Halcyon Brown graduated from Breck School in Minnesota in the spring of 2017 and began attending Middlebury College in 2018.  She heard about the American Association for Runic Studies and contacted President Loraine Jensen to explore the subject of runic studies.  Halcyon participated in the 2017 Uppsala Rune Round, where she learned about the Viking Age runestones.  She also spent time at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., where she visited the new exhibit at the Museum of Natural History, Narwhal: Revealing an Arctic Legend, with Dr. William Fitzhugh, Director of the Arctic Studies Center.