Prologue
It all started with a note. A note to our parents saying we (my grade seven class) would be taking a field trip to Vivian Outdoor Resource Center on the 24th of March! I was ecstatic! I felt like a kid on Christmas morning! I love field trips because they are so much fun! Plus, I’ve been to Vivian ORC before in grade 4 and 2! It was very pleasurable! There’s so much to see, learn, and do! This year, we’re going to be learning about the role of ‘coureur du bois’ at Vivian. That’s the French word for ‘runner of the woods’. Runners of the woods are First Nation men, whose role was to go out into the forest and get any resources they could. Since that is what we are currently learning in History class, the board found it a great opportunity to go! And so this is where my story begins!
Bumpy roads, thoughtful minds, safe arrival
The morning of March 24th, my class got on a school bus and on our way to the Vivian Center! My mind was lurking with questions on the way there. What are we going to do there? Will I see cool animals today? What will I learn? Will the weather be alright for today? Just a little spoiler, the weather was great! Not too cold and not too hot! Lucky us! When we pulled up to VORC, everyone was bustling with excitement! Especially me! There, welcoming our class was one of our two hosts for the day, Gina. She greeted us with enthusiasm and then pointed us the direction to the circle of logs outside the big VORC cabin. On our way there, she handed each student a nature name! Mine was ‘Deer’. We all sat down on the logs and one by one, said our names and our nature names. Gina then explained to us the itinerary for the day. First up, snack time! We got into the cabin and hang up our coats, jackets, and bags. We all sat in a classroom to commence eating our snacks. The classroom was so cool! There were stuffed animals everywhere! And I’m not talking about the toy type stuffed with stuffing! Don’t worry though, all the animals that they stuffed, died naturally!
There were possums, raccoons, all sorts of birds, opossums (which we soon learned, are animals which look like a cross between a rat and a possum and carry a secret pouch!) and more! It was the most interesting looking classroom I have ever been in! It also had a counter full of different animal scat! Who knew poop would ever be on display for people to see? Anyways, we sat down and ate our snacks while seeing some animal pictures VORC caught and then we went outside with Gina for a little tour of the boundaries. We were also given maps of the land to follow along. There were soo many acres! During our tour, we stopped by a Cedar Tree. We learned that it was used to make cedar tea for the English to cure them from a disease known as scurvy. We also saw coyote tracks and bear tracks which had some blood in it! After the tour, we went back inside to have our lunches, while viewing a PowerPoint that Gina made on the history of First Nation trade. After that, our second host Julia came and explained our next activity!
We we’re going to play the role of ‘coureur de bois’! We were to group into a group of three, and then we received a paper listing all things we could ‘buy’ to keep us safe during our expedition. (Please Note: this was all pretend and we didn’t actually buy things). We were to calculate the total ‘Beavers’ (First Nation money) used and write it down. We were going to have to find a way to pay it back later. Our group took all the essential items needed to survive. Our total came to 48 beavers! Pretty pricey eh! Each group then received a satchel! It contained questions and answers. The objective of the activity was to go out to the land with our maps, and find each of the 19 posts situated on our maps, and to answer the question that corresponded to each. For example: Post 9 equals question 9. Attached to each post, was a mini stapler like tool which we were supposed to stamp on our answer sheet under the right answer. Each post has a different stapler design. We were then to report back to the ‘Trading Post’ where Gina and Julia were, and then we were supposed to trade our answers in for Beaver pellets! Those would be the beaver pellets we were to use to pay back our money! My group did pretty good! We got 60 beaver pellets, which left us a profit of 12 pellets! During the game, our teacher had fun too because she got to give some of us ‘scurvy’ if she wanted and then it would delay our game! Our group stayed clear of her though so we didn’t get scurvy.
All good days come to an end
At the end of the day, I learned a lot and had so much fun! I was a little sad knowing grade seven was the last year to go on a field trip to VORC, but I’m glad we got to go! Although no animals came out (although we did see some red squirrels and birds), we still had a wonderful experience. That trip changed my life and opened me up to nature even more! Who doesn’t like school field trips? What do you like the most about the trip? How about the nature? Well, you don’t have to go to VORC to be one with nature! Depend on where you live, you can go out in your yard or a nearby park and just listen to the sounds of nature and you’ll feel at peace! I’m glad I got to share my experience with you! Cheers!!
Venus Wambura.
Nature Admirer