Dwayne Fields: From Survival to Purpose in a Life Shaped by Nature

Dwayne Fields:

I wrote out, I want to inspire my peers. I want people to see street crime and violence as not the way forward. I want to be a voice for young people and my peers. Didn't expect a response, but the organizers, they came back to me, they said, "Hey, look, we've read your reasons why you want to do this and we're really impressed. Would you consider going to the North Pole?

Ted Roosevelt V:

Welcome to Good Citizen, a podcast from the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. I'm Ted Roosevelt. Today I'm joined by someone truly remarkable, Dwayne Fields, adventurer, explorer, author, naturalist, and the UK's chief scout. He's a television host, co-founder of the We Too Foundation and the first Black Briton to reach the North Pole. But titles and firsts only tell part of the story. What makes Dwayne extraordinary isn't simply where he's been. It's who he is and why he does what he does. Born in Jamaica and raised in inner city London, Dwayne grew up amid violence, instability, and profound hardship. He experienced homelessness. He faced moments where survival itself was uncertain. And yet, instead of being defined by those circumstances, he emerged with an unshakable sense of purpose. Today, Dwayne is on a mission to bring the restorative power of nature to young people who may have never been invited into it.

Kids who don't believe the outdoors is meant for them. He understands firsthand how time and wild spaces can shape character, restore confidence, and open entirely new paths forward. So settle in. This is a conversation about adversity, leadership, and the transformative power of nature, and it's a good one.

Dwayne Fields:

So as chief scout, you are a figurehead for the scout movement here in the UK, an ambassador. You embody the spirit of the scouts, the values of the scouts. I'm somebody who truly deeply believes in the values of Scouting, and I know the world's going to be a better place because of the values in Scouting and because of the scouts we have now who will one day hopefully take my place and move scouts for another 120 or so years.

Ted Roosevelt V:

So I want to talk about your personal journey to these values, these scouting values, because it's not an obvious journey. You're born in Jamaica and you move, I think, when you're six to the UK. There probably isn't a prototype of the Scout's upbringing, but yours was certainly not the one that comes to mind. Can you talk a little bit about it?

Dwayne Fields:

Yeah, sure. So in short, you're right. My upbringing wasn't a typical one for many young people, full stop. I remember my earliest years being in Jamaica as a kid, and I remember it vividly. I remember it so, so vividly. As a kid in my part of Jamaica was particularly poor. We had nothing or precious little. We would catch water in buckets every morning when the water would run through the pikes. We didn't have any electricity in our house. We didn't have any gas. And every morning I'd wake up and I'd be outside and I loved it.

I would climb trees. I would play in the sugar cane fields in the forest, the woodlands near my house. It was a massive playground for an active kid. And fast forward to me flying over to the UK to be with my mother. The experience of being a sixth, going on seven-year-old kid, moving country, leaving everything that made you feel confident in life behind, leaving a world that you knew very well. Because as a kid, I knew exactly what fruits I could eat. I knew what plants to avoid and which animals I could hold and how to hold them and to come and arrive in this world, the UK. It was like the Starship Enterprise to me. We had a TV in the house. We had switches that you can turn on lights all throughout the house and hot water. So for me, I was in the future now.

And I think there was some embarrassment as well in the family, especially for my mom, because you have this child who's from rural Jamaica, so a very strong accent. They don't know how things here work. I remember climbing a tree because I saw a scribble's nest in it. I didn't know what a squirrel was. I'd never seen a scribble before.

And I took a baby from the nest and it's not something that I condone or encourage. And I remember everyone around at the base of this tree, first of all, watching out for me as a kid, climbing really high up. One lady I remember asking, "Little boy, are you okay while I was still halfway up the tree?" And I looked down and just thought, "Well, why wouldn't I be

Ted Roosevelt V:

Okay?" What's interesting to me is the outside world is what really kept you going. And there was a glimmer of who you were throughout this story. So on the one hand, it's like this is your true self, but on the other hand, this is embarrassing, maybe even a shameful part of yourself, and it acts to remind you that you're not fitting in. So how do you balance those two things as you're growing up and getting more comfortable in the UK?

