When we first connected with the P.I.N.E project this spring, I felt we had stumbled upon the most amazing secret. A programme that nurtured Otis’s curiosity, encouraged him in creative ways to go beyond his comfort zone in nature, and included his family in the process, inspiring us all to get out there more.
Then I thought this shouldn’t be a secret, and proceeded to tell everyone I know about The P.I.N.E Project. (Actually I think some of my friends are tired of hearing me go on and on about how much we love this group!).

The summer camps blew me away. This is not your typical day camp.
What makes it so unique is the amount of thought that goes into each day’s activities, the flexible attitude toward the plan- giving campers the freedom to explore and discover following their own personal passions, all of which is accomplished by having MANY counsellors who are genuine and passionate about their work and in their interactions with the kids.  I loved being included in Otis’s experience through the circles, information sent home and especially the recognition ceremony at the Thursday night bonfire. It was so touching to hear the counsellors talk about the camper’s accomplishments and make them feel like the proud capable people they are. Really, you all went far beyond what a camp “needs” to put out there.

Since camp, we have been singing all the great songs we learned….a lot. Otis has been warning everyone about the nightshade growing around the schoolyard up the street and curing friend’s itchy bite woes with plantain.
One week after camp ended Otis took me and his little brother on an adventure in the Humber Valley. We had a picnic in his old fort area, keeping as quiet and sneaky as we could. I pointed out a heron and Otis said,”mum, its an egret.” Oops.
He led me to the “witches” house just past the three trembling aspen trees (which I wouldn’t have been able to identify) and Otis pointed out the birds nest he knew was up there. We spent the rest of the day skipping rocks and building stone statues. On the way back to the car, we stopped by a bush to listen to a cricket, and discovered a snake skin! Otis sighed with deep satisfaction and said,”Mum, I love nature…..and I hate T.V“  Music to my ears! You guys have certainly sparked a passion within him.

Many, many, thanks to you all for making this such a fantastic and memorable first camp experience for Otis. We are looking forward to more P.I.N.E adventures this fall!

Gwynyth Kier and Otis (5yrs)

When was the last time you used your imagination? Probably not long ago… you were likely off in a sunny cottage destination by the lake, or maybe just a patio…
But what about using your imagination the way you used to as a kid?

When you were young, what kinds of dreams did you dream? What kinds of fantasies did you cook up for play and adventure? I bet they were pretty wild. I work with kids every day, so I get to hear all about them.

While planning out some activities a while back, I started thinking about how important it was to support this imaginative play in children, how it builds our brain power and our ability to imagine greater and greater possibilities in life. And then I realized that I wasn’t actually doing it. The kids were always cooking up amazing stories and enacting imaginative roles and play, and I just encouraged it, but rarely joined, and never initiated.

I decided this wasn’t good enough. And that I was just being a boring adult. When I was a kid, I hated boring adults! Standing there all rigid and unable to pretend to be anything cool… UGH!

When we planned our camps this summer, we used this as motivation. It guided the creation of a camp rich with naturalist learning, adventure, and imagination… all motivated by characters and storylines. Here’s a story from camp as Amyann, one of our staff gives her story of the day:

“I’m dressed in black, in 35 degree Toronto weather. Charcoal has coloured the skin on my arms and legs. My face has been decorated in black face paint, with white accents. I wear a black cape, hood pulled low over my face. Its silver sparkles shiver in the sun.

Today I am Raven.

I crouch low to the side of a sizable bush. I’ve just come from helping “Wild Uncle Loki”, (another character in our camp storyline) set up a booby trap on the Southern team. I’m staking them out, waiting to hear their reactions when they trip the line that has been rendered invisible by the thick brush around it. Soon, I hear it. Shouts of shock and sheer delight. A camper trips the line. And then I hear more screams. Loki has worked his trickster magic and stalked up to a camper without him knowing. While everyone is occupied trying to figure out how a sleeping bag fell from the sky, his “paws” grab the camper’s legs from out of nowhere and everyone around yelps. “How did he do that?!” I leave soundlessly to visit other groups, as this crew is engaged and wild about learning how to move silently through the woods and become invisible.

