BEC Winter 2016: Art of Play 2; Whatcom Falls Park; 2/20/16

I’m going to guess that when you asked your explorer what we did on the Art of Play 2 outing, he mentioned playing Spider’s Web….er, make that SPIDER’S WEB! I’d also wager that you realize that we did that and more. I think even these boys would wonder at playing Spider’s Web for 5 hours!

You’d be right to assume we did more, of course. Spider’s Web, however, is a staple of our gatherings and for good reason. What’s not to like about crawling through the dirt and dripping ferns, tripping over downed branches or getting scratched by the dreaded Devil’s Club? So, let’s start there. 

The game is a nature based version of capture the flag. We set a bandana at each end of the course and identify one as the food source and the other as the web. The spider strives to guard the food source while the flies (everyone else) try to capture the food source and return it to the web. The web is also where the flies start the game and to where they’re banished when caught out by the spider. It is a game that rewards stealth - even the spider sometimes hides to elude detection by the advancing flies - and patience. The flies usually rely on speed at first, dashing to reach the food source. This “strategy” almost never works as the eye is designed to notice movement. Like big cats on the hunt, the best “flies” I’ve known disappear into their surroundings and patiently await their moment of opportunity. On Saturday, mentor Peter was the spider for our first game. He crouched behind a thicket and waited while several eager spies moved through the ravine; soon they could be seen returning to the web as a group! Quick learners, they upped their game with trickier routes and greater stealth. These new strategies were rewarded with a successful capture and return.

Just as Spider’s Web mimics the real life and death drama of the competition for resources (food, shelter, mates) in the wild, so do our other games strive to teach these basic lessons. Here are a few other games we played and what we hope the boys take away from the fun:

• Fire in the forest - players are asked to choose one of three animals. They keep their selection to themselves. When the person who’s “it” calls their animal, they attempt to run across the field of play without being tagged. If “fire in the forest” is called, all players run! When a player is tagged, he becomes a tree - rooted, but able to reach out to tag a passing animal. Fire in the forest emphasizes speed, quick reactions and endurance, all valuable qualities should the habitat suddenly become dangerous.
• Cougar stalks deer - Predators have eyes in the front of their heads to focus on their prey; prey
  
  have eyes on the side of their heads to keep watch for predators. This relative of Red Light: Green Light positions a pack of cougars on the hunt for a deer. The deer retreats, then turns without warning; cougars follow but must stop moving before being seen by the deer. Any cougars spotted moving is sent to the rear of the pack. Single-minded focus is key for the cougars; a knowledge of the land supports surprise strategies.
• Hide! Called most any time, Hide! sends explorers scrambling into the surrounding woods for a spot from which they can watch their prey without being seen themselves. It rewards patience, attention and skillful camouflage.

There’s plenty of research supporting the idea that kids (and grownups) learn best when they’re having fun (click here for an example of the research). So, what are we teaching through these games?

• The map is not the territory. Know the land by experiencing it. Get dirty; smell the damp,
  
  nurturing soil after a spring rain.
• Know the rhythm and flow of nature through mimicry. 
• Use first hand experience to internalize that all things are connected and our actions have an impact; “If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you'll come to understand that you're connected with everything.“ – Alan Watts.
• Look at the whole person, the whole plant, the whole trail; see past the 1-2 things that bother, and notice the gifts.

Through the games we play, we attempt to instill in the boys an appreciation for the gifts nature bestows in a way that is fun now and leads to a lifetime of stewardship of the land. 

It turned out to be a very nice day to play games in the woods. Thank you for placing your explorer in our care for the day. Click here for more photos from our outing.

Boys Explorers Club - 2016 Snow Cave Building at Mount Baker

Lose Your Mind and Come to Your Senses  The busy mind numbs the senses.  On the other hand, the senses calm the busy mind.

In Explorers Club, we play games, we work on service to the community, we explore Whatcom County’s many natural gems, and through it all the mentors work of modeling and developing traits of honorable men is guided by several mottoes that speak to the essence of what we’re about. Lose your mind and come to your senses is a motto that was apropos to our recent winter outing. If you have a minute and are curious, scan through the rest of the mottoes here. 

