Into the WOODS

STORY BY KEVIN ROTHBAUER PHOTOGRAPHY BY ARDEN GILL

MOST OF SKI WEEK TAKES PLACE EITHER ON THE SLOPES OR WITHIN SIGHT OF THE COZY MANNING PARK RESORT COMPLEX.

Some students, however, not only venture away from the resort – fully supervised, of course – but find themselves spending the night underneath the snowpack.

Continuing a tradition that has been part of Ski Week on and off nearly as long as Ski Week has existed, Shawnigan’s outdoor education instructors, Kyle Leis and Emily Boyes, took two separate groups of students up beyond the ski runs, about a kilometre into the forest, to a predetermined site where they set up camp. The students split up into sets of two or three and constructed snow caves, digging down about two metres, then hollowing out dens complete with beds to sleep on overnight.

“It took about four hours to excavate the snow cave, so it was definitely a lot of work,” Kyle admits. “It was a very physically demanding day, because even to get to the camp we had to carry in all of our gear.”

This year’s groups used snowshoes to travel – the first trekking through heavy, drifting snow – although cross-country skis have been used in the past, as well. Every student shouldered a backpack full of camping gear, food, and extra clothing. The group also towed three sleds laden with kitchen supplies, propane, and firewood. It took about an hour to get everything to the campsite before they could even start digging out their caves.

“Once they started, they were very motivated to complete it,” Kyle says. “If they wanted to be comfortable at night, they had to finish it. We circulated around as they were building to give some pointers and answer any questions. It was funny to go up with all these students and then gradually they all disappeared underneath the snow, like no one was there. Once they’re in the caves, it’s so well insulated that you can’t hear anybody from the surface, so it was like they were totally gone.”

The camping trip was mandatory this year for students in the School’s Search and Rescue program, although other students were able to sign up, as well. In all, 24 students participated this time: 14 the first night and 10 the second. While most students at Ski Week are having fun at the resort well into the night, that isn’t the case on the camping excursions, where the exhausted campers make it through dinner and a bonfire before crashing comparatively early.

“There’s an interesting juxtaposition: with all of the programming and craziness and the excitement at the cabins, the students in the backcountry are passed out in their snow caves by 8:00 p.m.,” notes Laura Robson, who took part in many trips during her nine years as a teacher at the School. Backwoods excursions have been part of Ski Week on and off since at least the late 1970s, and fairly consistently since 2001. Long-time Shawnigan teacher Graham Anderson wrote in the 1978 yearbook of what appears to have been the first such expedition – although there is no mention of caves being dug.

“Two distinctive features of Ski Week 1978 were the appearance of cross-country skiing and an inter-house skiing competition,” Graham noted. “The cross-country skiers used the new equipment (twelve sets of skis and poles and twenty pairs of boots) kindly donated by Mr. Pletsch, a parent. Eleven boys who wanted to combine the new sport with their interest in the outdoors even went so far as to camp out for a night in subzero temperatures. They were accompanied in this successful enterprise by Dr. Reeve and Mr. Hobson. All felt the expedition to be both an exhilarating and a valuable experience even if putting on frozen clothing the following morning was far from pleasant.”

The trek into the woods aligns with Shawnigan’s experiential learning programming and provides several challenges for the students who take part. Some of those challenges are anticipated, and others surprise both the students and the teachers.

“Some of them who didn’t grow up in a winter environment had a hard time; they found the cold really uncomfortable and a little bit painful,” Kyle recalls. “We brought up a bag with extra clothing, and we had to lend out a lot of that to the students. But they took on the challenge really well. They found ways to stay warm, whether that was by building a fire or by doing jumping jacks and just exercising to get their bodies moving to stay warm. They learned a lot, and they had to think quickly and creatively to find ways to stay warm. That’s a great thing about outdoor education: the things you do have immediate results, and if you don’t do something well, it affects you right away, so it’s like instant feedback on what you’re doing.”

In her first year at Shawnigan, Laura remembers that no one thought to bring water, and after working up a sweat digging out their caves, the dehydrated students devoured a hot meal and all came down with stomach cramps. Laura spent most of the evening melting snow and heating water to make the students cups of tea. Water has been at the top of packing checklists since then.

Around that same time, the backwoods excursions left the resort after lunch, giving students time to enjoy the morning on the mountain with their friends. Unfortunately, that didn’t give them enough time to dig their caves in the brief daylight hours of February. One of the biggest lessons they learned was to leave earlier in the day; although the students missed out on the slopes that day, they had plenty of time to complete their lodgings for the night.

Most of the students who took part this year had previous camping experience, but winter camping is a different beast altogether. Kyle estimates that less than 10 per cent of the students who took part this year had camped in the winter prior to Ski Week.

“Of all the kids we took out, there were maybe three who had done winter camping before,” Kyle says. “Maybe three-quarters of them had been camping before, and the rest hadn’t. So that’s a huge step to go from never having camped to camping without a tent in a snow cave; it’s a huge jump. We were proud of them for taking that challenge.”

More than just a sideadventure from Ski Week, the backcountry excursions teach survival skills – snow caves are typically reserved for emergencies; even seasoned backcountry campers plan to use a tent and would only dig out a snow cave in dire circumstances – and connect with Shawnigan’s mission and ideals.

“It fits in quite well with the Shawnigan Journey and values of discovering the world outside of our gates here at Shawnigan,” Kyle says. “It fits in with community: getting to know each other, doing an activity together, experiencing something challenging together, as well. For a lot of them, this was way outside their comfort zone, so they pushed themselves and found out that they were able to do this, and maybe it was something they didn’t know was in them, to be able to survive a night outside in the winter, even when it was minus 16 C outside. So it pushed them, but to a safe amount. I feel it strengthened the community through doing something unique and challenging like that together.”

The expedition also illustrates in a very concrete way the heart of the inspiring quotation from renowned German educator Kurt Hahn that was chosen as this academic year’s theme: “There is more in us than we know if we could be made to see it.”

After a night sleeping snugly under the snow, the students rose at daybreak and packed up their gear before snowshoeing back down the trail, across the ski runs and back to the lodge at the base of the hill, where they enjoyed a hot breakfast. As the students recovered from and reflected on a night that was emotionally and physically demanding, but still tremendously rewarding, none of them said immediately if they would want to go through the experience again, although Laura says there have been students who went year after year. Whether they would repeat the experience or not, students are overwhelmingly glad they tried it once.

“I think it takes time to look back on that experience and say, ‘I’m so glad I did that,’” Kyle notes. “Winter camping is challenging, and often in the moment you’re cold and uncomfortable and you don’t appreciate it. But once you’ve recovered and warmed up and dried out, you can look back at it and say, ‘That was amazing.’ Being out in nature for that long, seeing the stars, that experience of sleeping in a snow cave with a friend, it sometimes takes some time to look back on that fondly.

“Hopefully, most of them would do it again, and maybe one or two would say, ‘I’m glad I did it, but never again.’ It’s a very unique Canadian winter experience to get to do that, and most Canadians haven’t slept in a snow cave, so it’s a very intense thing to do.”

Like the rest of Ski Week, the backcountry camping excursions are something a student is unlikely to experience anywhere else, and Kyle is proud of the students who take advantage of the opportunity.

“It comes down to appreciating the outdoors and enjoying a challenge,” he says. “And that’s very much the way we framed it for them: it’s a unique experience to get to do this, and they might never get the chance to do something like that again. I feel like that’s what it is for a lot of events here at Shawnigan: it’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance to do something, so why not?”