Dwayne Fields:

As a kid, I think one of the hardest things to do is to balance anything. I think oftentimes we change who we are to fit the social norm or what's acceptable in that space. We often struggle to balance anything. And I was no different. I struggled so much. All the things that the other kids were talking about, I couldn't take part. I couldn't have a conversation with them about cartoons or comic books. I got this bright idea because I love nature. I love the outdoors. And I remember one day I was watching Sir David Attenborough on the TV and he was talking about insects. He's always talking about insects and life. And I remember thinking, "Gosh, I love insects. I love wildlife. This is my thing. This is the thing I'm going to share with the other kids." I couldn't wait for break time to come.

Break time came and I ran to the school. There's like a field, a small field in the school, and along the edge of the field, there was lots of wooden branches and so on and so forth. And I thought, right, I'm going to find some insects. I'm going to teach these kids about insects and they're going to be fascinated. They're going to love it. And I go into that garden, I pick up a load of wood lice and I find some worms and I find some centerpedes and I find anything I can find that's alive. And I remember I ran over to a bunch of kids who were in my class and I'm fascinated. And I just thought this was my chance to show them something that I was passionate about. And they all kind of just twisted up their faces and looked at me and disgusted and said, "Eh, you're nasty." And they ran away laughing at me and I was stood in the middle of a playground holding a handful of dirt and insects.

And in that moment, I recognized that the things that Dwayne Fields knew, the things that Dwayne Fields was passionate about isn't going to cut it here and maybe just do what the other kids do when they're playing, I don't know, hopscotch or throw in something, just do what they do.

Ted Roosevelt V:

What was it that brought you back to that truer version of yourself later in your life?

Dwayne Fields:

Well, that was, as far as I'm concerned, a traumatizing experience that took me away from my original self. And the event that led to me revisiting my original self was potentially just as traumatizing. I had built a moped, Ted. I built it from scratch. I spent three, four months in the shed building this moped. I went out for maiden voyage and I rode it. I said to my younger brother, "Hey, listen, go for a ride. Don't go too fast. Take it easy. Here's a helmet. Off you go. " And I remember him walking really quickly coming home and his face was miserable and he's almost in tears. I said, "What's wrong? Are you okay? Did you crash? Did I not build it properly?" He said, "It was working fine. They pushed me off. Some boys pushed me off and I did probably the most foolish thing that I could have done in that moment." I remember walking down the road and I just instinctively knew because you always know when there were some scumbags in the area and they steal things, you know roughly where they're going to bring it, the end of the park, somewhere in a corner.

And I instinctively knew where this bike could be. And I remember walking through this estate and I got to where the bike was and there was seven or eight boys pulling this thing apart, just tearing off the bits that they wanted. And I remember walking over to this bike and grabbing the bike by the two handlebars and saying, "I'm taking this. This is mine. I'm not leaving it here." And I looked over my shoulder and there was one boy and this boy had a plastic panel. It was so unimportant to the function of the bike. But I remember I walked over and I snatched it out of his hand and I said, "I'm taking that as well." And as I turned to walk away, this guy pushed me. I turned around and I pushed him back. I said, "No, no, you stole my bike. I'm not having that.

" And he stumbled enough, I don't know, embarrassment, pride on his part. He walked away and a few minutes later he came back and I turned with my hands up because the guy's got a gun

And he cocks the gun back and I see a small shell just jump out the side and then he raises and he clicks it again. And before he could do it a third time, some of the boys kind of grabbed him and said, "Oh, leave it. It's not that deep. You don't need to ... Yeah, don't waste your time type thing." When I got home on my phone, there were a few texts, I think maybe two or three texts and a couple of missed calls with people just saying, "Bro, we heard what happened. What are you going to do? " And one other saying, "Oh, you should get this guy if he tried to kill you. " The very first time when I decided to stop being me and just follow the crowd, that's the same experience I had emotionally. That's where I felt for the next maybe week or so, week and a bit, I stayed home, I avoided everyone, didn't answer the phone.

