Chattermarks

For those of you who have worked in environmental education, at a summer camp, or with kids you may have played the game, “Bob the Weasel.”

You stand in a circle, shoulder to shoulder, with one person in the middle. The outside circle passes an object – the weasel – around behind their backs while chanting, “Bob the weasel keep it going, keep it going” and the person in the middle tries to guess where the weasel is. At any point in the passing you can taunt the person in the middle by raising the weasel over your head – if you can get away with it – and everyone who sees the weasel says, “I saw the weasel.” The kids love this game and you can use it to teach them about weasels and their behavior. Weasels try to stay hidden from view, especially from overhead predators like Eagles by traveling illusively under downed wood, brush and vegetation. This helps them surprise their next meal and protects them. Every once in while you will see a weasel pop out of nowhere and then quickly disappear under cover.

“I saw a weasel!”

» Continue reading “I saw the weasel”

At the Environmental Learning Center, the weather this week hints almost of spring. It is tempting to get swept away from the season at hand into those of the future. But winter is not a season to be wished away, it is a season to be savored.

With snow’s presence lacking on the surrounding landscape, I find myself looking for other, less obvious signs of winter’s presence. I want to dig deeper into the often remarked “dreary” landscape of winter to bring out, instead, the vibrant shades and shapes that exist as my knowledge of this place’s natural history grows. Through twig tracking – the identification of deciduous shrubs and trees based on bud placement, plant shape, and twig color and texture – I am able to expand my engagement, understanding, and appreciation for the wintry North Cascades.

You need not travel far from your home to decipher the first of many twig mysteries that, for other seasons, hide beneath layers of leaves, flowers and fruits. On a late afternoon walk to Diablo Dam, I identified over 10 species of deciduous trees and shrubs that flourished alongside the roadway. Who knows what additional wonders await when venturing further into the woods!

» Continue reading Trying out twig tracking

Every family has different holiday traditions.  Most families gather for a big meal on Thanksgiving. Some watch or play football. My family likes to run in a local “Turkey Trot”. But how many people go for a canoe ride in a 14-person voyageur canoe on Thanksgiving?

This year, several families had that opportunity as participants in the first Thanksgiving Family Getaway program at North Cascade Institute’s Environmental Learning Center on Diablo Lake.

Families from all over Washington and Oregon gathered at Diablo Lake to celebrate Thanksgiving while surrounded by pristine beauty. Though the forecast called for rain, rain, and more rain, we were showered with more sunshine than precipitation. Families enjoyed activities such as canoeing, hiking, tracking, art classes, and the microscope lab.

» Continue reading Rewriting Thanksgiving traditions

No longer are the flashes of headlights streaming across the darkened landscape. Sometimes there is moonlight. But when there is no moon, there is always the dark.

Highway 20’s closure in November marks the coming of winter. Temperatures have steadily dropped to near or below freezing both day and night. This past week, the Environmental Learning Center has seen several days of solely sun followed by crisp, star-filled nights. On nights as cold and dark as these, it is easy to stay tucked underneath the comfort of a warm wool blanket, wrapped up in a novel of another world, sipping hot tea.

On nights like these, I find myself desiring to embark into the dark.

» Continue reading To embark into the dark

I have found that with the oncoming winter ushering in shorter days and enduring rains, I have needed a greater sense of initiative to spend time outdoors naturalizing and experiencing the North Cascades for what it has to offer. It has become increasingly easy to allow myself respite from the day’s bite by spending time indoors with a pot of tea and a growing pile of books and work.

On a recent, clear day, I jumped at the opportunity to don my naturalist gear and head off down the road toward Diablo Dam with the intention of photographing, bird watching, or journaling, whichever happened to catch my interest based on possible encounters. I quickly became engaged in photographing minute details, focusing and framing things that I’ve walked by too often without taking time to notice. The bracken ferns have turned brown and curled through the progression of autumn, and are actually quite beautiful in contrast with green moss and the deepening blue tint of Diablo Lake.

