This week, as usual, our Wilderness Awareness School village was bursting with life. Just as the Thimbleberry are leafing out, the Red Elders are flowering, and some of the Salmonberry are already thinking about turning sweet pink flowers into tart orange berries, we too have been going about the business of growth and development. One day found us honing our scouting skills through the art of natural camoflauge, sneaking and hiding games, and stalking adventures. This was preparation for an upcoming week-long scout camp where we will connect even more deeply with the way of life of a traditional tribal scout. Another day this week found us leading groups of youth school children in sensory awareness activities and games. For some of us this was the first experience leading a group of kids. For others this was one of many, but for all of us this was a window into the magic that happens with children who are nurtured and nourished in nature, by adults who truly see and value them. Our third day was more of a philosophy day where we reflected on some of our experiences and started looking ahead to the future. We spoke of the art of mentoring, rites of passage, community, and healing. This active group who might complain about having had to sit in classrooms in the past seemed to sit pretty contentedly for nearly six hours talking about big subjects. Sharing big ideas among a supportive community, putting our experiences here and in our lives in a larger perspective is very nourishing, equally yet different from hide and sneak games and interacting with children who are truly alive and at home in the woods. Our village is like that. There’s a lot going on here, a lot that might seem pretty foreign to a lot of people. But we like it that way, and so, I think, would any open minded person who gave it a chance.
Sensory Awareness
I didn’t think it could get more intense than our last sensory awareness day where we found ourselves doing a barefoot, blind, “find the drum” stalk in a shrubby cedar grove. Today makes that seem like kid stuff. When we showed up at school today, we found a sign posted at the trail entrance to Malalo, our designated meeting space for the day. “Welcome. Please put on your blindfold, meet in Malalo as planned and get a friction fire going. Keep your blindfolds on until further notice.” Further notice turned out to be the end of the day, a full 5 hours. Amazingly, we did get a fire going and cooking hot in less time than it sometimes takes us with our vision. We also met the various other challenges we faced throughout the day, including lots of bushwhacking, animal forms exercises, following a scent trail, plant/tree identification through touch and taste, and sit spot time. Not surprisingly, there was some frustration among us, but what I will remember more is the laughter. The recurrent, spontaneous, contagious laughter of people who know each other well enough to joke and sing and feel our way together and relax into whatever reality we happen to find ourselves. When we finally welcomed back our sight, alone and silent now in the forest, the colors and slow movement of moss on the sunlit vine maples was mesmerizing. Even now, as I write this while stealing glances out my window, everything I see seems brighter, more vibrant, full of beauty. As are we.
This week we took a three day field trip to the east side of the cascades. After just three hours in the vans, we found ourselves in a landscape as strange and different as the places we explored in Southern California. This was not the moist cool green Washington we knew, yet it was still Washington. Over the three days we explored three different landscapes, each more wondrous and full of life than the last. Our first stop was Potholes State Park, near Moses Lake. There we split into interest groups and focused on either tracking, trailing, or birding. What at first seemed like a fairly desolate desert landscape proved to be full of life. On the bird walk we got to see 34 different species of birds, including a Magpie entering its nest from below, a pair of Golden Eagles perched in a nearby tree, a Dunlin foraging along the shore of a pond, and White Pelicans soaring above. The tracking groups could also confirm the diversity of life there through a plethora of tracks and the successful trailing of a porcupine to its perch in a tree.
That night we camped on a hill overlooking the Columbia river, one of our first fully dry camping experiences all year. Exchanging stories by the fire under a sky full of stars and no rain seemed too good to be true, but it got better. We found to our delight that we were camped under a Great Horned Owl nest. Throughout the night we were blessed with parent owl hoots and fuzzy white owlet begging calls.
The second day we explored Crab Creek Wildlife Area, near the Saddle Mountains. Sagebrush desert and salt flats intermingled with wetland cattails and Russian Olive trees along the creek created a unique landscape. There we went on general naturalist wanders where we integrated many different elements of our curriculum, including recognizing and harvesting wild edibles, tracking and trailing, bird language, and even some scouting/stalking. Some common animal sign found include beaver, porcupine, kangaroo rat, grouse, and shrike. Wild edibles found and tasted include Nodding Onion, Arrow-leaved Balsamroot, Mariposa Lily bulb, Fern-Leaved Lomatium, and even wild asparagus! The birds seen and heard are too numerous to name, and the sun continued to shine on us.
