Nick Fahy is no stranger to the outdoors — a longtime member of the Boy Scouts and an avid hiker, he’s spent plenty of time in rugged locales.
But come September, the Milton 16-year-old and rising Boston College High School junior will be taking that approach to the extreme.
Fahy was recently named winner of a national essay contest held by the Washington D.C.-based Pulitzer Center, which asked participants to employ journalistic aspects in exploring their own communities. The contest was held in conjunction with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Paul Salopek’s “Out of Eden Walk,’’ a 21,000-mile trip around the world meant to re-create the path of human migration — and as the winner, Fahy will join Salopek later this year for a portion of his journey through Uzbekistan.
“We wanted to come up with an exciting prize that would motivate the [participants] to create good work,’’ said Mark Schulte, education director at the Pulitzer Center, which held the contest. “And that was the most exciting thing we could think of.’’
The theme of the contest was “slow journalism’’ — the idea of taking the time, in an ever quickening world, to find meaning in reporting. And in tackling the essay, Fahy set out to apply those principles to Mattapan, a place where — despite its proximity to his home in Milton — he had spent very little time.
“My experience [with] Mattapan was once I forgot to get off at my T stop, and ended up in Mattapan,’’ Fahy says. “And I just turned around at that point.’’
This time, though, he went with the intention of staying a while. During an afternoon trek through the city, he made a point to document the various sights, sounds, and smells. His subsequent essay, one of dozens received by the Pulitzer Center, contrasted the city’s sometimes blighted aspects with its signs of hope — a new fish market, for instance, that had sprouted up.
His outdoors-y background notwithstanding — in addition to the Scouts, Fahy has a goal with his father to climb all of the 4,000-foot mountains in New Hampshire — the upcoming trek will mark just his second time overseas.
It’ll also provide exposure to a world he wouldn’t otherwise have the chance to know.
“The opportunity to experience a culture that is so very different from my own,’’ Fahy says. “In Mattapan, I was five minutes away [from home] and the changes were very noticeable. Now, I’m going half a world away, and that’s going to be incredibly different.’’
The exact dates of his trip have yet to be finalized, but organizers expect it to come sometime in late September.
Classes at BC High will be back in session by then, but, as Fahy points out, when it comes to missing school, “I’ll have the most iron-clad excuse.’’
Dugan Arnett can be reached at dugan.arnett@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @duganarnett.