The Eastern team is looking forward to visiting the witch in her lair down by the river.

They are waiting for me when I get there. I hear them surmising out loud where the witch could have gone. But they don’t see me. I am watching from the Manitoba Maple saplings, and the raspberry bushes. I quiet my energy and my breathing. I imagine that I am a shadow, the shadow of a tree; I imagine that I am invisible, that I am earth. Slowly, with greatest care, I inch forward. Toes first, knees parallel to the ground, body arched and low, hood down.

I get within a few feet of the group. They’re being distracted by Michael the photographer. He’s asking them to teach him about wild edibles. Suddenly one camper returns to the group from the water. He sees me, points, and states, wide-eyed, “What is that?” “Is it the Witch?”

“What are you doing there, Witch?”

“Spying on you,” I say in my most cryptic and mischievous voice.

“Boy, you don’t look like a witch today!”

“I’m in my Raven form. Sometimes I like to shapeshift into my favourite animals. The Raven is such a powerful magical figure, and I like flying.”

“We have been given a mission from Loki and we need your help! We have to fix Loki’s Axe. It needs a new handle. We’ve been given a white willow rod for a handle, but we need something to attach the stone to the stick. Steve helped us collect and prepared nettle stalks yesterday for cordage, but we need to learn how to make it.”

“I can definitely show you how to make cordage out of nettle!” And so while some campers learn to bend the willow stem and make it the right size for an axe handle, some join me and Steve to make nettle rope. We do it in teams of two. Take a few strands in one hand, a few strands in another. Tie them together. Begin twisting to the right. One person holds the left strands and twists, one holds the right strands and twists. And, sure enough, alchemy! The strands come together and form a strong rope (out of nettle stalk!). After 20 minutes we have over 10 feet of sturdy rope for hafting the axe together. As a group we figure out how to best fasten the stone axe head to its branch-handle. The finished product is gorgeous. Each kid wants to hold it and test out their handiwork.

And all of a sudden, Loki is in the midst of our group. “Where did you just come from, Loki?!” One kid shouts, “I saw him just jump 13 feet from that tree! How did he do that?!”

Uncle Loki inspects his repaired axe and congratulates the group. He has a new mission for them. They must meet him in a designated area, and he will test their speed, strength and stealth abilities-train them to be true coyote scouts, like himself. And then, with hardly a warning, he is off.

Later I am trailing Loki. I follow close behind him, emulating his body movements. Avoiding certain plant clusters with him, traipsing straight through others. Up onto a steep hillside, our animal-sense of balance and agility kicks into higher gear. I am learning by observing and mimicking. I listen when he listens. I hide when he hides. I get a text from Andrew (I haven’t given up the convenience of this modern technological magic-even as a Raven-Witch) His team is heading back to their home base. I could hide there and wait for them. I jump on the opportunity. I fight my way through nettle, refusing to take the easy path, the beaten, well-used trail. (Hoping the charcoal on my legs will shield against some of the sting.) My eyes are open for poison ivy, and for wild parsnip; I stick to the bush and make my way to their base. So many bird alarms. I can’t hide my raven presence from the birds. If any of the kids were in the fort, they’d be tipped off at once. But they are nowhere in sight (or in my range of hearing).

I look for a good place to wait and spy. They have a wickedly bent Manitoba Maple tree just on the fringe of their site, spreading from the earth at about 45 degrees (easy climbing!). I take off my moccasins, leaving them under the shelter as a sign, and use my bare feet to climb. It is exhilarating, climbing this tree, secretly, not knowing when they’ll be back. I explore the heights of it and finally settle on a cozy nook between two branches. And then I wait. I breathe deeply, taking in the day, taking in the bird sounds, feeling the coolness of bark on bare patches of skin.

Soon the birds sound again. I hear voices coming up the trail. They’re coming. My heart speeds up. I try to become a bird, a branch. Two come in, then three, four, five. They don’t see me, although I’m sure their leader’s honed eyes have spotted me already (they don’t let on though). Then, one camper comes through the tall grasses and looks up immediately. “Who is that? What are you doing here?”

