The Woodland Caribou met for their third outing of the year at N. Chuckanut Mtn Trailhead for a short, after school exploration. Because we meet after school on Thursdays, our outings start out long in the late summer, get shorter through the winter and then extend again in the spring. This meant that on this day together, we only had three hours to explore before it got dark!
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| The boys directing Steve in some stream de-clogging |
To help direct our squirrelly energy (after having to sit down inside at school all day!) one of the mentors brought along some “Super Secret Spider Spray.” As we waited for all of the Woodland Caribou to arrive, we used our “Super Secret Spider Spray” to allow us to see the structure of various spider webs that we found. We had fun searching for and comparing many different types of webs!
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| The Super Secret Spider Spray works great for seeing spider webs in more detail |
Once we were all there, we headed into the woods to find a proper spot for our opening circle. We had some trouble focusing at opening circle, which is to be expected (it is only our third outing ever!) as we orient to the culture at Explorers Club. With some patient reminders from our peers, we eventually calmed our bodies and focused our attention toward the circle. We took turns sharing what we knew about this place and the fall season as we oriented ourselves and anticipated what kinds of discoveries we may make together today. The big item on our agenda was heading down to Chuckanut Creek to see if we could spot some salmon! We knew that we were on the early side of the Chum run in Chuckanut Creek and we had heard reports of the first fish sightings of the year. Maybe we could see one too!
Salmon are an important and iconic part of our ecosystem, history and culture here in the Pacific Northwest. Their importance as a nutrient source in the forest ecosystem cannot be overstated and their life history is an awe inspiring story all on its own. We summarized our collective wisdom on salmon and shared theories to the yet unsolved scientific mystery; how do salmon navigate all the way back to that same stream from which they were born in after they have been out in the ocean for 1-5 years? Some of us thought that maybe the fish could smell their way home while others believed that salmon used the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate. Maybe one of the Woodland Caribou will become a fish biologist and figure it out once and for all!
After an excited dialogue about some of our favorite salmon facts, we passed out jobs started our hike down to Chuckanut Creek.
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| On our way to the creek |
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| Of course we found some mud! |
We didn’t end up seeing any salmon today but we knew that some had been up already and that lots more were finishing their time in salt water and would head up Chuckanut Creek soon! With this in mind, we decided that we better not step in the creek this time of year. It would be a shame to disturb a redd full of salmon eggs, especially considering the immense adversity that salmon face during their lives! The boys did a good job of reminding each other to stay out of the creek and even worked together to make a bridge across a section that would have otherwise been impassable!
The conversation around staying out of the creek and our effect on the places we like to explore was rich with discussion and inquiry about one of our core mottos at Wild Whatcom, “Leave no Trace.” Some questions that we pondered were, “Is it possible to leave no trace?” “Why do we care about protecting salmon?” “Would it really make a difference if we accidentally stepped on one redd?” “How does our service work at Connelly Creek relate to our outings to other natural spaces in Bellingham?”
We spent the bulk of our time together engaging in free exploration. The mentors followed the boys and their curiosity as they explored the healthy, green and wet ravine. The general murmur of our group exploring was punctuated with sudden, excited outbursts of “woah! Check this out!” and “what is THIS slimy thing?!” along with various other remarks of the same theme. Both of the mentors agreed that this is just what this group needed; a day of excitement and fun off-trail in the woods after our admittedly scary first experience with yellow jackets on our first outing. It was fun as a mentor to ride the wave of high energy that the Woodland Caribou brought to our outing today.
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| Heading up the other bank |
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| Lots of fungi in the woods this time of year |
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| "Can we make it up this side of the creek?" |
We finished our outing with a Sit Spot. Sit Spots allow you to “lose your mind and come to your senses”. It is a time that we spend alone with the woods being quiet and tuning into our senses. The five S’s of sit spot are: solo, still, safe, silent and senses. As this was our first time doing this activity, we kept it short. After our sit spot we had our closing circle (as we do at the end of every Boys Explorers Club outing) where we practiced our Attitude of Gratitude.
Even though it was just a three hour outing, we packed in lots of play and still saved time for a Sit Spot and our Attitude of Gratitude practice! The Woodland Caribou made it back to the trailhead much muddier than when we started, but with another day of exploring together under their belts. We are excited to watch the Woodland Caribou find their own character as they grow together as a group in their first season of Explorers Club.
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| The hike back to the parking lot |
To see the rest of the pictures from our day, click here!
