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R emembering Mike Tramping Trail with Elroy in the Early Years of CELP By Karen O’Krafka I am sipping tea on the eve of a week-long years, but time flowed down the Speed River winter trip — over a decade since I first and I end up here, writing about his legacy. tramped trail with Mike Elrick into the winter wilderness. This evening holds for me the I thought it might be interesting to have same electricity that it did in 1997 — anxiety perspectives on the early years of CELP, but and excitement — when Elroy guided a realize that Mike’s qualities are indelible. I’m motley crew of teens (his gang) into the sure that these qualities resonate with who he woods and frozen waters of Algonquin Park. has always been as a teacher and as a person; With his wealth of wisdom, Mike carefully there seemed to be no separation between his crafted those frozen days of prospector tents, roles, and no wavering from his foundations baking bannock, singing, solos, star gazing of integrity and authentic living. Mike taught and frozen-fingered guitar groove into the who he was — not from his intellect but first few steps of a semester-long journey. Our from his heart. He taught from his family, his journey meandered through winter, spring breadth of skills and his passions. He would and summer, and explored a rich geography share stories of his young son Nick, sing his of life that failed to penetrate our school walls. favorite songs, tell of epics on the trail and We were intrepid, exploring the confluence share both the greatest successes and most of community, environment and leadership, difficult challenges of his professional life and gaining invaluable life skills to meet in rich detail. There was always a timely the challenge of any life expedition. This anecdote to enhance our experience. He was journey was the Community Environmental a musical maven, a bread baker, and so many Leadership Program (CELP). more marvelous things all in the same breath, and it seemed that he wanted to teach the Whatever the brochure might have portrayed richness of life, not just academics. of tidy toboggans and well-baked bread, this semester-long program wasn’t just a These memories have informed so many casual wander through the wilderness. CELP experiences of continued growth and proved to be a challenging expedition into learning for me, constantly encouraging me uncharted territories of communication, to live well. Some have taken on a dreamlike conflict resolution, teaching and learning. quality, or grown into myths in my mind. There were community day cooking disasters, Where memories blend together into the soft days when we thought the “rain” — a brilliant blur of time, the clarity and effervescence of metaphor for conflict resolution circles my journal has endured. It remembers the replete with rain stick — would never end, textures and expressions of CELP 1997 — a and even the blurred boundary between the brief moment shared with Mike, like so many new sense of self we felt emerging through moments had with so many students, on the our experiences and the familiar life of high winter trail or biking through bioregions. school we greeted upon our return from Crief Mike encouraged this documenting of Hills every afternoon. Mike was an anchor experience, and his penned notes in the and an ear through all of our tumult. He had margins of my entries challenged thoughts patience and passion to match all of our angst. and encouraged reflection. With a few pen He spoke to us as though he were sharing our strokes he could validate our struggles S journey. This wasn’t old hat for him; he was in and invite us to continue. He would write: Y the immediacy of our experience, but brought “Yes!”, “great stuff seeing the positive,” A W good long-burning hard wood to temper our “sounds powerful, have to chat more,” and H sometimes furious fires. Whenever we tripped “we journeyed forward that day” — and we T A on our impatience or haste, Mike gently knew he meant it. Authenticity was at the P reminded us of the gifts of time for learning fore of how he interacted with us. On one these hard lessons. He said it takes ten years entry where I debated future paths, he wrote 34 to truly learn something. Our impatient about how he had applied to medical school adolescence could hardly conceive of ten years back. How were we so fortunate that Remembering Mike he chose the path of educator and mentor to admit his error, and endured constant instead? ribbing — in fact our semester was lubricated by the varnish incident. And no one was He chose this path, and was constantly better at reminiscing than Elroy. learning and fine-tuning the program. He shared that learning with us and never Epics also hid in the woods around our log obscured his mistakes. We all learned from cabin classroom. What an experience to tap those early challenges and his learning trees and boil down sap as thank yous for enriched ours. One epic from our semester our numerous guests, and sticky joy for our was our winter camp food boxes. These Earthkeeper students. Sometimes our efforts containers might often be a footnote in a boiled over; once they boiled dry, scorching winter expedition, but not for us. Mike was our labour into the bottom of our fire-heated experimenting on our trip, and as with all pans. Mike shared our frustration at the experiments, this one had an unexpected loss of a big batch. We cursed and kicked outcome. We had cardboard containment for the ground, and then we scrubbed the pan our food, and anyone who has watched the and began again. We learned to persevere, interaction of cardboard and the elements and enjoy the sweetness of hard-earned, knows that water always wins. But what if we sometimes burned success. added spar varnish to our cardboard boxes? Surely what works for boats and paddles and And no one celebrated our successes, big and snowshoes would waterproof cardboard as small, more than our mentor, Mike. I will well. Yes, our food was dry and contained, tramp trail this week to the rhythm of his but varnish vapours pervaded our senses for songs and in thanks for his gifts. an entire week — lingering in our oatmeal, our lunchtime bagels and gorp, and revisiting Karen O’Krafka is a teacher candidate in the us constantly in well-varnished burps. Some Queen’s University Outdoor and Experiential ideas are better than others, and there was Education program, and is a huge fan of integrated learning. The best part? Mike had the humility high school programs. MaitwttEumtshoph au pi arctareempfsvahdaenctmlpemt hydyr f te ,leteot hremi8n ahihss.etti m,aseo e Co mhf wri2 s wpr nofm 0i wnaiogauondtr0eomyglriretd ei. n r4hit nm eSsgth t cde tthst—eauvt ar hdettoeirani eip r ttt li thfIaa,at c hnl aotwthm adetvihudenoa h ea etonacst esy e y hto oBab shsoeg lttte,aarrpo r arvbrataEgatip iedhtyodniokd h geedinittangn ol nlhrc e1 ue2i hwbosnee sf e afeoaeopomCosclnf for rkl fedeedi to neosdw Mh,t grt waoFtreebe arh eeaarauyGl kbmiy a/stLr p tn uJ l—uwdmtooaiesuhadtt.ol orpnel egO.ug rrteynheoSc.hn u iktihanaaMetnra ngn neog ra ddda ktd e home and native land. S Just as I was thinking all this through a large broad- AY winged hawk landed in a cedar across from me. It W H was huge. The blue jays were trying to scare it away AT with their call. I went out to see it closer. Beautiful. It P simply had the feeling of good medicine. A sign from 35 the great spirit — and just good energy all around. Not to say this grade 12 thing will happen, but things feel good.