Where do you turn to when you realize your mind is so busy it has numbed your senses? At Explorers Club, we just step outside! Or, in Saturday’s case, board “Moose”, our trusty “chool” bus (we covered the S) for the short ride up WA 542 to the Mount Baker ski area in search of some good ol’ snow cave building snow. Friday saw 80 mph winds at Baker and early this week was forecast to be quite warm; Saturday found a sweet spot with cloudy skies and temperatures in the low 30’s…ideal, actually. We must be living right!

After a review of snow play safety focused on Snow Immersion Suffocation (SIS) and avoiding avalanche danger, we high-stepped our way through the 12’ snow pack to a hill that had a safe slope and was out of the way of the skiers and boarders. Time to marinate ourselves in the cold 9” of powder from Thursday/Friday’s fall. 

Ignoring the provided guides on proper snow cave construction, several explorers proceeded to connect with our splendid natural setting by jumping and rolling in pure mind-calming mayhem! And while the five dads and two mentors didn’t join in physically, I’m sure I detected some vicarious play in their smiling faces.

Then down to the task at hand. A well constructed snow cave has several key design elements with a principle one being an entrance that is lower than the sleeping surface to trap warmer air in the upper chamber. Other considerations: vent holes in the roof, block walls lining the entrance path to cut down on the wind and candle niches in the wall. Click here for some guidelines. 

All of that was a little more than we planned on, given that we weren’t to sleep in our caves. Fun was our objective; there was more than enough of that to go around. As was to be expected, some projects saw more progress than others. One explorer could be seen sitting in a small depression in the snow enjoying a snack; a check on a few of the caves in progress found not a single explorer - just dads crawling in and shoveling snow out; a few were large enough to hold several boys and their gear while also exhibiting characteristics of a usable safe haven. This video illustrates the former - 

13 explorers, 5 dads and 2 mentors on the side of a hill covered with 12 feet of snow…when you look at it that way, it’s surprising anything got done. The distractions are real and constant, but bursts of focus and energy translated into good work. Time for more fun? The boys were eager for a snowball fight; the mentors were eager for more work on the caves so we talked it through and decided to work for 10 more minutes and then fling balls of snow at each other. 

Apparently, we should’ve taken more time to work out the details because a few minutes into the battle a disagreement arose concerning the minimum number of feet the thrower needed to observe. It was time to invoke another time-honored Explorers Club motto - 

Collaborate and Compromise We practice participatory decision-making, with all voices heard. Decisions come through learning how to collaborate (work together) and compromise (giving up a bit of what you want so others can get their needs met too). We think about "We, not just Me". “One arrow is easily broken, but not twelve in a bundle.” – Japanese proverb

This is real work for boys this age. Kids ages 7 - 11 begin to problem solve using reason rather than intuition. Truth and honor are evolving concepts in their maturing psyches. Their sense of offense can be very strong. You might have heard, “That’s not fair!” exclaimed a few times. After a few minutes of pointed questions and conversational facilitation from Steve, the issue was resolved and the snowball fight resumed. 

Before long, the conflict was forgotten and a new focus of the play emerged from a neighboring hill covered with pure, undisturbed snow that was crying out to be slid down, rolled across and jumped in. This is what it looks like when a boy connects with his natural surroundings. 

Unfortunately, at this point, the progress of the clock intruded on the fun. A thousand thanks for sharing your boys with us. We are privileged and grateful to get to know and share experiences with them. Click for more photos and videos from our outing. 

Wildlife Walking & Watching: Tracking and Eagles on the Nooksack 1-10-1

We started at the beginning, as we all do. On this beautiful sunny day we met potential friends at Samish Woods to load up on Stubbs. Except Stubbs was out getting tanked up for our journey and wasn't in the parking lot, so we stood around a little awkwardly in our group talking about our winter preparedness until we decided to play a quick game of hide to play a trick on Tim. Quickly, the children scattered behind trees, fence and stone. Lots of giggling ensued. Tim pulled up in the bus and Holly loudly proclaimed that she had no idea where everybody was! What? There is nothing like a little fun and games to dispel the social awkwardness of not knowing each other. Play is unifying. And with that, we hit the road out for our adventure together.