“It’s the witch; it’s the witch!”

“That’s our lookout tree! How did you get up there?”

“I flew, of course!”

“Oh, yeah!”

“How come we didn’t see you there at first?”

“It’s because I can become invisible. You can learn to be invisible too! If you learn to look like nature around you, so that you blend in, and there is no difference between you and it. Loki can help you out with that!”

And then, one, two, three, four begin their own ascent into the tree. I move to make way for them when they reach me. I talk about why I like being a raven sometimes, the gifts ravens have. We talk about what animals each of the campers has inside them-which animals they would like to be able to shape-shift into. A black bear. A raccoon. A flying squirrel! No, a black bear, a cougar and a flying squirrel!

Then, relaxing in the branches, I begin telling a story. I have just the one for this occasion!

This is real magic.

Coyote camp is different.

A story from the first week:

Amidst the context of a multi-day, multi-team game similar to capture the flag, Tim and I set off from “Meeting Tree”, the huge willow our group had designated as it’s meeting spot away from our “base”. Some members of the group were heading off to track animals and make track casts, while others were heading back to the base to shore up defenses, set traps, or just hang out. Tim and I had other plans. We were the raiding party, sent to scout out other teams bases, steal their flags, and deliver presents to them without them ever noticing (a mission scoring 1.5 times the points as stealing their flag). We set out along the shoreline of the Humber River. We stuck close to the brush, crouched and sneaking quietly with the water covering the sound of our movement.
We passed a concrete wall in the grass, climbing up over it and moving on our bellies back toward the forest edge.
We moved quietly along the edges, just inside the forest, covering distance, but moving as close to silently as we could.
As we neared the base, we got low. Many minutes were spent on our bellies, still, waiting, watching the team members as they passed by us, unaware of our presence. Finally Tim took his opportunity and delivered a present (one of the kids “fishing rods” they’d made and lost… we found it and took it upon ourselves to bring it back!). He quietly tucked it inside their shelter, and moved away unseen and unheard. We left quickly but quietly, and started a new mission.

Looping around to the southern side of the same base, we crawled up trees above other teams, watching them play along the waters edge. We moved slowly, never seen. We made it up into a willow tree directly above the main base, and planned our next move. Our only giveaway were the Blue Jays alarm calling above us with their typical “sneeeeeeeeeeak!” call that seems to happen whenever they catch someone being sneaky. We also pushed a new family of Robin’s out of their nest, with one fledgling landing on the foot of one of the opposing team staff sitting below the tree.
We worked our way down a ladder of trees below us, over to their fort, and with Tim standing on my shoulders, stick in hand, stole their flag.
A silent dash back to camp was only interrupted by a bit of backtracking and a nifty move to avoid a scouting party on their way back from a mission of their own.
We arrived home to tell the tales of our afternoon, and help the team pack up for the day. We returned the flag and shared our stories, though word had spread throughout the opposing teams that we had successfully achieved what was thought to be impossible.

It was a great afternoon. One spent quietly, paying attention, with all of our senses tuned in to our surroundings. It’s not often that one has the opportunity, or need to pay attention to the world around them in such a way, which is exactly why we have created this camp. It’s an opportunity to develop sensory awareness, is full of naturalist lessons, play time in nature, and connecting to urban wild places in very different ways. Simple ways. Old ways. Much they way your grandparents or great grandparents might have done. Or maybe you.

This kind of play is virtually lost to the experience of childhood today, especially in the city. So we’re giving it a chance, and the results have blown us away. Coyote’s, we can’t wait to see you next year!

A-ooooooooooooooooooooo!

“Before PINE, I used to go around the water, now I run through it!”
-Anna Toner, Wanderers Camper, Age 10

Wooooohooooooo! What an amazing week!
Our first week of day camps (EVER!) is in the books, and though it was a lot of work, our campers and parents went home happy, and tired! We wandered through three different parks, cleaning up the places we love, singing to each other and the land, played tons of games and went through the ups and downs of ant bites, stinging nettle, poison ivy and thunderstorms! We had plays and stories, and we listened to the wisdom of the birds and trees and clouds and rain.

