Coyotes, Oct 25

It was such a pleasure to be back with Ms. Dawn and the Coyotes this week; I am so enjoying my learning with Outward Bound! We had two days of Indigenous Land Perspectives workshops with two local Indigenous people, and I look forward to bringing back what I learned to the school and the teachers. Thank you for your patience with the different teachers coming in and out! I have one more week of training in November, and then that should be it until the spring!

We are busy planning a hike for Nov 8th; we will be going to Bragg Creek, and are still nailing down details about where to meet. Thanks!

From Vita:

The Coyotes kicked off their frozen day with an obstacle course… that kind of flopped. We set it up and everything! It consisted of; Nippy Limbo, Icy Pullup Bar, Glacial Ladder, Snowy Scarecrow Highfive, Alpine Tarzan Swing, and a Lucky Sledding Run (You either had to be skilled or lucky to complete it!)

We did a few runs, and they were fun, but after my preposition (It’s actually a part of speech, but I meant proposition. Whatever) the obstacle course was history.

My proposition was; “Let's spend the whole day… SLEDDING! If you agree, say aye!”

And the ayes had it, as they say. The teachers were a little bit confused, but after we explained our case, they agreed as quickly as a penguin sliding down a snowy hill (Actually, we had to give them some time to process our idea, but they consented all the same!).

So we ditched the rest of the obstacle course, and kept the Lucky Sledding Run, but there were too many trees, and so we decided to move (Your phony Ms. Lea will be missed, Lucy).

We brought our sleds and brought them over to a classic Forest School Hill! We had some awesome runs, but there were a few sprawlings, tumblings, and a couple failures (But honestly, those were the awesomest. You never know just what’ll go wrong with sledding!)

My sled was named Goldy, and she was fast! A bit of an Ugly Duckling, I will admit, but tattery looks aside, she made impressive performances on every run!

After a little bit though, we got slightly bored of the hill, and I made another preposition!

My Other Preposition; “Let’s go to another hill, and have a sledding contest!”

The idea was cheered upon, and the ayes had it yet again.

We packed up our stuff, and moved to a more extreme hill, nicknamed “The Canyon”. It was tough to climb, but manageable. No words could describe it, really. You really just have to go there to truly comprehend its glacial beauty.

We then hosted our sledding competition (I have to say, the judges could’ve been a bit more observant), with classes of; Distance, Grace, Creativity, and Speed.

Creativity was definitely my favorite, personally. I felt that Lucy and my dual performance was excellent, and Minel’s sled-riding-the human, was a pleasant mix of funny and creative.

Soon, we were all tuckered out by the sledding, and Ms. Lea invited us all over under to a group of trees, and a magical phenomena awaited us. Frozen leaves! You could hear the leaves drop to the ground onto the powdery snow, and to experience our sit spot among the icy fall of the foliage was enchanting.

Our sit spot was about intuition, and we would sit in a circle, except one person was blindfolded in the middle. One person on the outside of the circle would think malicious thoughts toward the person in the middle. The middle person had to tap into their inner psychic, and guess where the evil thoughts were coming from.

In the end, I feel, we determined that “going with your gut”, guessing, and intuition were all really the same thing. It was important not to second guess yourself, and to try not to overthink the situation.

The Coyotes had a wonderful, snowy day, filled with fun and laughter (and LOTS of sledding). I can’t wait for more!