That night we traveled to our third destination, Umtanum Creek recreation site, on the Yakima river. This higher elevation creekside habitat was still arid but much more lush than the previous two locations. Towering Ponderosa Pines, Willows, and Aspen trees welcomed us to the foothills. Incredibly, on another dry starry night, we found that we were again camped under an owl, this time a Western Screech Owl. Soft whistled hoots lulled us to sleep.
The next morning brought us another day of exploration where more new plants were discovered, more new birds seen and heard, and more tracks found and followed. Following our passions along the river or up steep ridges, we found ourselves further inspired and filled with the exhilaration of new adventures. We returned home that afternoon and managed to bring a little of that east side sunshine with us, not only shining down from the sky but showing on our sunburned faces and glowing out from within.
Last week I focused on how far we’ve come, how much we’ve learned since autumn. This week was a lesson in how much more there is to learn.
Wednesday was, we were told, our last day of the program devoted solely to tracking under the guidance of visiting instructor Dave Moskowitz. That morning we drove out to a new site for us, a beautiful riparian wilderness area out in North Bend. Towering Bigleaf Maples stood among second growth understory along the middle fork of the Snoqualmie river. There we split up into clans and spent a good deal of time exploring the landscape, traipsing through wet woods searching for animal trails. Meanwhile, Dave and our other instructors were seeking out mysteries and setting up a quiz for us. That afternoon was spent walking from one mystery to the next, writing down answers to the questions posed to us. “What animal did this and why?” “Who’s tracks are these and what gait is shown here?” “What happened here and when?”
At first I was frustrated by how little I could answer confidently. I felt like I’d learned nothing. But I soon realized that it was only because I’ve learned so much that I was so baffled by many of the mysteries. I’ve learned enough not to make assumptions. I’ve learned how many different animals might make scrapes on a tree, leave similar looking tracks, or lay eggs in the water. Whereas at the beginning of the year I may have had more answers, they wouldn’t necessarily have been the correct ones nor had much to back them up. At this time I may not have correctly identified the species of salamander eggs in the stream, but I knew enough to recognize that they could have been frog or salamander eggs. I may not have known for sure that the tree scrape was from a deer shedding antler velvet, but I could name a variety of animals that might have clawed, gnawed, or rubbed at this height on a sapling. I was unable to recognize that the funny looking indentations in the sand were in fact beaver tracks, but I could name a whole list of animals they didn’t belong to and why.
This is the period of time in learning a new skill when our brains are swimming with information that we can’t always access at the right times, but that’s not important. What is important is that we’re inspired and challenged to keep learning. That’s exactly why tracking is so exciting- there will always be more mysteries to keep us on our toes.
Looking back on last week I realize how far we’ve come, how much we’ve learned already. Sure, we all had varying levels of knowledge going into this program, but our activities this week really made clear that we all have learned so much. Our “bird sit” this week was perhaps the clearest example of this. After our first bird sit in the fall, we came together in an attempt to describe and map what we’d heard. There were only a few species mentioned by name at that time, and a whole lot of mediocre descriptions of the bird songs and calls we didn’t recognize. “I think I remember was some sort of high pitched fast little song”…
This past Wednesday, a cool clear Spring morning bursting with birdsong, we returned from our bird sit with long lists of not only a variety of different named species, but knowledge of the types of calls vs. songs and general feeling of the forest. “I heard a Winter Wren singing from the Salmonberry shrub in front of me while the whole forest seemed to be calm and at baseline. Fifteen minutes later, the same Wren gave some urgent alarm calls but no surrounding birds seemed to have been alarmed, indicating that there probably was not a general threat like a predator in the area.”
We are by no means experts in bird language at this point; true experts spend years listening and observing. We do, however, have a strong foundation of core routines to help get us there, if we so choose.
