The Townsend’s Chipmunks kicked their fall season off at
North Galbraith Trailhead with a full outing of shelter building! Welcoming a
few new members to the group, we were all present and accounted for and hit the
trail. Cruising down past the dirt jumps we followed a logging road back to
search for a long time favorite spot of past Explorers Club groups who built
shelters that withstood the test of time. Immediately it became apparent that
the logging operation to clear the forest had stepped things up. As far as we
could see there were vast swathes of cleared trees, brush piles, and sporadic
Big Leaf Maples left standing all alone. For most of the group, they had never
seen this place before so it was all new to them. However, for the mentors who
had spent many outings playing in these woods sharing countless memories of
shelter building, games of Life and Death in the Forest, and unforgettable
outings with groups now graduated into the Four Shields program, it was a
little tough to swallow. After trying to get our bearings on the freshly altered
landscape we gave up our search for the shelters of past Explorers and decided
to start fresh.
Taking a turn down a new bike trail, we found a nice
clearing under some cedar trees to have our opening circle. Before we could
even begin, we started unearthing a variety of small bones from within the
layer of duff and decaying leaves on the ground. Dropping everything and
beginning a mini excavation we discovered a dozen or so bones; vertebra, limb
bones, and even a skull! Our C.S.I. skills determined it must have been a
medium sized rodent like creature with large hind legs. Perhaps you or your
Explorer may have a guess? After sanitizing our hands we got back to our
opening circle where we welcomed a few new members to the group and discussed
our Earth Skills Focus for the season: The Art of Shelter Building! But before getting
into any skills work, we needed to get some play time in so we revisited the
rules for HIDE and played a few rounds. The new group members were impressively
good at hiding for newbies to this game and it was a sure sign that they were in
the right place.
With some games out of the way, we jumped into skills work.
Starting with mini-shelters is a great way to grasp the basics of structural
design without using too many resources or taking too much time. We learned
about “Y-Sticks” and how they can interlock to support a “backbone” in a
tri-pod like structure. Placing more sticks along the backbone we add enough “ribs”
to round out the skeleton of our shelter (perhaps the skeleton we found was a sign of things to come!). Next we can add a layer of brushy
material that will support the insulating layer of debris. The debris layer is
often overlooked as the last step, but usually takes the most time to get
sufficient amounts of debris like downed leaves, old sword fern, duff, or
anything else you can find to insulate and water proof your shelter. With the
basics under our belts we felt ready to re-locate and build a full scale
shelter together as a group.
Before we could head out, we had to decide if we wanted to
take the left or right fork in the trail. In most groups it would be easy; just
vote! But not in Explorers Club. Instead of using a majority rules method, we
make sure to take the time to work together as a group to collaborate,
compromise, and come to a consensus. This often means spending a long time in
circle, but many indigenous cultures based their societal decisions around
consensus decision making instead of a majority rules model. With a consensus,
everyone can believe in the decision and come together as a unified group to
act upon the decision together as a whole. We ended up having one Explorer not
want to budge despite everyone else in the group wanting to go the other way.
In this situation we remind the group of our motto; “We not Me” and talk about
the many ways a compromise may manifest itself. Despite the struggles that the
Townsend’s Chipmunks had today learning how to collaborate, compromise, and
come to a consensus, they showed great progress and all took away a fresh
perspective on how to come together as a group and make a decision that makes
everyone happy. It is important that we learn how to collaborate effectively
and begin understanding what it means to compromise one’s personal desires for
the greater needs of the group. Just imagine how differently our current
election process might look if we all had to collaborate, compromise and come
to a consensus! Now that would be a sight to see.
Back on the trail we trekked along until we found a good
location for a shelter. Abundant resources nearby, a reasonably flat area to
construct the shelter. We were closer than would be ideal to a Big Leaf Maple
and an old snag, but for the sake of our outing, we discussed why not to build
near deciduous trees and widow makers that drop their limbs in wind storms.
With that out of the way we found a couple sturdy Y-Sticks and a solid backbone
and got to work on getting ribs and latticing for our shelter. Running short on
time we didn’t get around to piling on all the debris, but for our first
attempt at a full size shelter we felt pretty good about the fruits of our
labor. With just enough time left to have a closing circle to share some
gratitude and munch on apple slices the mentors were impressed at the
thoughtfulness and focus this group brought as each Explorer shared something
they were thankful for with the rest of the group. Hiking out through the
logging land, back to the dirt jumps, and finally arriving at the parking lot,
a posy of dirty Explorers with smiles on their faces was a welcome site for the
parents. For some Explores this was their first outing and what an outing it
was. Shelter building, skeletons in circle, and plenty of exploration. I would
call that a successful way to kick off our fall season.
Make sure to check out the rest the photos from our outing here!