» Continue reading Encounter with a black bear

Each footstep crunching beneath the layers of newly fallen leaves has now transitioned to the soft silence of detritus, and of snow. Autumn’s transition to winter has been a tug of war. At the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center, the snowline has risen and fallen along hillsides like the lapping of waves against a shore. We have been watching, our eyes patient and waiting, the white, wintry callings only a few hundred feet above us for over a month.

This weekend looked promising for powder, with forecasts for the North Cascades to see snow at significantly lower elevations. Like a child during the holidays, I awoke with joy Friday morning, gazing upon fat flakes of frost falling from the sky. It may have been only a minute amount of snow, but its company was welcomed with excitement and an eagerness to go out and play.

» Continue reading A moment of snow

You can feel them approaching. It is a surge of energy, a tidal wave of enthusiasm and wonder, about to overtake this place. The momentary quiet of the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center awaits eagerly the arrival of giggles and shouts, of singing and learning once more. Standing in the parking lot on a Monday or Wednesday afternoon, we, as instructors, can anticipate only so much. Backpacks are stuffed to the brim with daily supplies and previous nights are spent late, preparing for the next day’s activities.

It isn’t about us, though. As students arrive, whether by bus or by car, with gaping grins of glee and eyes wide with wonder, every time a Mountain School tidal wave hits, we are reminded—it is about these students and this place.

» Continue reading This place, through their eyes

It is as simple as taking some time for yourself.

So often are we scheduled from dawn until dusk, moving from meeting to meeting, checking the clock for what event awaits us next. With hardly a moment to breathe, we are already looking past what is in front of us, skimming over what marvels may meet us, on the daily life journeys we lead.

When we make the choice to, for a moment, embark upon a walk, we may find what a walk can truly reveal — about our selves and the world surrounding us.

» Continue reading What a walk can reveal

One of the trickiest parts of being an instructor during a Mountain School session is how to properly transition from boisterous, high-energy games and songs to more quiet, less obviously engaging activities. Too abrupt a change and the high energy spills over into the supposed-to-be quiet activity. Since the boisterous activities are often fun equally for the instructor and for the students, a tendency can emerge for the instructor to concentrate so much on the attraction of group interaction that the interaction between student and nature can suffer. By their “nature,” these latter, quieter activities have more reaching power, in terms of having the students directly encounter the close-by wonders of the world outside. Underlying all of this, too, is the goal of increasing observation skills, those of both the students and the instructor.

Here’s where the students can teach you something as well.

Students & chaperones from Fidalgo Elementary enjoying a Mountain School campfire

So what does this have to do with a magic moment? During campfire program a couple rainy weeks ago, students, instructors and chaperones were having the usual time of our lives singing songs at the top of our lungs, interpreting legends via skits, laughing and enjoying the fire and company. The warmth of the company and activities concentrated everyone’s attention on the human world within the glow of the campfire. Rebecca then led a wonderful transition activity, a “rain circle,” in which participants mimic the sounds of different levels of rainfall. This is accomplished through the rubbing of hands together, clapping with two fingers, snapping, full-hand clapping and slapping one’s thighs.  The leader transitions sounds from a falling mist to a downpour then back to a falling mist.

» Continue reading Magical Mountain School moments

The rain, at first, came sweet and softly
as if to tease, as if to taunt me.
Light moisture perched upon my shoulder
gave subtle call to damp and colder.
No jacket yet, no need for shoes
this region’s rain is common news.

Yet, with each drop, it grew in size
and as a blanket, cloaked the sky.
Like the pitter and patter of baby’s toes
it giggled down in rows and rows.
And steadily shower spigots came
it rained, it rained, it rained and rained.
Buckets full, the rain came down
quenching thirst of parched Northwest ground.

I focused less on orange and red
seeking jacket, for rain, instead.
Still it drips and drops it seems
from peaks on high, low-valley streams.
It collects on leaves, in dirt, in pools
it sees no boundaries.
it knows no rules.

Rain’s song is loud, its lyrics, clear.
Rain’s presence—constant, important here.
This land, it breathes, because of rain.
The moment it goes, it comes again.

So think a moment before you shout, “What is all this noise about?”
Learn to listen, beyond the racket.

Go outside.
Don’t forget your jacket.

» Continue reading Welcoming the falling rain