It’s a new year, and we have a new Bear Creek Explorer! I’ve felt that someone was missing, despite how great this group has been. Today we welcomed Juniper, which brings our count to six. In my experience, six is the perfect number of kids for outdoor adventures, and it fills up the van except for the front seat.
First, we had to check the rain gauge. It had been three weeks of very rainy winter break, and there was concern the gauge might overflow. Lucky for us, it didn’t, but we moved the procedure to the table since we had to pour, measure, and record so many times. It was a perfect opportunity to teach Juniper the how and why of precipitation measurement and get her started on her field notebook.
Over winter break I did a lot of thinking about how to bring back the idea of mastery. The original Bear Creek Explorers earned level 1 fire mastery by completing a specified fire challenge. I also laid out criteria for several other skills, such as knots, knives and shelters, though we never got around to the rest. I’d like to bring mastery back and add in the skills needed for field research- such as checking the rain gauge, operating a trail camera, keeping a field notebook, etc. The idea is these young researchers can take ownership of tasks and, for example, check the rain gauge alone and report back with trustworthy, accurate data.
I’m also integrating the idea of basic competency, which is what one needs to demonstrate before they gets to use a potentially dangerous (or delicate) tool. Before they have free reign with a knife or a hatchet, I spend some one-on-one time with them where they demonstrate basic safety and then I watch them use the tool to check for improper handling. Thus far I have done this as a group, but adding a new person later illustrates the need for this process to be individualized.
Anyway, once we added up all the numbers we learned that 10.17 inches of rain fell over winter break. That explains the standing water in the meadow and along the back road!
Our main, planned task of the day was a bit of forest management guided by traditional ecological knowledge- blended, of course, with our own research question. My fascination with basketry using local materials has led me to the idea that the native people of the area cut and burned hazel to encourage long, straight sucker regrowth. We headed into the woods to find some hazel. The plan was to cut back some promising mid-sized hazel bushes while they were dormant.
Our question was: Do the suckers of hazel grow back longer and straighter after a fire?
Once a site was selected, and the two bushes cut back to approximately the same height, we got out our field notebooks to record meta data, details about the site, and our procedure. We noted how many live stems each bush had (13 and 15) and cut back the already dead stems to the ground.
I conducted a short training on using a map gas torch, asked who wanted to try it (everyone) and suggested we let the youngest go first. Juniper, our new addition, lead the charge!
If you’re reading this and not familiar with an Oregon forest, you might be concerned about starting a forest fire. Indeed, I pointed out that Los Angeles was surrounded by raging wildfires as we worked. But with the deep, mossy, wetness of 10+ inches of rain in the heart of the wet season… we could not have burned the forest down even with a pile of dry firewood and a gallon of gasoline. The challenge was driving off enough moisture to singe the plant and mimic a low-intensity fire.
As we took turns, our tummies started to rumble. I suggested we eat lunch while continuing the rotation, but we’d left our backpacks back at the village.
The older kids were still waiting their turn, and they volunteered to go back and get them all. All of them?!? Did I mention these kids love a challenge…
Simon, Bella and Ru soon arrived with all seven backpacks strung on a pole between them. I think my backpack alone weighs 25 lbs- this was no easy task! But Ru said it was no problem, and demonstrated his ability to lift the entire thing on his own!
The rotation continued as we ate, with each hazel stem getting about four minutes of torch time. I had the very unrealistic idea that we could do this for three different pairs of bushes (three cut, three cut and burned) but it turned out one pair was all we had time for.
Meanwhile, the kids began to explore the area and discovered fatwood. For me, there is an irony in how this unfolded. Over winter break I intended to spend some time exploring the woods and locating a good, new source of fatwood. My plan was to teach about fatwood, lead the group to the selected site, and we’d work to extract it together. But my trip to BC was unexpectedly focused on evicting mice from the toolshed (and cleaning up the mess they left behind) and I never got around to the fatwood project. Still, the desire for this fire aid was in the air so when he brought it up I gave Ru some quick instructions on how to find it, and soon he’d found an epic fatwood stump all on his own.
Finding the fatwood, at least in our forest, is the easy part. Getting it out is what takes some work! The pitch-hardened wood becomes incredibly dense and the inside of a stump is challenging to access. But if you hand Ru a saw- wood will get cut!
Fatwood is such a gift. Looking at these pictures takes me back to the first time I found and gathered fatwood at the BCW. I couldn’t stop grinning, and smelling that incredible smell! I love how this group’s first fatwood discovery came about from their own efforts, with barely any help from me. If you’ve ever tried to make a fire in a VERY wet forest, you can appreciate the magic of this treasure burried inside the moss-covered stumps all around.
Now we have a site to extract fatwood all winter. The kids are natural forest managers and safety monitors- and they wanted to clear the dead, leaning trees from the area. In the process we cut an almost horizonal and barely living cherry tree, that turned out to have beautiful hartwood. One kid requested a slice, then another, and though Ru was willing to keep cutting I suggested I take a section home and cut it on the chop saw. They want to make tree cookie name tags.
Terran tried out the map gas torch, but found that the crackling fire wasn’t his thing. Instead, he made a discovery and came to ask me what it was. I explained that it was a species of lung lichen and that a lichen is an organism made up of the symbiotic relationship between fungi and algae. Intrigued, he got out his field notebook to document his find.
With the energy and enthusiasm around the torching and fatwood, it delighted me that this young researcher found his own connection to the forest- and discovered something none of the rest of us had noticed. One of my favorite things about being part of a team is that we each bring our own knacks and interests. Great things happen when each individual has space to follow their own inspiration.
We had just enough time left for a story and sit spots. I’ve been working on “The Story of the Bear Creek Wilderness” which starts 15,000 years ago and leads to the present day. It’s based on research I’ve done on the area, and it’s a work in progress. Still, the kids have been asking and I’d said “maybe next week” enough times. With the start of the New Year I finally sat them down to tell the tale. I appreciated the gentle teasing as I talked about myself in the third person, and that I could include all six of their names towards the end. Still, their part of the story has only just begun…
It had been nagging me that I still had not taken a group photo- but it turns out we needed to wait for Juniper to join. It’s a goofy, rushed selfie where we couldn’t really see the screen, but this is us right now: the Bear Creek Explorers!