Field Trip

Last weekend we had an overnight field trip in Ely. Our Friday night was spend at an YMCA camp, and a picture shows some of their very first cabins from the 30's. We went because they also receive school groups during the year, but they do it on a much smaller scale. Their biggest week is 120, while ours is 380. They have a much more fluid style, while we have a set curriculum. Although I should clarify that while we have curriculum here and set concepts/lesson plans for each class....it still varies quite a bit from naturalist to  naturalist on what we actually do. 

But this camp actually has existed much longer as a summer camp and is really well established. The summer is based on trips, backpacking or canoeing anywhere in  US and Canada. Picture of us checking out their trips in Ontario. 

 They also construct their on wood canvas canoes there....pretty cool.





And  each canoe in  their fleet has it's own journal. Whenever a canoe is taken on a trip they come back and write about it's adventure. Pretty cute.

We also spent a lot of time just hanging out with our teaching equivalents there. Friday night we also did a sauna and dip. Ok so MN's do this crazy thing where they sauna, and then jump into a frozen lake. The cut a whole about 4x4 feet and put a ladder in. I had avoided this whole process until now but felt like I really had to check it off my list. The worst parts could be any of the following: sweating profusely in the sauna, stepping out of the sauna  and seeing the steam emulate from yours and others bodies, the 30 second run to hole in the lake, jumping in the lake, freaking out trying to get out of the lake, the 30 second run back to the sauna, or when you are still cold after coming back into the sauna. So anyways, checked it off my list, probably will never do it again. 

 Then on Saturday we visited the International Wolf Center to visit a little with their education department....and read their cool bathroom stall literature :)




  Look at how cute the wolf is! They have wolves there that were all born in captivity and they call it their ambassador pack.

And lastly, I have lots of fun photos of ice on Lake Superior. Starting with frozen harbor at Duluth Canal Park, lighthouse in Two Harbors, and ice sheets piling up north of me.