Alaska, ADHD, and the Hunter-Farmer Hypothesis

Lately I've been neglecting the blogs I used to read, so I wandered over to Gina Pera's ADHD Roller Coaster to see what I've been missing.  I found an interesting guest post about the prevalence of ADD traits in Alaska.  After the author was first diagnosed, she started to notice that an unusually high number of her friends and relatives also had ADHD traits.  So she checked with them, and lo and behold, many of them had been diagnosed with ADD.

She makes the point that Alaska is tailor-made for people with ADHD.  There's plenty of dangerous, adventurous work to do for those of us who loathe the thought of traditional desk jobs (and I should say here and now that I used to harbor a fantasy of moving to Alaska to become a bush pilot).  To me, though, the most interesting part is when she describes walking through the woods with her sons.

When her sons are outside, suddenly their "distractibility" turns into "noticing things":

They are attuned to every detail of their surroundings, noticing each chirping bird fluttering softly in the brush and each animal track on the ground. Given the high probability of us running across a bear during our excursions, I find their hyper-awareness to be quite a relief. In a school setting it gets them in trouble; in a wilderness setting it could save their lives.

Now, I'm generally not one of those people who feels that ADD is some sort of gift, that people with ADD are somehow "more creative" than others.  I've known too many creative people who don't have ADHD, and they're a lot better off than I am -- they can follow through on their creative projects, and actually get around to putting them out into the world.

There is, however, one area where I do feel ADD confers a gift: when I'm outside, I notice a lot of things my non-ADHD compaions don't.  Quite simply, I'm "distracted" by every bird flying overhead, every rustling in the grass, every mark I see the ground.  I notice foxes and rabbits and quail and coyotes.  I see hawks diving for their dinners.  I spot whale spouts offshore.  Sometimes, my companions luck out and I can show them what I see.  Often, though, they miss out -- the wildlife has vanished by the time I point it out to them.  When I'm outside, I'm not "disordered", I'm "observant".  In this one area, ADD means I have an advantage that others don't.