The greatest part is that all of these things made us stronger. They made us better. They made us more aware. I can’t emphasize how much I love seeing kids go through a challenge, a small challenge like an ant bite or running through stinging nettle. But the most important part is this: The kids must be supported to get through it. And that’s what we’re here for. We’re the aunties and uncles that won’t just hug a child and try to love them better with the first sign of a tear. We challenge them to battle through their difficulty, and find strategies to teach them that everything they really need is inside of them already. We support them to find ways to do so. This is what we saw all week.

The campers learned how to deal with small challenges, they learned that challenges are often mostly in one’s own mind, and can be as big or small as we let them be. They learned to be aware of both the plants and hazards that caught them off guard in the first place, but also of the plants that heal these little aches and pains. They problem solve. They help each other and show each other how to find solutions to their problems. They become more resilient. They learn that being outside is great. All the time. No exceptions. They grow fast when you give them the space. When you set an expectation high, they rise.

IT’S BEAUTIFUL.

“I’m thankful for the ant bites. Even though they hurt me earlier this week, I wouldn’t know Plantain and Dandelions and Jewelweed in the same way that I do now if I hadn’t been bitten.”
- Josephine Good, Wanderers Camper, Age 6

Profound.
This is what Josie, one of our youngest campers said to me on our second last day of camp. She sounded wiser than most adults I know. It brought a tear to my eye. She’s a special little child.
In any case, camps are off and running. The summer is short, and we’re going to make the most of it. No complaining about a lack of air conditioning, sweaty offices, or anything really! Just fun and adventure wherever we can find it. And let me tell you, kids can find adventure anywhere, so long as we get out of their way long enough to let em do it!

Photos

Nature educator Mark Morey to speak on cultural mentoring and creating nature connection at RBG June 25

Workshop Series: Creating a Culture of Nature Connection

Along with the RBG talk, Morey will lead two intensive workshops for adults who want to learn how to foster nature connection in children:

Presentation and storytelling. Cost: PWYC ($10 suggested donation)
June 25 7-10pm, Royal Botanical Gardens, Burlington, ON

A three hour event with Mark Morey and the Ontario Art of Mentoring Team, providing inspired examples of different cultural perceptions of nature connection, and stories of indigenous cultural tools and skill sets used to connect people with nature. Mark will be sharing insights on how these are proving highly successful in connecting people with nature in our modern world. You’ll also learn more about what Mark refers to as “Cultural Mentoring” and how it can be used to create healthier environments, relationships, and communities.

1 Day Workshop: 8 Tools for connecting people and nature.
June 26 9:30am-4:30pm, Norval Outdoor School, Georgetown, ON.

This workshop is for all ages, and kids under 13 are free! We’ll have concurrent adult and childrens programs, in a day long workshop providing a taste of what the Cultural Mentoring is all about. Through experiential learning, we’ll touch on 8 essential tools to connect with nature, including:

A copy of the Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature is a part of the workshop, regularly valued at $35 US. If you already have a copy, you can pay a reduced rate of $55 for the day. Please bring your own lunch, and a pot luck dinner dish if you wish to stay for dinner.

Overnight Workshop: Creating adolescent rites of passage programs.
June 26-27/2010 7pm -11am, Norval Outdoor School, Georgetown, ON.

A program for adults focused on experiencing and creating rites of passage programs led by Mark Morey. He’ll be giving people an experiential evening of what a rite of passage program looks like and discussing tools to use to create these for youth in their own community. Cost is $50 for the night. Email info@pineproject.org, or call 647 991 7463 to get more information and apply to this program.

