REQUIREMENTS:

TASKS/ASSIGNMENTS, and EXPECTATIONS:

Part #1: Small Group Projects. We are asking that you arrange yourselves into two equal sized groups (which makes about 5/group).  We suggest mixing the levels of outdoor experience betwixt and between you. These groups forthwith will be named: mostly sessile and mostly mobile (we will explain why these names below in section D) and they will be your eating, camping, back-country travel, safety, and kinfolk groups.


 A) Food/Gear: Each of these two groups will operate as the planning/arranging/organizing/care center.  Pretend it is just your group going out into the back-country which means you need to have everything you would need for the 7 days on trail for a group your size.  Amongst the 5 of you, you will menu plan for the trip (think about breakfast Sunday through to breakfast the next Saturday). You will also organize your group gear for the trip (see the attached trip plan and gear list information sheet). Again, think about this as your group going on the river together and making sure you have everything you need in the group to be safe and comfortable (We have attached a short suggested list with some hints about layering and packing. Remember, as you plan and coordinate with everyone about things like weather (it can change and, as you know, get cold and wet), first aid, safety, and the beings (bears and bugs included) that might be interested in you and your stuff).

B) Emergency Action Plan: Each group will send their group’s Emergency Action Plan by June 30^th at 5pm (earlier is better!).  The purpose of this plan is to give everyone some practice putting these things together. They are becoming more standard in public education (they have long been required in outdoor programs) and help us to think through as many contingencies as possible. They also can help parents/caregivers to better understand that we know what we are doing and they do make a difference in a court of law.  Thus, in this plan you should include: group information, medical information, emergency phone numbers, and an action plan in case of an emergency (this might be a layered plan depending upon the level of the emergency).  These action plans vary but usually also include the phone numbers, when to contact, and access points for hospitals, ambulance, fire, search and rescue, police, etc.  We advise you to seek out rich examples on the internet and to bear in mind the actual paperwork that your school/school district might require. And, here are some SFU examples (but seek out others as well!) … Risk Assessment Tool (attached) and Non-Classroom Activities. We also share our plan with all of you once it has been approved as a resource.

Guide: SFU calls these “field activities” (might be a rich dialogue for us around the fire one night): https://www.sfu.ca/srs/work-research-safety/research-safety/field-activities.html (this site includes the guidelines (https://www.sfu.ca/content/dam/sfu/srs/work-research-safety/research-safety/fieldresearch/2021.07.05%20SFU%20Field%20Activity%20Safety%20Guidelines.pdf) and a blank template)

Safety and Risk Services: https://www.sfu.ca/srs/contact.html

And ... from WorkSafe BC: https://www.sfu.ca/earth- sciences/links/external/Articulation/Site%20Body/Sharing/Field%20Trip%20Liability/RiskManagementforOutdoorPrograms-Admin-Inst.pdf


C) Local Operating Procedures/Protocols: Also due June 30^th at 5pm (or earlier!) this paperwork is intended as a description of what might be encountered in this specific backcountry (e.g. hazards, food preparation, water collecting, travel issues, etc.) and how you as a group will deal with them.  These are not so much meant to be hard and fast rules that cover every possible situation but they should give an overview of how you are thinking about responding to the most likely issues and provide a kind of ethos for safety, etiquette, and ways of being in the back-country for your group.  Again the internet, SFU, and your school districts will have myriad examples for you to draw from.  If done well these can become operating documents for future use. 

D) Knowledge of 15-20 of your group’s namesake kinfolk category: Ok, back to these group names of mostly sessile and mostly mobile. The idea is that each member of your group will become an “expert” in (expand their relationship with) three of your namesake’s local representatives.  Now we were going to divide you into flora and fauna but there are some problems with that. First it leaves out all kinds of key kinfolk (e.g. the river, the sun, the rocks). Second, it creates a binary that many beings actively ignore and it tends to lead to hierarchies where say the moose seems more important than the lichen. And third, well we don’t have one but maybe you do. So, we are offering mostly sessile and mostly mobile as another option but feel free to name your kinfolk as you so please. The point is that each of you will select 3 local relatives say Billberry, Lupine, Granite (remember we will spend our time on the Yukon River so unlikely we will encounter Giraffe or Platypus (although that would be cool!)). And check with the rest of your group so that all of you have 3 kin and that you aren’t all doing the same ones.  Once you have your three then your job is to build up your relationship with them and create a two page document (feel free to be creative) for each that includes some of what you have learned.  This might include: pictures from time spent in their company, discovering and writing down various names (Indigenous, Latin, local, preferred), exploring and documenting uses/gifts they offer (medicinal, food, structural, etc.), sharing stories that are told about them, scientific categories (relatives, history, order/genus/species), current state/conditions they tend to live, where they can be found, life cycle, etc.  Just anything you think others might be interested to discover about your chosen kinfolk.  Now, we are going to share these two page “guide book” creations with everyone before we head out.  That way everyone will get 33 entries in their new Yukon River Kinfolk Guide Book!  And then on trail your job will be notice and share what you have learned with others in a somewhat spontaneous (even emergent) manner. Say one of your kinfolk was Lupine and we happen to camp next to a field of them … what a great chance to draw us together and spend a few minutes introducing your key kinfolk to everyone. There is pretty good evidence that most of us can identify and name way more corporate logos then we can living things that live around us … we are going to change that a bit!  And have some fun … don’t stress on this one.

Note: the goal of sections B & C is to give you experience in thinking through this process so it comes readily when you have to do it for your institutions/situations.  Make them work well for you. 

Step #2: Individual Preparatory Work for the course …

This is your chosen 60-90 minuteish presentation/workshop/experience. It is yours to do with as you wish remembering that this is chance to share ideas and to get help in whatever form is useful to you. A great thing that does happen on this kind of trip is that presentations often connect/overlap/speak to each other in interesting and rich ways.  And we get to keep on talking about them cause we don’t all disappear to another classroom, meeting or something else.  Take your time, enjoy the process, and be creative.  

Step #3: Evening Dialogues …

One last course component that we are proposing is a series of evening dialogues—campfire time! Here, we will gather after having eaten, rested, and had a good day to dialogue amongst ourselves on some topic/idea/challenge that we as a group think really needs further chewing on.  We are naming them dialogues because that is the format that we think aligns itself best with this kind of work.  This is also possibly about doing scholarship differently. That is, we are attempting to create the space and means for doing our work in ways that honour both the contributions from work undertaken withing this group, and contributions to our work from the  place itself.

The first evening we will offer a quick overview of dialogue as we have come to understand and encounter it.  At the same time we recognize that there are many ways—some more or less just—to do dialogue and that all of you have skills and experiences to add. The hope is that this will open up space for creating shared “ground-rules”, good stories, rich conversations, dynamite thinking, and some good laughs. We think/know the content will come from our own experiences on the river, your presentations, our histories, the readings, our encounters with the more-than-human, the asks of the place and all-our-relations, etc. At this point we think it might be great to have different pairs (groups of three) take turns facilitating these coming togethers.

Finally, we are thinking to offer a short list of shared reading for us all to do together so there are some ideas bubbling around already as we head out. We have chosen some that we ourselves are still thinking through and wondering about … cause that is how we keep on growing as scholars/researchers/teachers/people.