Storytelling and Kindred Stewards in the Land of the Midnight Sun: EECOM Conference 2001 - Telling Our Stories

By Peter Lenton

Connections: Newsletter of the Global, Environmental and Outdoor Education Council of Alberta, Volume 26, Number 1, Winter 2002

I was met at the one and only airport arrivals gate by the beaming smiles of two friends Mac & Jo (Mac works for the Canadian Parks & Wilderness Society (CPAWS), where he torments the virtually unchecked mining companies and politicians into operating responsibly).

I learn that Air Canada Cargo has sent my tub of workshop props to Salmon Arm!!?! But my guitar appears to be in one piece... I will survive! People in wrap-around sunglasses are greeting their contacts with hugs and kisses, birds are singing, almost everyone seems to be smiling... I smile at the thought of the upside-down-thermometer-head man erupting in an angry red faced mime in the car next to me in a Calgary rush hour road rage the night before... I¹m in the wild Yukon now!

For those of us with jammed frontal lobe RAM, EECOM is The Canadian Network for Environmental Education and COMmunication, the national parent organisation to our provincial GEOEC of the ATA (just a couple more acronyms for our short term memories!) The last EECOM Conference I attended was two years ago in the picturesque seaside town of St. Andrew¹s, New Brunswick (also a fantastic experience). In August of 2002, you could be attending the next conference in Montreal (more later!).

I must admit... I'm a little intimidated. All of these practising artists and academics gathering, to explore the potential of language (and other) arts, and to encourage individuals to lessen their ecological footprint (impact) on the earth. There are famous people coming. They are published, some have Ph.D's, and many are living the artist's life.... Dedicating their days to helping us reconnect with the natural world that still supports our existence. They are teasing out the most effective methods for teachers and interpreters, to remind us that we are a part of the living web, not omnipotent beings existing apart from the world that evolved us.

I'm so excited about the charged potential of all the upcoming experiences that I can imagine doing a standing back flip with a double half gainer! If you think about it... that amounts to not moving at all... perhaps due to sheer exhaustion. But maybe that cup-o-joe I quaffed at the Midnight Sun Coffeehouse (justifiably reputed one of the best java joints in North America!) was not actually decaffeinated. And this midnight light and the intoxicating scents of midsummer wildflowers have my circadian clock whirling it's arms around like one of those accelerating transition sequences in an old time movie. This scene sets the stage for the next week.

This year's conference theme, Telling Our Stories, was an exciting context for many environmental educators who believe in the limitless power of the narrative as a vehicle for fostering environmental literacy.

Everyone has a story. Every stranger you pass on the street has a myriad of tales they could tell. Similarly, every living thing offers volumes of lessons we could be learning…if we would only listen... if they could only speak...

What would an elder golden eagle say to the passionate environmental educator? What would one of the last few Barbary apes in Morocco say about the potentially detrimental effects of globalisation? If Burrowing owls could speak... what would they say about habitat loss and the drastic reduction of plant diversity on the Canadian prairies?

Humans are blessed with the gift of language and speech. Storytelling can offer distilled and entertaining lessons of how to survive and hopefully, thrive, in the world. Telling tales boosts our self-esteem, celebrates our social nature, and gives us inspiration for taking action. If you believe that physical and emotional investment in learning situations increases the likelihood of travelling the path from raising awareness to acquiring knowledge to taking action, telling stories is one of the most effective tools that a global-minded outdoor educator can pack in their satchel of teaching tricks!

The Yukon Territory and Whitehorse provide the perfect backdrop for this conference. Development and the 'harvest' of natural resources are snowballing processes poised to transform the relatively unmarred, river and mountain contour lined map of the Yukon Territory. If you look at a map of Alberta, it is almost too late. The thorough lattice work of 'access' roads make our province look like one of those schematic diagrams of blood supply capillary networks to places like the face and fingers (and other sensitive regions of our bodily geography that cannot be discussed in print).

