8/30-Learning more as we explore (Day 21)

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end! -Seneca

Waking up to breakfast and packing at the fastest speed we have yet to accomplish for what would’ve been the longest distance canoeing thus far, we encountered the rain of the mysterious mother nature with her accompanying duo  of lightning and thunder. With lots of excitement to reach the most established campground we believe because of their wonderful invention called a shower, this was something that would have to wait in the eye of mother nature and the leaders of the week as this was backcountry. With everything packed away our group of fourteen napped (self-reflected), studied, played games such as euchre and spent four hours  under the group tarp in anticipation of the weather to stop so we could get on the Grass River and head to Lake Iskwesum. With a cut off time of one o’ clock the weather the persisted so we began to set-up our tents at what was supposed to be our departure site. Up to this day, we have had some of the best weather I could’ve imagined with a few scarce poor condition days in between. But these days serve their importance in teaching us patience, giving us strength and understanding in that there are things out of our hands, as well as an important outdoor leadership skill in risk management. Today is our twentieth day in, meaning about 1/6th of the way through our trip, and 1/3rd of the time in our backcountry expedition. At this point we are only 1/6th of the distance we are to travel on the Grass river backcountry expedition. When tents and tarps were set up certain people had spent time on homework, others did more self-reflection, cooked extravagant meals, but all in all there was lots of time for making choices on how to get ahead on a fully rainy day. Today there was an ample amount of time to accomplish personal tasks while trying to make sure we took care of our main priority of staying dry and warm. One lesson on leadership was taught by Jeff today on simple and complex decision making styles. Up to now, the ECOEE experience has been everything and more; and one thing for sure is that we will be learning more as we explore. Up ahead we lots of ground to gain on our canoeing, averaging about 12 miles a day from here on out! In the motto of ECOEE 2013 ‘Keep on, Keepin’ on!’  ~ Norris Andriuskevicius