Out at the Eagle Park we picked up two more adventurers, and had a discussion about tracking, what animal "sign" is, and what evidence animals leave behind as clues. So of course, we talked about poop. Technically, scat. A story of "consider the bore hole" came out when we discovered some scat and contemplated how big the animal might have been that left it behind. For an entertaining conversation, ask your explorer what a "bore hole" is. We delved into animal prints, animal gaits and how animal's legs move when on the go. This lead us to several races in our animal selves. Pretending to be bears, raccoons, deer, rabbits and cougars was a fun way explore animal movement!

Now we were ready to explore the riverbed of the Nooksack. Down the steep bank we scrambled, smack into a shallow rivulet of a stream frozen in time. We could have stayed here for hours as we marveled and explored the beautiful, interesting forms captured for those moments in the sunshine. We mentors underestimated the draw of cracking and stomping ice. These explorers had so much fun playing with the ice! Eventually, we moved on to the sand and headed towards the river in search of tracks and making "paw prints" with the plaster of paris.

The sandy riverbed provided tons of examples of animal sign. On our way out to the river we stopped many, many times to peer intensely at tracks and chewed branches, pondering what family the animal was from. We found evidence of dog, weasel, rodent and bird families. Tracking is about keen observation of the tiniest details, and learning how to read a landscape for clues. We practiced observation skills and found beaver evidence and mole tracks, as well as loads of foot prints. See our photo gallery for loads more pictures of what we found!

And then, we found the biggest snack log of all time! Best place to have lunch, ever. We spread out, enjoying the sunshine and each other's company and let the conversations take over while we nourished our bodies. The sunshine and good company warmed us through and through. 

After lunch we continued our quest to find the river. We looked up and over the brushy layers of shrubs on the riverbed to see where we should head, and then a Bald Eagle soared over us, as if to point the way. We followed, right to a braided section of the Nooksack. These relatively shallow streams flow rapidly downstream and spread out where the substrate and slope allows. The shallowness makes for a great Eagle buffet as they can easily see and forage for their supper, the spawning Chum Salmon.

However the shallowness is relative, and still too deep and dangerously fast and cold for us humans. We played on the riverbank, chucked rocks into the river, splashed in the rivulets, watched Eagles, and played sink or float with driftwood. And then, a few explorers got "Explorer Fever", and headed off on a journey a little too far for comfort, as they would be out of earshot. Tim rallied these folks, had a serious chat about what risk management looks like when exploring in a group and the importance of staying in a group. Taking care of a group can be a tough challenge for folks who think that leadership means being first and out in front, and is an important skill to foster, practice and encourage in this world. Cooperation doesn't mean getting people to do what you want them to do. It means involving all parties, and in Explorers, it may mean compromising your personal interests for the benefit of the group. We are all still learning this one.

We came together to learn how to make plaster casts, which is harder than we thought! We watched Tim demonstrate the whole process, and then struck out on our own to find a paw print in the sand that might work. That alone was challenging considering how much detail we wanted to capture and how weathered most of the tracks were from a week of rain.

Some folks found the casting activity as a fun experiment, and tried casting paw prints and their own made up track.  A few others found it very challenging physically and emotionally. Turns out perfect prints and plaster casting don't always match up and it was harder than we expected to accomplish the goal of a perfectly cast track. We mentors watched these children make several decisions as this conflict arose. We can give up and go backwards on your heels when faced with a blockage, keep flowing around the obstacle, find a new channel, and keep heading downstream until you finally find what you are looking for. Learning how to be resilient when our perceived ideal faces a disappointing reality, is a life lesson that need lots of opportunities to practice. Funny what you can learn from a river. : )

The light falling around us, we quickly gathered our plaster casts and hiked back to our bus in the parking lot. This was a much quicker trip than our leisurely wandering mode from the morning. Given our different individuals hiking speeds and need to be in front, the emphasis was on keeping our group together and maintaining awareness/accounting for everyone in the group. Lots of opportunities to practice this care.

Our circle of gratitude gave voice to our thanks for water, sunshine, river, ice, animals that made tracks, and opportunities for personal growth while exploring the land. We popped back into the bus for snacks and laughs on our way back home. We pulled Stubbs into the school parking lot with a bunch of smiles from our sunshine filled day of exploring, much dirtier and wetter than when we left!