Regular grids of red roads in every area of Alberta merge into blobs of red around our cities. Carrying the map/circulatory system analogy too far, there are relatively few blue (venous) or river lines on the Alberta map carrying away the waste we produce and accumulate in cities. In the Yukon, there are lots of fat blue lines running wild all over the place. All the life giving blue makes the Yukon look vibrant and healthy. Most of Alberta's little blue squiggles are already dammed. One of the questions being asked at this conference is: can we use stories to learn from our past mistakes?

The first day of workshops is a feast for practitioners taking a break from the trenches. One session was called The Wild Heart of Muskwa-Kechika. A narrative documentary video and Master's degree project by Gary Holub (also an evocative songwriter/performer), it is a collage of shared values, intimate experiences and community ties to the wild and sensual landscape of northern British Columbia and a visionary journey towards its protection.

Another intriguing research-in-progress presentation, by MJ Barrett, from York University, is Schools and Community Merge: A Model for Working Together on Local Sustainability Projects. This project told the story of Learning for a Sustainable Future's evolving Community Institutes -- two-day community gatherings which bring teachers, high school students, business and community leaders meet to discuss local sustainability issues and develop action plans to implement together.

After great coffee and decadent chocolate chip cookies (aren't the food/social interactions one of the best parts of a great conference?) I slipped into another session... by Lesley Curthoys, Lakehead University, entitled: Listening to the Landscape: The Vital Role of "Telling Stories" in the Interpretive Planning Process, where she proposes that Heritage interpretation is about telling stories: stories that link both residents and visitors to the local Bio region. But where do these stories come from? Typically, the interpretive planning process has drawn upon expert rather than folk knowledge; Curthoy's framework includes a landscape perspective where both are considered.

Next, Denise Philippe of Evergreen, BC presented Stewards and Storytellers: Tales of School Ground Change and the People who Make it Happen, relating stories of students, parents and teachers who have transformed their school grounds into outdoor classrooms, natural habitats, and special, imaginative play spaces for children. Together participants shared their own memories of play and nature in school ground spaces, and explored strategies for making our contemporary school grounds into landscapes of learning.

Facilitators from South Africa, Czech Republic, Australia and Portugal and ocean to ocean in Canada share their stories... Virtually all of the day's sessions intrigue me... I wish (briefly) to be cloned so that I may attend them all...

The afternoon wrapped up with a session about a physical/spiritual journey down the Spey River in Scotland ( where, incidentally, many of the world¹s best single malt scotch distilleries can be found!). The title of the session hooks a huge crowd: SpeyGrian: Sunshine on the Water. It is an attempt to explore aspects of Scottish cultural heritage using a cross-disciplinary approach in an outdoor setting. In this presentation, poet Gerry Cambridge and educators Joyce Gilbert & Bonnie Maggio combined music, slides and poetry to tell the story of the unusual river journey which led to the formation of the SpeyGrian Group in Scotland. There is a great deal of foreshadowing for heart warming poetry reading and singing that Joyce & Bonnie deliver at the Arts Bash Open Stage two nights later.

That evening at the Kwanlin Dun Potlatch House, we are served a scrumptious dinner of plank smoked salmon, brazened vegetables with wild rice... accompanied by swishes of fine wine and the fascinating company of other delegates.

Post dinner entertainment included a spirited set from environmental singer songwriter Remy Rodden, an excellent 'state of the nation' Yukon slide show by CPAWS, and an evocative presentation from First Nations story-teller, Louise Profeit-Leblanc.

A midnight hike, some song sharing and basking in the seemingly never-ending sunset rounded out the day, before settling in for a few hours sleep before day two.

Thursday July 19, 2001: Plenary Speaker, Robert Bringhurst, set the tone for the day with his inspiring talk entitled The Tree of Meaning: reflections on a decade of reading and translating nineteenth-century Haida oral poets.

