Portaging Through by Richard Forbes

Portaging Through By Richard Forbes “Within the space of a few decades, the way children understand and experience nature has changed radically. The polarity of the relationship has reversed. Today, kids are aware of the global threats to the environment-- but their physical contact, their intimacy with nature, is fading. That's exactly the opposite of how it was when I was a child,” writes Richard Louv, in his book Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder. The rain falls in droves, a numbing racket, spilling off the sides of the soaking rain fly, making puddles in the small dales, making the rocks slippery, making the ferns shine a vibrant green, making us feel like we're in the Pacific Northwest. Tom and I make up a half-hearted story about how we must have come farther than we thought, that we somehow managed to canoe the miles from Minnesota to Washington. But the words fall from our lips stale, as as if the rain's already soaked into them. The truth is, whatever we might pretend, we're tired of the rain ourselves. This is my summer, and weather is king. The weather decides whether we can climb, and today, the weather says no. The weather can't say whether we can canoe, and we've come thirty miles in four days: two days of persistent rain, tapping at our rain jackets, followed by two days of sunshine to remind us what we were missing. Yesterday, we crossed Seagull Lake beneath clear skies, picking up the climbing gear from the girls' group. It's their turn to canoe. Tom and the group dropped me off at the climbing site and hurried off to set up camp. I hiked up the side of the crag, set anchors, and dropped the rope over the edge. I rappelled down the cliff, and we did a basic safety talk. The first boy tied in, and we watched as black skies sweep in from behind the rock face. Tom and I rushed back up, broke down the anchors, and rejoined the boys as the storm hit. We huddled into a rocky redoubt, and watched as the rain raised dimples on the lake. We cowered on our life-jackets beneath the lightning striking all around us. Tom and I told stories. The rain ran down the cliff and soaked us. When there was a break in the fury, we rushed across the lake, and hid beneath our rain fly. Today is more of the same. “In the space of a century, the American experience of nature... has gone from direct utilitarianism to romantic attachment to electronic detachment,” writes Louv. There are eight of us beneath this rain fly, two guides and six teenage boys. They range from fourteen to fifteen years old. Tom and I are both twenty. The weather has turned capricious. The view to the north, towards Canada (only a few miles distant), shows banks of huge clouds interspersed by clear skies, and every twenty minutes we get a quick shower and a few thunderbolts. We cannot climb in the rain, we are rudely grounded. We alternate between the rain fly and the rock shelf that falls into the lake, where our canoes are stored, where our fire pit stands, and where our clearweather kitchen is located. We play games, tell stories, share hopes, eat, sleep, and read. Tom and I are reading Phillip Pullman's The Golden Compass aloud to our campers. Despite the hyperactivity that supposedly plagues our nation's teenagers, they quietly listen. Maybe because there's no other options. At some point, one of the boys retreats to their tent to grab something, and realizes that they've set up the tent in a hollow where water has been collecting. Their enormous six-person tent has been soaking up water, and now some of their gear is wet. Tom and I aren't overly surprised. Our tent is set up in a larger, flatter hollow, where water will drain away. We've agreed to let them learn things for themselves. We're not here to micromanage, to freely hand them our hard-won outdoors lessons. We're here to teach them about real life. Not society's insulated reality, but the reality of the outdoors. Actions have consequences. And their parents are paying us, presumably so their sons can receive these lessons. Regardless, they're getting them. Because Tom and I think they should. “Children live through their senses. Sensory experiences link the child's exterior world with their interior, hidden, affective world. Since the natural environment is the principal source of sensory stimulation, freedom to explore and play with the outdoor environment through the senses in their own space and time is essential for healthy development of an interior life.” writes North Carolina State professor Robin Moore, director of the National Learning Initiative. We work for YMCA Camp Menogyn. We're both first-year guides, both college students, both young. Tom is from Minneapolis, and I'm from Philadelphia. We've both grown up in the outdoors, and now we've given up our summers to help others learn what we learned. According to the brochures, Menogyn means “to grow fully” in Ojibwe. During the course of the summer, an Ojibwe speaker stops by the camp and doesn't recognize the word. But that's ok, because Ojibwe is a fluid language, and Menogyn is a fluid camp. Menogyn means whatever the guides say it means. This is an overt fact at Menogyn. While the guides are in camp, the camp director and program director have control over the campers. But on trail, it is only the guides, the kids, and miles of wilderness. The rain abates in the evening. We cook calzones and cinnamon buns, rolling them flat on the canoe bottoms with our water bottles. The sun sets, and hordes of mosquitoes descend. We hide in our tents from their blood-thirsty wrath. We can hear their buzzing against the mesh tent as we go to sleep. Tom and I wake to blue sky, and we rush the boysthrough breakfast and spend the entire day climbing. This is the first time most of them have climbed outdoors, though they have all climbed indoors. Despite fundamental similarities, these are entirely different. Climbing indoors teaches people to follow color-coordinated routes up plastic walls. It is useful as a training exercise, but little more. Climbing outdoors teaches people to find their own holds, to dig their fingers into disused holds, to feel the sun beating down, to respect the geologic processes that have produced such a playground. It teaches determination, success through fear, courage. It teaches grace and conservation of movement. Most of all, it teaches trust in your own body. That foot placement will hold and support you, those hands can suspend you above the abyss. These are all things you could learn inside a climbing gym, but you don't. In an artificial world, where the floor is padded, and ropes are guaranteed, all you learn is how to strain your muscles and grow stronger. Risk is nonexistent. Tom and I are competent, and our anchors are made to industry safety standards. But when you're hanging by your fingertips eighty feet above the rocky earth, you learn respect nature quite quickly. “Nature gives itself to children-- for its own sake, not as a reflection of a culture. At this level, inexplicable nature provokes humility,” writes Louv. Camp Menogyn consists of a group of rustic cabins on a bay of West Bearskin lake. Campers paddle from the road across the lake in canoes to reach the camp. Some of the buildings have electricity, some do not. Bathrooms are pit toilets. Food is served in a big communal hall, where groups sit intermingled at long tables. Days in camp begin with “first word” at Chapel Point, by the water, and finish with a campfire, again at Chapel Point. Campers at Menogyn can go on eight to fifty day trips, learning to backpack, climb, and canoe. Shorter trips stay in or near the Boundary Waters, and the longest trips go to Canada and Alaska. There are other camps like Menogyn, but not many. The importance of this sort of camp is difficult to explain to investors. We are leading an eleven day canoe-rock climbing combination trip. The campers came up to Camp Menogyn on a bus from Minneapolis on the first day, and we gathered group gear on the second day. On the third day, we packed, and a driver dropped us off at Round Lake. We have six full days on trail, with two half days on either end, when we are dropped off and picked up. On the last night, back in camp, we will have a banquet. Then the campers will return to their normal lives. “Nature provides necessary unstructured play (in comparison to a playground) … [which] is important for the development of the cerebral cortex-- particularly in developing one's limits and ability to reason,” says Mike Taber, Colorado College education professor. The thirty miles between Seagull Lake and Round Lake are not connected by water. There are lakes, studded along the glacial valleys, but they are connected by portages, paths crossing the ridges between lakes. Canoes and gear must be carried along these portages. We have brought three canoes and four Duluth packs (large square packs filled with dry bags, food, tents, and cooking gear). Each member of the group must carry a canoe, a Duluth pack, or the group paddles and water bottles.

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