Please see the full gallery of our outing here. 

Tim and Holly
Explorers Club mentors

Boys Winter 2016; Art of Fire; Lake Padden; 1/23/16

According to outdoorlife.com, “tinder is the dry, dead, fluffy plant stuff that lights on fire easily”. You may have heard the term “tinder dry” meaning dry enough to start a fire. On a very damp, drizzly day like our Art of Fire outing on the 23rd, keeping your tinder dry is a challenge. But more on that later. First, we needed to come to grips with “the three Q’s”. 

A few of our registrants were unable to join us as planned, so we met with a robust band of 9 explorers, 3 of whom were named Quinn or Quin. Luckily, as we learned when we played a name game to start our outing, they each have a different last initial. So, introductions completed, Quinn H, Quin M, Quinn T and the Non-Q’s headed off from the dog park area in search of a remote location to learn about making and tending a fire….in the rain.

If you hike into the off-leash area of Lake Padden park, you soon intersect a power line running East/West through the park. If you can overlook the soggy, muddy swale you need to negotiate on your way, this off-trail trail provides easy access to a less used area of the park, suitable for practicing the art of fire, so squish through the swale we did.

Our Explorers Club (EC) boys often clamor to try fire by friction, a sophisticated skill involving starting a fire without the benefit of a match or flint. And our older explorers get to try their hand at fire by friction. However, understanding the process of fire starting and managing is a more appropriate skill for boys this age and provide a basis of knowledge and respect for this essential natural process. That was our focus on this outing. 

Three things are needed for fire - fuel, oxygen and heat. In order to gather fuel for their fires, the boys would first need to gather and cut wood, so mentor Brian began with a review of knife safety followed by mentor Tim’s demonstration of batoning (using a knife to split wood) and carving to fashion the materials needed for each step of fire building.

As Tim proceeded through his demonstration, he was careful to stow his tinder and kindling (larger sticks to grow the fire) in the many pockets of his camouflage jacket. When he had sufficient material (more is needed than you would think), he attempted a fire. Not surprisingly, his first effort fizzled in the steady drizzle. Fortunately, he had prepared enough tinder and kindling to give it a second try; this time he was successful.

Sufficiently schooled, it was time for the explorers to try their hand at starting a fire. The mentors, anticipating the challenge presented by the rain, encouraged the boys to team up and most did. The next half hour/45 minutes was spent sourcing and cutting materials as he rain continued, light but persistent. 

Ah, the first pair was ready for the matches. With Tim overseeing, they struck the match and put it to the tinder, which resisted igniting. Another try with no more luck. This process was repeated multiple times across the group with but one small fire that quickly burned down. The materials weren’t dry enough. It is a daunting challenge to start a fire when everything is so saturated. 

Discouragement follows hard on the heals of repeated failure on a cold, wet Northwest afternoon. Time for a change of focus. So, while Tim set about preparing a fire for our closing meeting, Brian and volunteer Dan called for suggestions for a game to be played. The clear choice was Where’s My Egg?, which begins like Red Light, Green Light but soon morphs into a game of pilfering the “egg” (in this case, a bandana) and attempting to return it to the start line without being called out. Many contestants spend much of the time on the ground (the wet, sloppy ground in this case) concealing, or pretending to conceal the egg. Great fun, even in poor conditions such as we had this day.

Spirits revived, we returned to the industrious Tim who had once again succeeded in starting a fire around which we sat to give thanks, something we do at the end of every Explorers Club outing. Finally, we hiked back through the swampy swale, with mud deep enough to overtop an explorer’s boot, and to the trailhead to meet our rides.

It was a tough day to learn how to start a fire. Your boys gave it their all and managed to keep a positive disposition despite the challenges presented by the very wet conditions. They’re to be congratulated on a strong effort. Click here for more pictures from our day.

p.s. Check this video for insight into why the explorers failed to keep their tinder dry despite Tim’s excellent presentation. 

We were focused more on the techniques Tim was demonstrating than on where he was storing the wood. It's all about selective attention!