5 Day Art of Mentoring Course
August 25-29/2010, Norval Outdoor School, Georgetown, ON.

The five day Art of Mentoring Course is an experience for all ages.  This course is for nature enthusiasts of all kinds, teachers, outdoor educators, and parents looking for new tools to inspire greater connection to nature in their own lives, and the lives of those they work with. You’ll leave with increased naturalist knowledge as well as a greater capacity to create an inspiring context (culture) to inspire nature connection in people of all ages, and integrate this into their daily life. Staff provide mentorship, while teaching participants to mentor others. Themes and curriculum include:

• Models that inspire effective educational experiences based on the cycles of nature.

• Games, activities, and songs which draw people young and old into nature.

• The role of storytelling in nature education and how it is used in cultures that live close to the earth.

• Drawing out your own stories to use in mentoring relationships with youth.

• Profiling the journey toward increased awareness and appreciation of the natural world.

• Common pitfalls and “walls” mentors face.

• Creating safe environments for students to grow, experiment, and make mistakes.

• Immersion into some “core routines” to help build awareness of nature in yourself and your students.

• Enjoy a community of people learning, teaching, and experiencing increased connection to nature.

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Back to the Art of Mentoring Main Page

The P.I.N.E. Project will be represented at Headwaters, and will be co-ordinating the Children’s programming for the weekend. We’ve got a great wander planned around Kimbercote, and we’re aiming to harvest a variety of herbs for teas with the Kids. They’ll then be running a short session for the adult on Sunday teaching them about the lessons and stories from our adventure! It’s a great weekend for all ages, and all people. Come out and push your skills and knowledge, meet great people and become a part of a growing community of people in Ontario committed to creating a culture of nature connection in our lives.

From the Headwaters facebook event page:

A Culture of Nature Connection
Twice a year (Spring & Fall) interested individuals from Ontario and abroad gather in large numbers for the Headwaters Earth Skills Gathering. It is a weekend of workshops, story telling, trading goods, sharing knowledge, and celebrating life.
The gatherings emphasis is on traditional & ancient earth-based skills that help us build deep relationships with nature while learning about its cycles and ecosystems through direct interaction. Creating a resilient culture of nature connection is our intention. No prior experience is required.
Some of the skills we use to achieve this include: Learning to track wildlife, understanding bird language, plant ID including harvesting edible and medicinals, ancient friction fire making, primitive cooking, yoga & martial arts, sensory awareness, traditional archery, singing around the fire, listening, and much much more.
Saturday night we hold a community pot luck and trading circle of hand crafted/harvested and other goods. We also engage in a stewardship project each gathering to give thanks to the land for supporting our learning.
All participants are expected to pitch in with camp duties and will be assigned a work crew on arrival to the gathering. This is the fifth headwaters celebration and the momentum & teachings keeps on building

For more information and registration go to:

http://www.earthmentorship.com/Headwaters/

To begin with, a small circle of people on the grass in the Humber Valley indicated a rather relaxing afternoon. Gone were ideas of individual kids, family, and adult activities. Gone were ideas of an afternoon filled with programming, and (lightly) structured play. A group of seven of us, all similar ages sat and chatted, introduced ourselves to each other, and discussed some of the things we were excited to search out and learn today. Plants and birds were the focus. Flowers littered the lawn, and Red Winged Black Birds created the soundtrack to the afternoon, so this was less than surprising. By the time we’d actually gotten started, we’d been joined by multiple families and a handful of others for an afternoon of learning outside.

One of the volunteers at the Tracking Club describes the story of the day:

We began with a song, sitting in a circle of no more than 8, but enjoying the sun, the wind and the bird song:

Celebrate the sun all around

Celebrate the green plants growing from the ground

Celebrate the new paradise we’ve found

Celebrate the sun all around

And celebrate we did! We searched out wildflowers, listened to the birds, explored the river bank, and appreciated the day that spring brought us.

The afternoon started with wildflower IDing. For an hour we became nature detectives, crawling around in the bushes of the Humber Valley. It was a collaborative effort figuring things out – first what we were looking at, holding, smelling, and then whether it was edible. Anything that turned out to be edible went down the hatch. We were focused on lawn plants to begin with, so we weren’t worried about eating rare or endangered species. Dandelions were everywhere, and we even had some wild carrot. While we were feasting, one of the kids who joined us was playing at the river with her mom. The lucky pair got to watch a doe and two fawns cross the Humber! What a cool experience! Am I jealous? Obvi. But my goal for the day was to learn more about wildflowers, and now I know, among other things, that burdock makes awesome toilet paper (the leaves, not the burrs). So I wouldn’t trade my time in the grass, but I will be keeping my eyes peeled for deer!