Following workshops included titles like:

World View and Nature in Science Education: Learning Care as Good Science
(Larson Rogers, UBC)

Fostering a Sense of Wonder: Primary Teachers' Experiences in the Outdoor Classroom (Marcia Klein, University of Saskatoon)

The Stories (Woman) Teachers Tell: Seven Years of Community-Action-Oriented Environmental Education in the North of Portugal (Patrícia Fontes, University of Minho, Portugal)

The first session I attended was simply called: The Story of Parks, by Gillian Henderson of York University, which explored educational and interpretive strategies within park and protected areas in Northern Canada. She posed the questions: Could storytelling save Canada's park and protected areas? Is educating the park visitor the key to park success? Gillian spoke of her own wonderful experience enticing a park interpreter who was deskbound at the park visitor information center, to tell her own stories rather than the scripted lines about the park highlights. When she had finished her story of how when she was a little girl, her father had forbidden her to take a canoe out onto a park lake alone, which of course she did... leading to a tragicomedy of eventualities... I wanted to jump up and yell YESSSSS!

Gillian had illustrated, with a story, how the investment of our own physical and emotional/caring energy in our learning leads to internalisation of the lessons. When the park interpreter told her own stories about her personal communions in the park... she was on fire... and the listener was swept in to why the park IS such a sacred place. In other words, the vehicles and experiences used to teach our kids, must apply to the interpreter's own life somehow. If reducing greenhouse gas emissions, working towards maintaining water quality, etc. effects us in our mind AND our heart, in our own daily lives, we are much more likely to be a part of the action-oriented solutions.

Stories also spark our own memories... drawing us in even deeper. Gillian¹s tale reminded me of the time I was with my Uncle Ron early morning trolling a deep water area renowned for monster northern pike. We had a split a can of Niblets corn and a warm stubbie of Labatt¹s 50 (my first sampling) for breakfast and my Uncle had warned "whatever you do never let go of your fishing rod... not even for a second...". You can guess what happened next... the fish weren't biting, and I had to get rid of the taste of the warm beer (it's a wonder I didn't give it up for life right then and there!). I couldn't quite reach my backpack where I had some Joe Louis and Wagon Wheel treats. So, I wedged the rod between the emergency oar and the boat gunnel and stretched for my pack... which slid a little further away when we hit another boat's wake. I carefully stood up, the boat lurched again and my foot came down on the empty stubbie and I did the splits on the cross bar... oh man... talk about tuning your awareness! By the time I had recovered enough to remember my rod... I looked over and all I saw was the back part of a Mitchell 301 reel going over the stern of the boat... ker plunk.... With my own belly-sinking feeling, I watched it shrink out of sight into the murky depths. I had dreams for the next week of some poor trophy Jackfish sporting a pierced lip and dragging my rod all around the weeds at the bottom of the lake for the rest of it's life. I felt terrible.

I learned a lot from this experience... I bought barbless hooks and started practising catch and release angling. I never left a rod unattended again. And I thought some about how my fishing every day might have a negative effect on the number of fish in the lake.

I still go back to that place... West Lake at the Sandbanks Provincial Park in Southern Ontario... in fact I've managed to get back there every year since 1971! My times there have generated a wealth of memories, born from a place that is now sacred to me. The stories connect me more intimately with the land every time I share them. I've participated in a conservation project there. I've shared the magic of the place with dozens of friends, some of whom now return regularly. They share it with their families and the network of stewards for the Sandbanks grows. Maybe some day the fish will come back... and I'll stand in awe at the top of one of the dunes after the ice-out and watch the lunker pickerel swimming in pairs in the shallows. I would give up a great deal to help make that happen. I'll keep going back... even take my own family one day. And I still have not taken another sip of Labatt's 50!

