Claire Knutson
Professor W. Scott Olsen
IWC 100
23 November 2021
Jonas
I hug my brother tight and whisper to him that he’s going to be just fine. That I know it’s scary, but he’ll have a good time. I hold him a few seconds longer than I should – the bus is leaving soon and my parents are motioning at me to hurry up. But I’ve missed him and know that in a few short moments, I’ll be missing him again. I soak in his presence while I can. Too soon I have to detangle myself from the hug and pat him fondly on the cheek. He’s trying to hide it, but I can tell he’s nervous. I reassure him once again that he’ll be okay, then gently push him towards my parents for one last goodbye. He hugs them, then hesitantly climbs the stairs of the coach bus. As I watch his feet move slowly up the steps, I think back to my very first trip and how nervous I was. I recall the feeling of getting on that bus and having absolutely no idea what to expect. I know exactly how he feels, but I have faith that he’ll have a good time. We watch him through the window as he finds a seat for the five hour ride up to the north woods. I link my arm through my dads and join my parents in waving at him as the bus starts to move. I give him a thumbs up and he returns it.
The bus pulls out of the parking lot and my parents and I walk to our car to go home. I try to imagine what’s happening on the bus at this moment. Is he sitting hunched over in his seat reading a book to avoid talking to people like I did? Has he already made seven friends and is talking non stop with the kid next to him? That seems more like Jonas. I smile at the idea of it and send a quick prayer that he’ll have a good experience. I can’t wait to hear about it when he gets home.
Jonas is fourteen and headed off to his very first Widji trip – an Intro to Canoe trip where he will get to spend seven nights in the Boundary Waters. Camp Widjiwagan is a YMCA camp located near Ely, Minnesota. It’s a camp for adolescents, ages eleven to eighteen. There are a variety of trips they can take – to the Boundary Waters, the Quetico, the Bighorn Mountains, the Rocky Mountains, and many other wonderful places. On their website, there is a section titled “Why Widjiwagan?” that explains the purpose of the camp. It says “Four generations of young lives, spanning over ninety years, have been transformed by a Widjiwagan experience. Through wilderness travel and environmental learning experiences, they have built leadership skills, gained confidence, and explored extraordinary places” (YMCA). This statement has been true for both me and my other brother, Jackson, on our Widji trips and we’ve been waiting for the summer when Jonas joins us in these experiences.
Widji started to send off its first trips in 1929. At this time, there were only canoe trips that explored the lakes surrounding the camp (the Boundary Waters weren’t established until 1978) and they were only open to young boys. One of the very first Widji campers, Jack Lund, went on an eight day canoe trip in August of 1930 with seven other boys and a guide. His trip was challenging, with many long days of hard paddling and portaging, but rewarding. He vividly remembers having to carry their canoes over beaver dams that were blocking the rivers. Jack says that he “had a wonderful experience” and “though many memories have faded, my Camp Widjiwagan experience has not” (YMCA). There are 91 years between Jack’s trip and Jonas’s, but the core of what a Widjiwagan experience is and the impact it has on campers has remained the same.
However, there have also been changes to the camp since its early days. In 1947, the first girls’ beginner session took place and within ten years, girls were welcome to participate in trips at the same level as the boys. 1974 brought the introduction of backpacking trips to the camp. Buildings were built and torn down, cabins were renovated, camp directors came and left, but the Widji way remains intact. Widjiwagan’s mission statement is “to develop, in young people, respect for self, community, and the environment, through wilderness adventure and environmental education” (YMCA). In the nearly 100 years since its founding, Widji has been doing just that. I have experienced firsthand the positive impact of a Widjiwagan experience, and have heard countless stories from others that feel the same. As I helped Jonas finish packing the night before he left, I could barely contain my excitement for him – I couldn’t wait for him to share in my love of Widji and the wilderness adventures it provides.
I’ve been on five Widji trips over the years, so I can imagine quite well how the next couple weeks of Jonas’s life will go. He’ll spend two days in-camp preparing for his trip – meeting his group, doing a swim and swamp test (where they teach the kids how to recover if their canoe tips over), planning their meals and packing their food, getting their gear (canoes, tents, packs, bear barrel), doing some team building exercises, and more fun stuff. He’ll get to go to the opening campfire, where counselors put on funny skits and everyone sings songs together. Of course, this year there is no ‘campfire’ part because of the fire ban, but they’ll still get to gather and do the opening night traditions. Their group will have some talks about expectations and rules and logistical things for their trip. There will be games each night where they let the kids run around and mix with kids from other groups.