And I decided in that moment that I was now prepared to be a loner. If I had to be, I was now prepared to be the true version of myself and somebody who would do something to stop that kind of behaviors that lead people to go and grab a gun. And I wanted to do something to change that mindset.

Ted Roosevelt V:

Dwayne, it's an unbelievable story. And I'm wondering how do you come back and sort of revisit this story and revisit this trauma in a way that you can make sense of it?

Dwayne Fields:

Ted, I'm not going to lie to you. When I think about it, there is still some level of emotion in this. So when I revisit this in my head and I try and square it, I just think to myself, it was my fault.

It took me a long time to take responsibility for it. And I think that was part of my process wasn't just blaming this guy. He had his responsibilities too. He went and got the gun. I put myself in that situation. I could have gone into that situation with my anger under control. I should have reflected on what had happened, the value of the bike, the value of my life, the value of my brother's life. I could have built another bike. It would've taken me time and frustration, but I could have done it. As such, I work really hard now tirelessly to make sure other young people are doing all they can to be mindful of the risks, mindful of their actions, mindful of their responsibilities, mindful of their power to avoid or to change or to impact a situation. And I turned it into something where I learned a lesson that I can share to somebody else so they don't have to learn it themselves personally.

This was a fork in the road. And sometimes in life, we do need hard things to happen to us, for us to learn a really important lesson.

Ted Roosevelt V:

So I want to talk about the risk you take a little later in life, which was you trying to get on an excursion to the South Pole, but you end up going to the North Pole. Do you have any experience with this type of journey when you head out to the North Pole?

Dwayne Fields:

None.

Ted Roosevelt V:

Not

Dwayne Fields:

Even. Okay. Let me be very clear. Prior to me preparing for the North Pole, the coldest place I'd ever been to was London. I didn't have a clue what I was signing up for. When I wanted to go to the South Pole on the expedition with Ben Fogle and James Crapnell, I saw them speaking or heard them speaking about their crossing of the Atlantic. And inevitably, when you do something like that, the next question that the interviewer always asks or the final question is, "Soul guys, what next?"

And they said, "Well, we're walking to the South Pole and we're looking to find a third person to join our team." At the time, Ted, I was still looking for something that could put me on a soapbox so I can shout and yell to my peers, "Listen guys, there's a world out there. The way we're living, it's not conducive to a successful future." And I remember drafting this email, drafting a note, giving my reasons as to why I wanted to go on this expedition. I wrote out, "I want to inspire my peers. I want people to see street crime and violence as not the way forward. I want to be a voice for young people and my peers." Didn't expect a response, but the organizers, they came back to me, they said, "Hey, look, we've read your reasons why you want to do this and we're really impressed.

Would you consider going to the North Pole?" I just remember thinking, as unnatural as this may appear on paper, Jamaican guy grew up in London, walks to the pole. I've never felt so at home as when I'm outdoors, whether it's cold, wet, rainy, dry, sun, sleet, snow, whatever it is. If I'm outside, I just feel there's no stress. I don't feel that anxiety. I just feel like I'm at ease and I'm where I'm supposed to be.

Ted Roosevelt V:

Is it meditative? Is it maddening? I mean, it sounds beautiful, but what is the mental experience of that?

Dwayne Fields:

It's all of that. It was really arduous for a couple of reasons. There were days where it was beautiful. It was beautiful because it was empty and depending on your mood and if you were hungry and particularly tired, it might feel really frustrating that it's so empty and you're almost craving something to see so you can maybe judge a bit of distance. We'd be walking past some chunks of blue ice and we might stop and just look at it for a while because that's the first bit of a proper color we've seen in it, if not a few hours, then maybe a day or two. So it was empty. It was definitely maddening, but equally the emptiness was beautiful.

