Northern exposure

 

 

Students learn to start a fire using only flints and cotton balls. The exercises teach them self-reliance and teamwork. Photo by Greg Norton

“Zero!” “One!” “Two!” “Three!”

The students’ warm breath hits the frigid air. A patch of fog rises slowly in front of their faces. It’s mid-February, and I’m leading them through the first morning of the annual four-day outdoor leadership expedition held by District 7090 (parts of Ontario and New York). Over two dozen students are present; half are inbound Rotary Youth Exchange participants, and half are outbound Canadians and Americans who will go on exchanges in the summer. Four years ago, we moved the program from Temagami, Ont., to Kawawaymog Lake, but the name has stuck, and people refer to it as “Temagami.”

We count off at the end of every outdoor activity to ensure that everyone is accounted for. Losing a student in the Ontario backcountry when it’s -20 degrees Celsius isn’t a good idea. We’re at Northern Wilderness Outfitters, an unadorned retreat so remote that you have to make a 1-kilometre trek across a frozen lake and, assuming your car starts, drive on 26 kilometres of icy gravel road, just to get to the nearest town.

For some of the inbound students, particularly those from Argentina and Australia, this is their first tangle with a Canadian winter. To prepare for the expedition, they attend an orientation, where they receive a list of the clothing and equipment they’ll need. All of their supplies must fit into a backpack because the first thing they do is walk across the frozen lake.

Once they get to the camp, they follow strict rules. Because we face cold, snow, and sometimes rain, we have a unique culture that everyone must learn quickly. The camp has no running water, so there are no showers or flush toilets. All our water comes from a well. The other team leader and I instruct students on everything: how to eat (nothing is to be wasted – there are no garbage trucks to haul trash away), how to brush their teeth (don’t spit on the walking paths – it turns to ice), and how to use the outhouses (I’ll spare you the details). Even the adults on the trip have to learn the rules. Aside from us leaders and the owners of the camp, the adults on the trip are all first-timers as well. Their official title is “adviser,” but to everyone they’re “newbies.”

The newbies do just about everything the students do. Everyone eats together and sleeps in the same building. I always stress to the students that we adults don’t ask them to do anything that we haven’t done ourselves. I’ve been involved in the program for seven years and was an exchange student to Japan in 1985-86. I realize that for the Canadians and Americans, facing near-arctic conditions isn’t the same as being on an exchange, but the stress the students feel is similar to what they might experience in a foreign country.

That’s why the start of the trip is all about team building and getting the students to work as a group. On the second day, we teach them outdoor skills such as orienteering, fire building (with only flints and cotton balls), providing first aid, and using snowshoes. On the third day, we send them on a 10-kilometre trek into the wilderness with only their fellow students to rely on. For over 30 years, every student who comes to or leaves from District 7090 has gone on the trek. It has become a tradition that creates a bond among participants throughout the years.

After supervising the students around the clock, the advisers write up performance reports about the kids, which the Temagami team and the district Youth Exchange committee later review. You realize that in a 20-minute interview, a student can say all the things a Youth Exchange committee member wants to hear. But take that same student and drop her in the middle of nowhere with 25 other teenagers she’s just met, and you will get a much better sense of how she reacts to stress.

Many of the Rotarians who have participated as advisers have gone on to be active members in the Youth Exchange program at the club and district levels. A lot of the adults want to return to the expedition year and after year, but there just isn’t room. Students who begin with a fear of the unknown soon realize that they are up to the challenge – and when they need help, there are other people, sometimes people they’ve never met before, who are there to guide them. --Greg Norton, Rotary Club of Buffalo-Sunrise, New York, USA