He’ll get to go to slideshow night – where they show slideshows of the Arctic trips (the most advanced level trip where campers travel to places such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Arctic rivers in Canada and spend about forty days there, hiking or paddling around and enjoying the wilderness). If he goes on another trip next summer, hopefully he’ll get to see the slideshow from my upcoming Arctic trip.
The whole camp will gather for one last breakfast together – “power sammies” – the traditional breakfast for the morning that groups head out on trail. His group will then get to spend about a week paddling around the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, finding campsites to sleep at night, cooking their meals over the fire, singing songs to pass the time as they paddle. Hopefully, he’ll get to see some wildlife – loons, most likely, but if he’s lucky, maybe a moose or a wolf.
In an interview on a cold November afternoon, I ask Jonas to reflect on his trip and share some highlights with me. He tells me about how much fun he had fishing – he only caught a few fish, but really enjoyed it. He describes a game he played with his group, called rock-hit-rock. It’s pretty simple, they threw rocks and then tried to hit them with other rocks. Amongst the stories, he manages to squeeze in some bragging about how many card games he won – “Playing cards in the tent was really fun, I won so many, you wouldn’t even believe”.
Another way he passed the time when they weren’t paddling was by reading. I sent him with a book “The Outsiders” that I had brought and read on my trip a few weeks earlier. It was a small copy, so it packed well and he knew he was going to have to read it for school that year, so he wanted to get a head start on it. He beams with pride as tells me that he read the entire thing – he’s not a big reader and often struggles to finish books. One of his trail mates brought the fifth Harry Potter book and he ended up reading about half of it.
Another one of his highlights was seeing some beautiful lakes. He says, “One of the days, we were going on a lake that was just so clear you could see the bottom. And there was another lake that was emerald green and it was very pretty”. He jokes that after seeing the gorgeous lakes in the Boundary Waters, the lake near our house looks dirty and gross. His eyes light up as he describes what he was able to see at the bottom of the lake – “All these super cool dead trees and rocks. There were also a ton of fish and I liked just watching them swim around”. I smile as I think back to when he first got home from his trip and said something like “I never knew lakes that clear existed, I thought all of them were kinda nasty and muddy”. I love hearing about people’s experiences in nature and it makes my soul happy to hear my brother in awe of the beautiful wilderness he spent a week exploring.
However, as with most Widji trips, there were also parts that weren’t so fun. He told me a story about the time he dropped his friend’s breakfast all over the bottom of the canoe. He was holding it while his friend got in the canoe and when he handed it back to him, it fell and the food spilled out of the cup and onto the floor of their canoe. Luckily, they had extra, so his friend was still able to eat, but after they were done paddling for the day, Jonas had to spend an hour or so picking up every little piece out of the canoe. He wasn’t happy about this and complained that his counselor was mean to make him do that. I try to contain my laughter as he’s angrily telling me this story because I can see my twelve year old self in him. On my first Widji trip, I dropped my calzone on the ground and got a bit of dirt on it. My counselors made me eat it anyway and I was dumbfounded and upset. Looking back, I think “Well of course they made you eat it, it was just a little dirt and it was your only food for that night. What was your other option – throw it away and go get some fast food? No, you’re in the middle of the Boundary Waters”. To Jonas, it’s ridiculous that he would be expected to pick up the food he dropped, but to me, I think “Who else is going to clean it up? You can’t leave it there, and you’re the one who dropped it”. Maybe I’m being harsh, it’s only his first trip, but I find it humorous the impact a few more wilderness trips makes on my different perspective.
Another time he didn’t enjoy so much was on their second day (their first full day of being on-trail), when his group was wind-bound. They woke up to their tent being attacked by strong wind and struggled through their morning routine while they tried to keep their stuff from being blown away. Jonas said that he set his open water bottle down for a second to put on a jacket and the wind knocked it over. Luckily, he grabbed it before all the water spilled out, but it drenched his baseball hat. He wasn’t very pleased about that. His group ate breakfast huddled under their tarp, and then loaded up their canoes for their first full day of paddling – or so they thought. They made some progress, but soon the wind picked up and Jonas described the struggle of trying so hard to paddle and move the canoes, but feeling frozen in place, unable to compete with the unrelenting wind. “We were paddling as hard as we could, but were basically moving backwards, so yeah that didn’t work too well”. They gave it their best effort, but were forced to turn around and head back to their campsite. Jonas said that it was discouraging to see that for all their hard work, they’d barely gone anywhere.
They spent the day in an awkward in-between stage – not quite relaxing, but not doing much. They were waiting for the wind to die down, so they could try paddling again, but there wasn’t a lot to do with all of their games and books packed away. Eventually, it got to the point where it was too late in the day to start paddling, and their counselors called it. They set up their tent again, and spent another night at the same campsite. Jonas said “It was kind of cool to stay in the same place because we already knew where the good places to put up our hammocks or to fish were, but it was also a pretty boring site, so I wasn’t too happy about it”.