And there were little things that happened. So I found a baby muskox en route, a muskox. It looks a bit like a bison. I found a baby stuck on a ledge and I thought, God, I'm going to rescue it. I've been rescuing animals since I was a kid. And I thought, I'll rescue it. I'll put it back up on top and it'll find the herd. And it didn't. It ran back down. We both fell down off this little ledge. And as of that moment, it decided I was its mom. It would try and feed and I'd be like, "No, I can't feed you. Get away from me. " And it's had no fear of me. It stayed to my left or it stayed to my right the entire way. It sounds lovely and it was lovely to have the animal along for a while. It felt like something really unexpected, unusual, but then comes the pain of when you have to leave it behind and it's falling behind because it's too tired to walk and it's screaming and you know nature's going to take its cause and that has an emotional impact on you.

Ted Roosevelt V:

I guess what do you leave that experience with? I mean, how are you changed coming back from that?

Dwayne Fields:

When I arrived at the pole, so we've walked from Resolute Bay, we've walked 640 or so klomics, 630 or so kilometers. We're pulling sleds with all our kid, our fuel, our food, over ice rubble. Sometimes we're really lucky and it's because you're walking across frozen ocean, there could be a thin layer of snow. And if you're really lucky, it's smooth going for that day and you can make some really good progress. Other days, you'd probably do about a kilometer in two and a half hours. Getting to the pole was probably in equal measure. One of the most momentous moments I've ever experienced, but equally one of the most anti-climactic moments I've ever experienced in my life as well.

I worked so hard physically and emotionally. And I remember being paid a wage at work and cutting that wage in half and saying, "Right, you're going to have to live on pasta for the rest of the month because you need to send this money towards the cost of going to the Arctic." I remember all these things which made it momentous, but then when I looked at that patch of snow in the ground and realized that that's what I've been aiming for for the past year, I thought that bit of snow looks the exact same as 50 kilometers back, 100 kilometers back, 200 kilometers back and so on and so on and so on. There were days when I felt really low and I thought, right, I'm tired. This is achy. And there were other days when I would use the exact same excuses to find reasons why it was a great day.

Hey, we had so far to go, but we did some. My teammate's miserable, but then we giggled about this. We did three miles, but that's three miles more than zero or three kilometers more than zero. And what I took back was a lesson in that your outlook is probably what's most important in any situation because you can turn a positive into a negative or if it's a negative, you can look at it and find a lesson in there that you can take somewhere else.

Ted Roosevelt V:

Well, and I mean, I can't help, but to think of the old adage, the journey is the goal in this scenario.

Dwayne Fields:

Absolutely.

Ted Roosevelt V:

And I think there's something just unbelievably poetic about arriving at the goal and the goal itself is exactly the same as where you've been before and you realize that that was symbolic at best.

Dwayne Fields:

There was a quote that I played over in my head quite a lot. I read it purely by accident. I don't go around. I didn't go around reading quotes or searching them out, but there's a quote I read about Thomas Edison and he said, "Most of life's failures are people who give up without realizing how close they were to success." And I remember thinking, there were days when my teammates would look at me and say, "Gosh, this weather is really bad. Maybe we should call it. " And I remember in that moment, I remember the day really clearly as well, and I remember thinking, "It's not so bad that I have to go home yet, that we have to leave here." It'd be a shame if we quit. And when we got back to civilization and got back to a warm bed, we realized actually we had more in the tank.

"Oh, it's warm now. Could I have done more? ""Yeah, I think I could have done more." That's where failure would've lived.

Ted Roosevelt V:

So you accomplished this amazing goal and then you returned back to normal life. What is that experience like for you?

Dwayne Fields:

Claustrophobic, in a word. I remember the first time when I got off the plane, a mate of mine picked me up at the airport, and I remember putting everything down and thinking, "Gosh, it's over." And I was like, "Oh, I get my bed again." And the next day I was walking along the high street and I just remember feeling really overwhelmed because the buildings just looked so much taller and there were so many people and nobody was talking to each other.

