Every Child in the Woods..

A winter shifts into spring, I thought I'd blather on a bit about the outdoor kids' camp I've been playing with...Saplings Outdoor Program in West Van. I regularly blog on their website, but as we are dealing with the little folk, the blog is accessible to parents only, and the wonderful pictures as well. This is why, below, I have carefully incognito shots of the idyllically frollicing waifs. The second pic is actually of my friend Monica with her almost-year-old baby dabbling in Lynn Creek. (General theme of Babes in the Woods.) The really good shots are so cute that I'm afraid everyone would be exploited by the marketing directors of nature-themed townhouse developments or bottled water companies called Cherub Springs.

When I told people I was going to help with a morning outdoor preschool of mainly 3.5-4 yr olds this winter, someone told me to expect to be wiping noses, taking one after the other to the washroom, and trying to stop them from crying the entire time.

This does not happen.

No one, in two programs, has ever cried (7-10 kids each). No one comes sick (and they rarely miss a day) and these kids rarely, if ever, pee. They do not question the fact that their parents are leaving them in the woods, no matter the weather: snow, sleet, or monsoon rain. (Sometimes it's so gloomy the camera flash comes on at 10:30 a.m.) They arrive in full muddy-buddy suits and gumboots, backpacks with snacks and extra socks & mitts, and forge up the trail like a pack of tiny pioneers with a little red wagon. The wagon carries thermoses of hot tea and water, reuseable handwarmers, a bag full of mud-kitchen tools, a first-aid kit, a hand-wash station and a porta-potty for rare occasions.

We find a good place to pitch our tarp camp for the morning. Sometimes it's a huge rotted hollow stump with a tarp roof. Sometimes it's a macrame of knots holding the tarp between trees. Sometimes it's a shelter provided by Nature: an ivy-covered sideways-growing tree. 

We proceed to play games and tell stories and find so many interesting things that the morning is gone in a flash. Sometimes the kids bounce on a downed tree for half the time. Sometimes we crack ice in the creek with our boots. Sometimes we climb stumps. Sometimes we get cold because we're telling and acting out stories so long we have to jump up and play Frozen Tag. One time, we looked up after playing in one spot for half an hour and an OWL was sitting above us, the week after we told Beatrix Potter's story of Squirrel Nutkin and Mr. Brown (Owl). We even found an owl pellet full of mouse bones on the ground below. 

Outdoor preschool is clearly a good idea--and relatively easy to do on the North Shore, with so many wild greenbelts and parks. There's a well-established program in North Van as well, called Fresh Air Learning. I've always chosen to live here because of this as well--I'd rather have a wildish river valley close by than the admittedly awesome neighbourhoods across the inlet in Vancouver. That being said, I don't own here. Ha. hahahahah. etc. And part of having access to natural spaces and green spaces--for ourselves or children--is living close enough...or having enough foresight to keep them or incorporate them into our cities.