Intriguingly, Fuller started adult life amid modern hustle, working as a political journalist, then an emergency room technician at a Boston hospital. “In my youth, I relished living and working in city centres,” he says. But his decision to spend time living in Africa is what changed him. “My three years in East Africa were transformative. I came to realise I needed to live as connected with nature and animals as I practically could,” explains Fuller. “Yellowstone in winter was a good choice.”

 Now, he works every winter from a remote 110-year-old wood-frame cottage in the Wyoming section of the vast nature reserve. “Some buffalo bulls I have known for years. My body language assures them I am just passing by,” says Fuller. “I speak with other animals, too. Pine martens, coyotes, foxes, wolves, bears, deer, moose.” Without camouflage clothes and a stealth approach, he says he’s ‘engendered trust’ with a simple greeting.

“Most other humans move too fast, and are noisy,” adds Fuller. “They’re ignorant of body language which communicates alarm or threat.” And that’s important when he lives somewhere in which he can point to ten places outside his cottage window where people have been killed by bears.   

Now, he captures Yellowstone’s enduring majesty in a photography portfolio, while also writing columns for the local Mountain Journal.

Reading is important, too. “Mine is the largest, most eclectic private library in Northwest Wyoming – not much of a claim,” he jokes. There’s also “cross-country skiing, conversation when available, sporadic efforts at ‘self-actualisation’ and Tat Tvam Asi [a Sanskrit phrase to describe a form of Hindu self-reflection] – interspersed with beer drinking and procrastination.”

Dee Caffari, Solo long-distance sailor

Isolated in the middle of an ocean, a person can seem more like an astronaut on the International Space Station than their fellow humans on land. And although more than 500 people have floated above the world as astronauts, barely a hundred have sailed non-stop, solo and unassisted around it.

British yachtswoman Dee Caffari – a veteran of six world circumnavigations on the ocean – was the first woman to sail single-handed non-stop around the globe in both directions. Her 178-day solo voyage in 2006 was also the first by a woman sailing ‘the wrong way’ – westward, against the prevailing winds and currents.

Her decision to set off alone was inspired by another famous British ‘round-the-world sailor, Sir Chay Blyth. “He suggested I become the first female to complete what was considered the impossible voyage. It was only a matter of time before a woman would do it, and why shouldn’t that woman be me?” says Caffari. “That conversation ignited a spark – I decided life is about opportunities – and this was too good an opportunity to let pass. There are not too many ‘firsts’ left to achieve in this world.”