When you're in a place like Resolute and you're around people going on an expedition, there's an energy, there are people talking, "Hey, that bit of kit, how does that work?" "Oh, that's really nice. I like that. I've had that before. It's really, try this, try that. Oh, I went and got some coffee. Do you want some? "And there's constant energy, positive energy and conversations happening and it gets really lonely when you're in a crowd of people and no one talks to you, no one knows you, no one wants to interact. They're all in their own little world and the streets feel so much more cramped. When you've been in a space where you can see the horizon 360 degrees around you, it does something. It's something that you want to experience more.

Ted Roosevelt V:

So how do you take these lessons in your current role when you're interacting with kids? I mean, these are big grand concepts that I have three kids and sometimes they're amenable to big grand observations that their father has about a life, but often they're not. So how do you impart these lessons?

Dwayne Fields:

So one of the things I do is I encourage young people to go out in groups. I've been taking groups of young people out into our natural spaces for years now. I did it as part of the foundation that I co-founded the We Too Foundation. We took young people to Antarctica. We took young people down to Ecuador and then onto the Delapagos. And it's about picking young people from all over the country, from communities who wouldn't normally think about going on an expedition. So we create the environment where these young people will have a similar experience to me where they can look at their teammates and say," Right guys, we're in this together. "When I take young people out of the city out of an urban environment and I bring them to a natural space where there aren't any ambient noises which sound like ambulances or sirens or anything like that, for no reason, Ted, I'll just stop.

We'll be walking along Jolly walking along and I'll just stop and I'll just look around and everyone will stop and it's," Why have we stopped? It's cold, it's raining. Why have we stopped? ""I just want to sit down." And then you'll see their faces as they get it when they start listening, "Hold on, it's not what I can hear. It's what I can't hear any traffic." My work goes into trying to get as many young people in particular, but anybody generally speaking, to see the value of our natural spaces and spend time out there.

Ted Roosevelt V:

I love that you talk about stopping middle of a hike and just listening because it's something that I do fairly often with my kids and others is one of my favorite tricks, if you can call it that, is just to stop mid-hike and listen to the wind through the leaves. For some reason, that's the thing that lets me just take a moment to recognize where I actually am and the space, because sometimes you end up on a hike and you're so focused on getting to the end of the hike that you miss the hike itself.

Dwayne Fields:

One of the most beautiful things that I think I've ever experienced was the moment it dawned on me how in tune we are with nature. And think about this, when you're in the wild and you can hear a bird singing, you feel at ease because you recognize that's an extra pair of eyes up there looking out for threats. If they're singing, that means there isn't a threat. The moment that call starts to change or changes, you're hold on. So we're very much in tune with nature. And I think we as urbanites don't think we are, but we're far more in tune than we believe, or maybe even would like to be.

Ted Roosevelt V:

I think one of the things I struggle with in the Unitited States at least is watching more and more kids isolate from the outdoors and that this seems to be a secular trend in the US and maybe globally. And it's very hard. I mean, I really admire the work that you're doing, but it is hard to scale that work on the level that I think it needs to get done. Do you have a sense of how we can do that, how we as a species can start to reconnect with the outdoors more substantially?

Dwayne Fields:

I think it's a multi-pronged approach that's needed here. I think if we can get more organizations like the scouts in particular, I know you've got the scouts in the US as well. Here in the UK, it's half a million young people or soul heading towards half a million young people that meet every single week. I think if we can get more of these organizations on board and get them taking young people out, introducing them to the natural spaces around us a lot earlier in life, the better. I think if we can get schools teaching some of their lessons in the outdoor environment, it doesn't have to be the wilderness. It could be a school field. It's just using the spaces around us that's available and introducing our young people to them, and hopefully they'll develop an affinity to these spaces and start to actually enjoy and appreciate them for what they are.

