day 24 september 8,2009 Day of Lessons!

September 8 Day 24
Today began as most days in backcountry do. Birds chirping, sun shining and, oh yeah, mosquitoes buzzing. With an extra bit of rest courtesy of LOD Jake, we started our morning of catching up on lessons and rest. There was no travel planned for today and it was nice to not have to break camp for once. Our first lesson of the day was some much needed stove repair from Jeff. We disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled our Primuses, Whisperlites and Dragonflies. Afterwards, confident in our oiled pumps and clean screens we proceeded to Matt’s yeast baking lesson. With dough rising in our pots we let off steam with 3 hours of free time. Some caught up on homework, some prepared lessons, some took naps and some enjoyed quality time with our new Canuck friends, eh. Refreshed, we sat down at 3 to return to our lessons. First came the rest of Matt’s yeast instruction, then some animal Outdoor Education from Jake. He talked about the not so cuddly black bears found in the area before taking us to a pile of semi fresh bear feces. I noticed that the bear did not use good LNT principles, and showed no use of a 6x6 hole, no leaving the trail, and didn’t even mark the spot with a stick. Thoroughly scared of the proximity of bears, we returned to the circle for Nathan’s lesson on Expedition Behavior. He described how the group’s individuals, group as a whole, and how the group presents itself all contribute to Expedition behavior. Next followed Josh with an explanation on causes, symptoms and prevention of dehydration. I cannot wait for tomorrow’s toast. Afterwards came Cassie with first aid kits, and Shane with blister control. I finished the session out with an activity on biomes. We then received and gave feedback on the lessons before moving into the final debrief of the day. It was a good day and we tried not to give Jake too much flack for being such a chill guy. After receiving our new tent groups, and an overview of tomorrow, we split up to bake our breads (delicious by the way) and move our gear. Matt finished out a great day with a lesson on astronomy. This is our classroom.
-Grant