Description
We will honour our few friends left of the Woodland Caribou in the Kootenays by listening to their wisdom. As survival skills experts, please teach us about finding food (lichen anyone?), escaping predators, and staying together as a flock. Caribous have inspired art and craft that we will touch upon and hear stories from the boreal lands around the world. We will wander and learn about navigation, mapping, songlines and tracking; and connect to the old-growth forests that are needed for the survival of caribous and us.
In every camp, we will do our core routines of expanding sensory awareness, wandering, befriending local plants and animals, mindful sit spot, storytelling, music, and thanksgiving. Morning and end circles are times for bonding, sharing, and setting the tone of kindness and safety.
There will be lots of time for youth-led play, following the emergent imagination of the youth at the moment. We will introduce activities like capture the flag, ecology games, hiding and seeking games, art and crafts, swimming, building forts, treasure hunts, and bush skills like safe ancestral fire making (if fire rules allow), aidless navigation, wild edibles, tracking etc. We recognize the benefits of adventurous play yet take many measurements to ensure safety. We co-assess and co-manage risk with the youth so that they learn to acknowledge, manage and overcome risks, in order to be exposed to the benefits of risk, rather than the hazards.