Later, a few of us went on a little adventure that began with building an awesome little fort. Our leader, 6 year old Wilkie, was the genius architect behind it. We satisfied our inner contractors with a cross-hatch design and bark to seal the holes. After realizing it was only big enough for one adult and one child, those who couldn’t fit got jealous and we moved on to exploring the riverbank and collecting some garbage to clean up an otherwise beautiful area. The sticky mud was perfect for preserving tracks, providing our deer fix for the day when we found perfect hoof prints. Wilkie also found a pretty gnarly dead fish, which we all decided was a bottom feeder of some sort, due to the shape of it’s mouth. Once we’d hunted around and collected a full bag of garbage, we wandered back to the others and told stories of our adventure.

One of the other participants hit it on the nose – as awesome as it can be to explore a park by yourself, there’s something special about doing it with a group of like-minded people. It’s one heck of a community to belong to!

It was a really nice afternoon that I carried with me into the night as I re-joined the downtown population… along with a few dandelions to chow on.

Woohooo! Our next Tracking Club meeting is coming up this weekend (April 24 from 1-4pm in the Humber Valley… meeting in King’s Mill Parking Lot). Here’s a post from last month, along with a link to a Torontoist article on p.i.n.e. and the Tracking Club!

“Ah the eternal struggle between cotton candy and trail mix.
My niece had no doubt which was winning out in her mind as she gazed longingly at the cart parked in the parking lot near the High Park zoo. But it took only minutes for her to come around to my perspective (namely that we were here to play in the woods and eat nuts and berries, not sugary cotton-batten), thanks to a giant fort built over an eroded hole in the side of a hill and covered with sticks; a beat down animal path through the woods that led to a raccoon, rabbit or coyote hole (we’re still not sure which); and a half hour spent chasing her brother around on all fours in a game of fox-and-raccoon.
There were enough explorers in attendance for us to split into three groups, and after an unselfconscious sing-a-long to start us off, we set out with a scavenger hunt list in hand. On the list: something soft, something spiky, something that smelled good and something that smelled bad, something that tasted good and something that tasted bad, an animal’s home, something alive, something dead, and a good hiding place. One group’s ‘alive’ siting was a resident coyote, whom they tracked through print and scent until they found him hanging out in a marshy area, looking not at all surprised that he’d been found.
After learning how to walk like a raccoon and fox and bound like a squirrel, my hip flexors were screaming in pain, and I knew I’d had a good afternoon. It was the first day of spring, and I’d seen some swelling buds, smelled some coyote pee and stroked a branch of staghorn sumac, named for its resemblance to the young, velvety antlers of a male deer. My nephew had a chick-a-dee land on a branch inches from his face while he was in the hiding spot he’d found, and though there was no cotton candy for my niece, there was a cookie waiting in the car and some throughly grass-stained jeans to take home as a trophy.”

P.I.N.E. is hosting four great classes this season focusing on plants, their various uses, and their stories.

It’s amazing to walk into the woods and feel like you’re walking through a room full of people you know. Names and stories, memories, and tons of amazing uses: foods, medicines, and stories galore! We’re sad to see the snow and amazing tracking go, but the plants have their own stories to tell, and so much to teach! We’re so excited, and hope you are too!

We also want to encourage people to use plants wisely. Many have strong medicines in them, or are growing in very sensitive areas around the city and the parks. Don’t harvest where you’re not allowed, identify plants using multiple sources, and only eat plants you know well, or with a more experienced individual.

All that said, the following courses are all about giving you the skills and ability to get to know the spring and summer plants in your local area and beyond with a depth of knowledge you never imagined was possible!

Call or email for information and to register! Last years plants classes filled up fast!

647 991 7463            info@pineproject.org