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You might call this camp an assimilation of passions. At the center is water and discovery, yet the current that carries four adults and six adolescents over nine days is made of rich, human experience and relationships. This is the ultimate in extreme sporting.
Let it be known, we are not in business to catch an adrenaline-high. Our goal is to hook youngsters on reading, writing, an outdoor lifestyle, and to regard and protect rivers. Our summer program removes students from an all-too-often sterile school environment and submerses them in the Maine wilderness.
Our accomplishments this year included canoeing the East Branch of the Penobscot from Mattaggamon to Whetsone, reading from two hundred years of river writing (River Reader, John Murray), daily student writings, a workshop day with Maine poet Paul Corrigan, and a DVD documentary filmed and edited entirely by campers. In the midst of these projects a sea of laughter, honest communication, and new experiences were collected like river stones. This river journey will lodge deep in all of our memories and remind us to make our workaday worlds more like a float trip.
Below is a poem our campers created while working with Paul Corrigan.
Further Down the River
I.
I live where trees are tall
Grass is green and long
The river flows on
Where mountaintops peek
Clear skies, falcons soar high
Sun waking me at dawn
The river flows on
II.
Life passing by
At blurring speed
Home fries went up in smoke
Still there was
Beef jerky
And Red Bull
As we drive closer to the river
The anticipation grows
III.
He looked like he had seen
Many before us,
A bull moose so silent and knowing,
Yes, this was his territory
Our paddles cut
Through his water
And pushed us onward
IV.
I learned a little bit about every direction a canoe can go
Including upside down and backwards
With a little bit of sideways
Thrown in
V.
My cycle is complete
The ashes of childhood
Rekindled
Into the fire of adulthood
The right of passage
Now complete
I AM REBORN
At the end of the week our food buckets have been washed out and the dry bags are hung on nails for the next trip. In the top of a barn a fan is placed, a floodlight is hung, and we work on two glowing laptops. We edit our DV documentary and write like animals. Laughter fills the barn as we share and record fresh memories. This river trip has provided rejuvenation and lasting change for all of us.
Counselors:Ryan Mahan Averill Lovely Al Lovely Billy McDougall
Campers: Zack Merrill, Tom Mack, Adam Heath, Mark Nolet, Kevin Vachon, Russ Gillette
For more information, contact:
Ryan Mahan, r_mahan@sau9.org
Averill Lovely, averilllovely@hotmail.com
About Viking Outdoor Literacy Camp
This is the fourth year for Viking Outdoor Literacy for Boys. Staff member Ryan Mahan said the program began back in 2001 when he was a senior at the University of Maine. A college of education professor there named Jeff Wilhelm had found in his experience that young boys read differently than young girls. Boys need to see immediate feedback and a purpose to their reading, found Wilhelm.
Armed with his professor’s information and a grant through UMaine, Mahan and local public school educator Averill Lovely began the Viking program.
"In my last year of college we decided to set up a camp helping these [high school] freshman dudes. There was a discrepancy with these kids: they were talented and smart, but they were failing English. Our plan was to change their environment. Take them out of school and make what they were reading relevant. The content was always connected to the outdoors," said Mahan.
That summer, Mahan and Lovely took the four freshmen on a camping trip to Crawford Pond in the Katahdin Ironworks Wilderness. On the trip, the group also went rafting on the Kennebec and hiked to several waterfalls; while spending time each day reading and writing around the campfire or on breaks.
The Viking program has been in existence since that summer, and two of the original campers, now graduated, have been on every trip.
"It’s an ideal experience in so many ways," said Mahan. "These are guys who normally wouldn’t even pick up a book in the summer and they’re out learning in the Maine wilderness. The other thing is that when they get back [to school] in September, they have a community. They’re not presidents of the class or Joe Jock, but they have a community."
Mahan said the group meets every Thursday during the school year for a writing workshop.
This year’s campers, Zack Merrill, Tom Mack, Adam Heath, Mark Nolet, Kevin Vachon and Russ Gillette all attend or have graduated from A. Crosby Kennett Junior/Senior High School in Conway, N.H., where Mahan teaches English.
The program is no longer affiliated with UMaine. Now it is paid for through fund-raising, donations and camper contributions. The Conway Kiwanis club and M. Washington Valley School-to-Career both made donations to make this year’s trip possible.
This year’s trip took the boys to the East Branch of the Penobscot on a 32-mile canoe trip. Among the reading material the boys looked at on the trip were River Reader, compiled by John Murray, and of course No Umbrella.
"We let production be our driving force," said Mahan. The campers also wrote poetry with Maine poet Paul Corrigan and made a DVD film.
Email nick [at] noumbrella [dot] com with your questions, comments and concerns.
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