of thing as me.

So, if I can make a difference or help somebody think about something in a different way or make them move to the next level, then I’m happy.

How many people do you think you’ve mentored and assessed over the years?

If I try to think quickly, maybe 500 people, potentially, in about 15 years’ worth of assessing and training.

Some people mentored, some trained, and others just assessed – the capacity varies.

I mean, you can spend anything from just two to three hours with a person to several days with somebody depending on what you’re assessing or training them for.

To clarify: An assessment is the specific recognition of a person’s skill based on criteria set up by the guiding fraternity.

A mentor is usually one-on-one or one-on-one in a small group where you are physically taking people into the bush and showing them how to do something.

What do you think makes a good guide?

The value of good interaction, a person’s ability to interact with guests – I think that is probably the most important thing in guiding. I know guides who are incredible personalities. They may not necessarily have the best bush skills, but as far as I am concerned, they are phenomenal guides.

And then you get guides who have incredible bush skills but no personality; they’re not able to interact with people. And so, unfortunately, that doesn’t make them such a great guide. So, there’s a balance there.

You will never know you’ve had a good guide until you’ve had one, and I think that applies to both guests and guides being mentored.

I also think it’s important for guides to be well-rounded. Both from the perspective that often a guide hasn’t always been a guide. Perhaps they were in business previously, or they might have played high-level sports, and then also from the perspective of growing and gaining new and different skills.

As an aside: Did you know that James was a co-presenter on 50/50 for their 30th-year anniversary season? For a whole year, he’d drive down to Johannesburg every Sunday evening, present all of Monday, and then drive back again!

50/50 started in 1987 and remains one of the longest-running environmental programs on air in the world.

He would go with 50/50 to different reserves all over South Africa and do walks, approaching dangerous game on foot. It was phenomenal; 50/50 had never had somebody with that capability as a presenter.

What is James up to now?

James is currently based at Senalala and has been there for the past 18 years. One of the special experiences that Senalala offers is proper guided bush walks.

More than the average 1 or 2 hours that you might get elsewhere, Senalala prides itself on really promoting the guided walk as their primary bush interaction. Of course, you can go on game drives, but the bush walk is James’ passion.

And whenever he has the time, James also still mentors guides on backpack trails within the Klaserie. The Klaserie spans 70 000 hectares with proportionately fewer commercial lodges than many of the other reserves in the area, which means a wilder, more exclusive experience overall.

What advice do you have for new guides or people that are thinking of moving into guiding?

James says that over his years of being involved at FGASA and mentoring, he has often been asked, “How am I really going to make a living with guiding?” or “What will I be able to do after guiding?”

And his advice here is, “Get involved!” The more you involve yourself in guiding and the guiding fraternity, the more opportunities you will find.” As he said earlier, “Things happen! Life works out.”

Think about what you can do for the guiding industry, as well as what the guiding industry can do for you. And diversify. There are so many alternative skills that all improve your marketability when you put them together.

Thoughts on guiding as a career

There seems to be the impression, not only from James but in general, that there are two “schools” of guides.

The first school encompasses those who are really committed – guides with real resilience for sticking around in the industry.

James says, “I think they stick it out to the end, and if anything, they still gravitate toward something that is pretty much synonymous with the guiding industry. So, they might become lodge managers or conservation managers or open a training school, for example.

There is environmental education and anti-poaching, and even though these careers are not directly linked to guiding, the bush time is the same for a lot of these things, and they do complement each other.”

Some guides have gone on to write books. Others morph backpack- or primitive trails into a bigger experience, such as Grant Hine with Zen Guiding.

And then the second set of guides is those who often come from a previous business background. They’ll hail from corporate, guide for five years, and then go back to corporate, teaching, or engineering – almost as if they always knew they were going to do that.

They just wanted to get a bit of bush time but then have often used contacts made during guiding as a stepping-stone.

James says, “I have never had a career other than guiding – or at least prior to guiding. But over the years my involvement in the guiding fraternity has included the obvious such as managing lodges or similar, training young guides, educating guests, developing qualifications, assessing and judging for FGASA and TV presenting.”

Words from other guides

Senior Guide and Guide Trainer Hein Myers has a friend who studied to become an investment banker. Then he met a chap during his guiding days and is now working for that guest on an ingenious new interest-free budget facility called Float.

“One of my best guiding mates was a German-born music teacher in Ireland before he decided to come to SA and do his FGASA qualification. He became a very skilled and highly qualified guide for about six to seven years. He did trails up in Pafuri and then general guiding in Waterberg, followed by guiding and managing a reserve in Botswana and then Zambia.

He then started overland tours through Namibia as he was fluent in German and English and ended up in Rwanda, where he managed Bisate lodge for Wilderness Safaris. He is absolutely phenomenal with bird calls and songs, and I am convinced that it’s his musical background that made him so good, but he disagrees with me.

And finally, he is now running his own safari company as a tour operator and a private guide for his company based in Boston, USA.

Another friend of mine was a British Olympic skier who finally got fed up with 13 consecutive winter seasons travelling north and south in a constant effort to follow the snow.

She also came to do her FGASA qualifications here in South Africa. Again she became highly qualified and also honed her skills in photography and writing during her guiding days in SA.

Unfortunately, hassles with visas forced her to leave SA, and she decided to go backpacking around the world. When she finally finished, she phoned up an old guest of hers who runs an expedition company in the polar regions, and now she is working full-time for them as a pro photographic guide and expedition leader in the Arctic and Antarctica.

And finally, due to her training and background with FGASA, she is also running the rifle training for the Arctic guides so that they can deal with polar bears safely!”

Trails Guide, Vivian Butler, has had the following encounters with others in the industry: “I know a few guides who are still in other careers and guide. I know of a pastor, a travel agent, a carpenter, and a financial advisor.

Some guides also try to be travel agents on the side, earning extra income and giving good advice.

I think that full-time guiding as a proper career is difficult due to the low salaries paid to guides. Guides that stay in the industry often go into training or lodge management.”

Final Thoughts

There you have it! Guiding certainly doesn’t look the same for everyone, and there are various ways to prosper in the industry. As James noted, if you are meant to be a guide, life will work out that way, regardless of the route you follow to get there. If the bush calls, and if it’s in your blood, you will have a tough time trying to stay away from it.