FALL 2014:SPRING 2006 II 9/3/14 8:57 AM Page 1 Fall 2014 Vol. 41 No. 3 Quarterly Journal of the Wilderness Canoe Association Paddling In and Out by Zabe MacEachren The English language has limitations regarding the terms Terms like nature, wilderness and landscape convey vari - available for describing the places we canoe. Initially, I con - ous unique perceptions of the world. People tend to choose and sider the title “Paddling in and out of the landscape” or use the terms they are most comfortable with or that best “Paddling in and out of the wilderness.” But the perception match their understanding of a specific time and place. My and ultimately our understanding of what is landscape or work at Queen’s University with teacher candidates in an out - wilderness, is the very ground I aim to paddle into. This arti - door and experiential education program means I encourage cle, like my presentation at the WCS 2013, explores the no - outdoor educators to become critical thinkers and explore the tion that our language influences our reality, and shapes how terrain of ideology. I try to make future outdoor educators canoeists come to understand a place. To read on means you question why they use one term over another and how their will venture into indigenous terms and ideologies, then pad - choice of activities will shape the understanding of the people dle out through the computer gaming world of today’s youth. I they teach. explore the activities and terms used in the outdoor education Working as a university professor in outdoor education can of canoe tripping that shape our ways of engaging us in the be like balancing a tippy canoe as you pole up stream ques - places we travel, both real and virtual. tioning common ideas. Engaging in theoretical ideas can be a FALL 2014:SPRING 2006 II 9/3/14 8:57 AM Page 2 messy, miserable, yet necessary task Some students find this exercise easy, but ket and finally encouraging them to look when trying to understand what is hap - for others it is hard to control their per - outward and see the world in new ways. pening, even in the world of canoeing. ception upon command. I follow this ac - New perceptions only arise when one is The ideas I share have served me like a tivity with an explanation about the Inuit not gripped solely with fear or dizzy with life jacket to bring me back to the surface blanket toss. the sheer fun and novelty of being tossed to breath after submerging in new con - The blanket toss game arose from the up. Ultimately the person being tossed fusing perceptions. Some practices can need of Inuit hunters to find elevation in can develop a practice of seeing things in act like islands, which I can take refuge a flat landscape. Elevation aided them in a new way while also finding joy through behind on long windy lake crossings, spotting their game in the distance. the process. when paddling in and out of the wilder - Somehow it was devised that one hunter Educators and canoe guides cannot ness of ideology. could climb on a stretched skin blanket control what people perceive, but they At the beginning of the school year, I and be tossed into the air by those who can choose their words and interactions use an optical illusion with teacher can - encircled the skin and held it taunt. so they might support and guide others didates, which requires them to only Trying this experience brought them the into new ways of seeing and knowing. focus on one image of two possibilities desired new perspective on the world Trying to stay open and learn something in order to aid their understanding of out - while frequently also bringing them joy. I new can make people feel vulnerable, es - door education. I ask them to focus upon suggest that this blanket toss activity pecially as aging establishes in us re - only one image – either the two faces or serves as a metaphor for what outdoor peated patterns of understanding things the vase. They are to attend to only one education is about. An educator’s role is in singular ways. To be able to let go and image until they hear me say “shift,” then to help others face any fear they may see things in a new way can be scary, they are to focus on the other image. I hold of getting on the blanket, then sup - perplexing and difficult. Educators aim then say “shift” at various time intervals. porting them when getting onto the blan - to help others find a way to relax old pat - 2 NASTAWGAN FALL 2014 FALL 2014:SPRING 2006 II 9/3/14 8:57 AM Page 3 terns of understanding so they can per - create pollution and then pollute our - tricks I use to help me guide my students ceive something in a new way. They aim selves? I frequently ask teacher candi - in critically thinking outside the box of to rekindle a childhood sense of curios - dates to consider if they are nature? And routine perceptions. It is like blanket ity in exploring novelty and perceiving to consider the way they can shape expe - tossing up some conceptual ideas. new things, and ultimately experiencing riences and understanding of the world My first real opening to the power in true joy in the process. through the way they offer novel activi - language to shape our reality came from My professor, Neil Evernden, ex - ties, use innovative language or introduce trying to learn the Ojibwe language, plained that a fish never knows it lives in the use of terms from indigenous cul - Anishinabemode. In Anishinabe, words water until it is out of the water. His tures. To perceive ourselves as nature are animate or inanimate, somewhat like book, the Social Creation of Nature , ex - means we need to engage in activities how in French terms can be masculine or plains the way the development of the that allow us to perceive ourselves as part feminine. Some words, like guitars , are term nature resulted in many different of and not separate from nature. I stress a little easier to comprehend as animate understandings of the world. He tries to that as teachers or canoe guides we need because guitars can “sing.” I could also wrap our mind around the way the world to be careful with the terms, stories, and recognize birch bark as animate because was perceived previous to the introduc - activities we use with others because I identified it as the skin of a living tree. tion of the term nature (and also wilder - each embodies a different way of under - But wrapping my thoughts around why ness, environment etc.). Trying to be in standing in the world. rocks and stones were animate was a the world without using any of descrip - Each of these terms: landscape, pretty big conceptual leap for me and I tive terms for places is a great exercise. wilderness, environment, and nature — assume it might be for most other people Evernden elaborates the ways the idea of if I had used them in my title it would including canoeists and non-Native lan - pollution can only exist when a person have made you perceive what I was guage speakers. perceives themselves to be separate from going to discuss differently. What fol - Awareness of the idea that rocks are the world — otherwise why would we lows are some activities from the bag of perceived as animate by Anishinabe NASTAWGAN FALL 2014 3 FALL 2014:SPRING 2006 II 9/3/14 8:57 AM Page 4 speakers means that paddling by a par - ceptions is hard work when one only hood fascination with rocks. He dropped ticular rock on the Churchill River cre - speaks English. Undertaking such tasks out of his undergraduate program when ates a great moment to ponder a new re - can feel like you are on the steep slippery he realized becoming a geologist meant ality. According to local stories a rock portage crossing the height of land of he was expected to smash rocks in order moved from the middle of the river up rocky ideology. to examine them. His repulsion of this onto the land one day (see Canoeing the To keep my ideological muscles fit act led him to transfer to the field of psy - Churchill River by Sid Robinson.) Was I and active I keep a bowl of rocks, col - chology and specifically eco-psychology. capable of believing this? Is understand - lected from many canoe trips, on a cof - Today he leads vision quests (see his ing such ideas that much different from fee table at my home. The bowl ignites book, Radical Ecopsychology ). My own believing many concepts from a bible or many lively debates with friends and pro - partner is a geologist. He keeps my sci - other practice of faith? What does it take fessors who visit. I have used it with an entific mind sharp by explaining to me in to perceive such reality? How immersed environmental law professor to try and great depth the chemistry of metamor - and fluent a Native speaker must I be - describe how laws would be different if phic rocks. I try to keep his mind pliable come to comprehend that a rock is ani - we were all speaking an indigenous lan - by reading to him children’s stories like mate in some manner or can move? guage instead of English, because we Rocks are Lively, Rocks in his Head and I was accompanied to my first pic - would find it hard to hold concepts of If I had a Rock.