From this unpleasant experience, he learned that “The wilderness isn’t very nice to people, it does what it wants and you can’t do much about it”. I laughed when he said that because of how much I related to it. It’s one of the lessons I learned on my backpacking trip to the Sawtooth Mountains this summer. I remember countless times where all I wanted was to stop going up and just walk on flat ground for a while, but mountains don’t shrink themselves down so they’re easier to climb. The wind doesn’t stop blowing just because a bunch of fourteen year olds want to get to a new campsite for the night. It made me happy to talk about the similarities between my brother’s experience and mine. Although we’d gone to completely different places and had completely different trips, it makes me feel closer to him to know that we share a love for the wilderness.
After he told me this story, I asked him about other things he learned or took away from his time spent in the Boundary Waters. He described feeling a sense of accomplishment, especially after a long day of paddling or helping his counselor cook a meal over the fire. “It made me feel stronger, even on the hard days. Like, when I carried the woody [the wooden canoe that weighs around 90 lbs] all by myself for a few rods. That felt good”. Jonas also said that he learned how to work with a group better and get along with difficult people – “You kind of have to work together to get stuff done. There was this kid that was annoying, but I tried to be friends with him because we were stuck together”. These are valuable lessons and skills and similar effects have been shown through research about adolescent wilderness experiences.
In their article, Micah Kraft & Jeffrey Cornelius-White discuss the positive impacts that can come from wilderness adventures such as Widji trips. Data from various studies showed that young people who spent time in the wilderness “learned how to look at themselves in new ways, feel empowered, and discover the ability to be accountable for their own actions” (Kraft and Cornelius-White 347). Participants in these studies also stated that “the wilderness environment offered a sense of freedom from the everyday stressors of normal life that allowed them to learn” (Kraft and Cornelius-White 347). I relate to this feeling more than Jonas did – for me, it was nice to get away from the anxiety of preparing for college this summer. I remember asking Jonas when he got back from his trip if it was nice to be away from any stress he had at home and he responded “I mean I don’t have much stress because it’s summer, so I didn’t really notice a difference”.
I was curious to know if he’d seen any wildlife – Jackson and I might have gotten carried away with our jokes that he’d be eaten by a bear. I’ve been to the Boundary Waters four times, and I’ve seen loons, moose, and birds, but never a bear. Jackson claims he saw one once, but his counselor insisted it was just a large rock. I’ve heard a story from my friend’s mom (the most outdoorsy person I know) about the time a black bear got into their camp and they sat up on a hill and just watched it move around for hours. She said it was fascinating to be so close and have the privilege to observe a wild animal in their natural habitat. I laughed when I asked him about his wildlife sightings and Jonas said “Well, there was a lot of fish. You and Jackson made it seem like there was going to be bears everywhere, but I didn’t see a single one! The fish were cool I guess, and they can’t eat me, so that’s good too”.
One of the last things I asked Jonas about in our interview was if he had the desire to go on another trip next year. He was hesitant – he had a decent time, but wasn’t sure if wanted to do it again. He and I are both aware that he doesn’t have much of a choice – our parents will make him go on another one, probably an Intro to Backpacking. Our parents had to basically force all of us into going – some of our family friends had children that went, so they got the idea from them. I was a little upset at the time (not many twelve year olds are super excited to be sent off to some camp with no idea what they’re about to experience), but I’m incredibly grateful that my parents gave me that first push to go. And another push the year after (I didn’t want to go that year either – like Jonas, I had an okay experience, but didn’t have a deep desire to do it again). I start to tell Jonas that he just has to stick with it and trust me that it only gets better from here, but stop when I realize I sound like my parents. Not that it’s a bad thing, but I know if I want to get him excited about going next year, I need to convince him as his sister, not as a third parent.
I loved hearing about Jonas’s Widjiwagan trip – the good and the bad. I’m excited for any future wilderness experiences he will have, through Widji or not. I hope someday to go on a trip with him and get to experience our beautiful planet with someone I love dearly.
Works Cited
Knutson, Jonas. Personal interview. November 11, 2021.
Knutson, Jonas. Personal interview. November 18, 2021.
Kraft, Micah and Jeffrey Cornelius-White. Adolescent Experiences in Wilderness Therapy: A Systematic Review of Qualitative Studies. Journal of Creativity in Mental Health, 2019.
YMCA Camp Widjiwagan. YMCA. https://www.ymcanorth.org/camps/camp_widjiwagan. Accessed 19 Nov. 2021.