And when we start appreciating these spaces, we'll want to work to protect them. I think we should make it easier to access these spaces. And by easier, I mean, a lot of our parks, especially in our urban cities, are very well manicured. They're very well kept. Actually, let's leave a few bits to nature. Let's leave a few bits and pieces wild. I think as long as we're using the spaces, society will become accustomed to using the spaces, and I think it's something that we should foster in our young people as early as possible.

Ted Roosevelt V:

I'm going to do a little plug here, which I've never done on the podcast to date. But for the last 20 years, various groups have reached out about building a presidential library to Theodore Roosevelt, and they typically are in the New York City area or Boston, and it's being built in North Dakota. And the thing that sung to me was that the library was always a bit of a bait and switch. It's going to be a beautiful library. We want people to come out and learn about TR and all those things, but really it's meant to be an excuse to go into the Badlands. And the hope is that you go to the library, but then you go out into the Badlands.That's the switch. And I do think that there's huge value to however we can, creating incentives for people to get out of their comfort zone and go to places, particularly the wide open spaces of this planet that will do all the things that you're talking about, have all the positive health benefits, all the mental benefits, but even more so reconnect us with the value of these wild spaces because the other side effect of not being in touch with them is they get devalued and then they get destroyed.

Dwayne Fields:

If we don't do anything, we will lose these spaces because people will say, "Well, actually no one uses it. We might as well build a car park. We might as well build a shopping center there. We might as well build some flats there." If we're using it and valuing it and putting value on these spaces, I think what it does for the next generation is it starts to trend and then we start to look for more spaces that we can add value to or see the value in as well. Oftentimes we put value on things based on what we can take from it. Maybe that's what we need to do is change our value system in society because only when we start valuing these places for their natural beauty, for the wild nature of the space or of that geographical location. Because when you look at a place like Antarctica, it's a beautiful place, no arguments there, but it plays such a pivotal role in terms of the nutrient system in the ocean and the deep ocean currents, which plays such a huge impact on our weather system.

And if we don't show that to people and teach people this and let them know what will happen if they don't safeguard these spaces, then actually it's not real. Antarctic is just a place I've seen on TV and heard about in a book. So we have to bring these spaces to life. And I think the way we do it is by starting to have all our early years, lessons in these spaces, connect people to these spaces, show them why it's important to them, and that's how we get the buy-in.

Ted Roosevelt V:

Dwayne, we ask everybody on this podcast the same closing question, and that is what makes a good citizen?

Dwayne Fields:

Kindness, as simple as that. Kindness, being kind. And it doesn't have to be a huge act of kindness. It could be something small. It could be as simple as, "Hey, you're going in? Yeah, hey, I'll get a door for you. " "No, I'm not going there. I'm walking past what I just saw you needed to do. "Little kindness is going out, approaching the world of kindness before anything else. If we could all do that, imagine what kind of world we'd live in.

Ted Roosevelt V:

Yeah. Dwayne, actually, as I hear your answer, I realize this is almost our 50th podcast.

Dwayne Fields:

Wow.

Ted Roosevelt V:

I don't think anybody's answered with kindness and I think it's actually maybe the answer, which is kind of amazing.

Dwayne Fields:

Anything that you want to do, anything that you want to build, the society you want to live in, if we all start with just a little bit more kindness, we'd be there pretty quick.

Ted Roosevelt V:

Dwayne, thank you so much. I could have continued talking for another couple hours because there wasn't a part that wasn't truly engaging and interesting for me. So thank you very, very much.

Dwayne Fields:

It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much and to all the guys in the background making it happen too. Thank you.

Ted Roosevelt V:

Dwayne, thank you so much for your kindness. You're an inspiration and it really is wonderful to learn about your life and dig into our shared passion for the power of nature. Listeners, there's so much more for you to hear about Dwayne and he brings it all together in his beautifully told audiobook, Exploring My Limits. It's a blend of memoir and travel log, plus a collection of candid, insightful interviews. Please check it out. Good Citizen is produced by the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in collaboration with the future of storytelling and charts and leisure. You can learn more about TR's upcoming presidential library at TR Library,