Friday July 20th... Another day of inspiring discussions with really phenomenal people. And then in the evening "The Arts Bash Open Stage" showcased a tapestry-like variety of stories, singalongs, poetry readings, and artists jamming across genres with other delegates. I had the humbling honour of hosting this happening that practically ran itself, and got unbelievably better and better as the night flowed on. At 2 AM a bunch of us went out to play frisbee in the dusk. And with email addresses exchanged and farewells bid, we headed off on the next legs of our journeys... to live more chapters of our stories...

Many people were going paddling or on to the Dawson City Folk Music Festival. By the time I finally arrived back in Cowtown, 7 days of nights with only 3-4 hours sleep each had passed. I felt like I must have lived the equivalent of a month of normal day-to-day existence. It seemed like my point of (world) view had changed. Maybe the narrator knew more... was more committed to the story... had passionately affirmed that environmental education is essential. Period.

The 2001 EECOM conference was packed with examples of how stories and the act of "live" tale telling encourages an environmental ethic. It is a tool that all educators can use to reach more of their students and bolster the numbers of conservation literate citizens who will pitch in to preserve natural areas and the resident flora and fauna. A full list of the international cast of EECOM presenters, their topic summaries and their email addresses can be found at: http://www.taiga.net/eecom2001/program/thurs19.htm

Epilogue: After the conference, a bunch of us van-pooled to the Dawson City Folk Music festival.

I found the site of the motel that my parents eloped to... and literally bumped into Jocelyn, a visual artist-turned-park-interpreter, who had been a room-mate of mine in a fondly remembered shared household in the Queen's student ghetto. I hadn't seen her since the day she graduated in 1985! I had just stumbled upon Diamond Tooth Gertie's Saloon, which had sparked my memory of Jocelyn because of her stories of great summer job tips there. And then, incredibly, a few moments later... there she was... standing on the steps of Klondike Cate's Cafe, just a block from Gertie's! We marvelled at the serendipitous twists that our lives can take and recounted volumes of stories of where we had been, where we were going... and agreed upon the awesome beauty of the northlands, and how we must preserve pristine areas, and we vowed to stay in touch.

Conferences like the annual EECOM meeting and our upcoming GEOEC gathering in Edmonton attract a plethora of kindred spirits. We remind each other about why we care about being global environmental educators. We sing together. We share stories of the sacred places and sparkly-eyed, passionately-engaged students that in turn inspire us.

If you only go to two conferences this year I highly recommend you consider attending Alberta's GEOEC spring conference, May 2-5, 2002 (see http://www.geoec.org/) and then next summer¹s national EECOM celebrations in Montreal, August 12-15, 2002 (see http://www.eecom.org/english/upcoming.html). If past years are any indication, they will definitely be professionally, socially AND personally rejuvenating and invigorating!

In his workshop description at the conference last summer, Robbie Nicol of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland mused: Let The Mountains' Speak, Let The Rivers' Sing...but what do they say and what is left unsaid?

The answers to these questions and the new questions they raise are where our work awaits us. How can we allay all the paranoia about the liability associated with taking kids on the field trips that reconnect them with natural places they will soon be responsible for? How can we encourage environmental stewardship of regions of Wild Rose Country when our own provincial government quietly issues permits for environmentally degrading activities that haven't even had an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)? We must help our students and colleagues believe that we can have a voice in improving these situations.

Friday Dec.14, 2001. Six months after the EECOM 2001conference and I am still fuelled by the experiences and the driven creativity of the people...kindred stewards! Today is also the deadline for this article to be submitted for editing. Those days at the conference so infused with idealism have given way to the realities of teacher strikes, a world political economy that places environment low on its questionable priority list.

But as I travel across Canada, feeling lucky to keep delivering environmental science concerts and teacher workshops that encourage global awareness ,community building and environmental education in all curriculum areas, I am buoyed by the amazing number of teachers that have their heads down concentrating on the "live" time with kids... planting the seeds for a more responsible citizenry to come! We must gain strength from each other. Hope to see you in Edmonton and Montreal in 2002!