Raccoon Kits Navigating Whatcom Falls Park

Quick quiz! How do you illustrate navigation without moving from place to place? Answer: Not very well. Or at least, not as well as one would like.

Best intentions and all that. We began with several maps and a plan to use them to explore Whatcom Falls Park. Instead, for much of the day we expressed our excitement at being back with the Raccoon Kits in the outdoors by repeated seemingly unstructured but high energy activities such as “pine cone battles”, deer trail exploration, rotted tree stump whacking and, of course, games.

I don’t need to tell you that quiet focus is not usually a strength of boys at this age. A stick becomes a sword quicker than you can remind them of their blood circle; a discovered partially constructed earth shelter cries out for destruction; one boy’s spontaneous diversion is perceived as a golden opportunity to....well, I’m not sure what might follow.

You also know better than I the beauty of this in-the-moment approach to the day: 

• New people (we had two new Raccoon Kits this week) can, and did, find frequent opportunities to interject themselves into the pandemonium. Both did, and were welcomed unreservedly by their new colleagues. Seen up close, what might seem to the casual observer to indicate indifference can be seen to be acceptance. 
• The bounding, sporadic bumping and chasing is a constructive antidote to the required adherence to group norms of a week of school participation. 
• The joke telling (more on this later) and pranks, when executed appropriately as was the case on Sunday, build community and memories.

Of course, the hustle and bustle can sometimes spin out of control, as it threatened to a few times during the outing. Tim and Brian took advantage of a few opportunities to guide the Raccoon Kits toward play that was safe physically and psychologically.  For instance, when the “pine cone battle” threatened to become many against one, we coached the explorers to divide into even teams and create safety rules (e.g., no head shots). Hard feelings that began to escalate into a physical conflict between two explorers was taken aside to be worked out. And without exception, the boys rose to the occasion. 

So, here’s how it went down. The boys were, as I indicated, excited to see each other and while we were greeting arriving members, started throwing pine cones. We transitioned from that activity to a structured name game so we could learn and relearn everyone’s name. A little talk about Explorer’s Club culture to jump start the new boys’ experience and into the park we went to position ourselves to meet a late arriving explorer. Lunch and a few games of Hide! brought us to the scheduled meeting time. As Brian doubled back the short distance to the stone bridge to pick him up, the boys took cover and waited to welcome him as only explorers can. 

At this point. the plan was to map out a course to a few interesting points in the park for our navigation work. What actually happened, however, involved pine cones, so we worked to set it up for fair, safe play. Next up, Spider’s Web. We took some time to explain the game to the newcomers, then spent a while creeping and darting through the flora. 

With the “wiggles” wrung out (well, mostly), we circled up to examine the maps. Working in pairs, the boys determined our location and marked out our route back to meet the parents. A modest start to our focus for the Spring.

Speaking of focus, we struggled with that during our closing meeting. During this meeting, we do some housekeeping like collecting jobs, but the central activity involves giving thanks, a core tenet of Explorer’s Club. The Raccoon Kits took a little while to settle into this undertaking. Again, no malice intended; they simply have trouble sitting still at times. Perhaps next time it’ll help to start with the jokes! One of the defining characteristics of the group is that they love to tell jokes. You want focus? Tell jokes.

Louis and Clark have nothing to worry about with this group. Not yet, at least. We never moved from our “temporary” space. However, we did navigate a few non-territorial issues and some community building which were at least as important and more pertinent to the Raccoon Kits state of mind and body on this glorious March day. Click here for photos from our outing.

Next up - Teddy Bear Traverse on March 28. See you there.