THIS POST BY RACHEL EDWARDS, SUMMER TEACHING APPRENTICE
The week of tracking and herbal overnight camp at Millersylvania State Park near Olympia included some epic adventures and lots of learning about the ways of the plants and animals.
- Gathering Yarrow at the Wolf Haven Oak-Prairie Mima Mounds
- Leading the Group in Yoga
- Studying the Wolves at Wolf Haven
- Rare Mexican Wolves at Wolf Haven
- Practicing Animal Forms is Key to Understanding Tracks
To learn the art of tracking you must first learn to become the animal you are tracking. We practiced this by doing animal forms. We learned the different gates that each animal family does. Some animals gallop, some bound, some pace, and some scissor walk. Knowing the different gates is key to understanding the tracks you are looking at.
- Digging for Clams on the Beach
During the week we took some awesome field trips away from our campsite. We were able to spend the day on the beach exploring and digging for shellfish. Digging down to find one is not easy so we didn’t have too many to go back to camp with but the ones we could get were cooked when we got back to camp.
- Giant Bull Whip Kelp on the Beach
I really enjoyed tasting all the different kinds of seaweed. I love the salty flavor and they’re packed full of minerals for the body.
- Checking out a Sun-Star we found with the Incoming Tide
- Goofing off for a group pic at the beach.
One of my favorite parts of being at Wolf Camp are all the awesome people to connect and laugh with. All the kids are such fun to be around and many of them have been coming to Wolf Camp for years. It’s great when the kids come more than one week during the summer so you really get to know them.
- Group pic at the start of our field trip to the Old Growth Rainforest
- Following the Sign of a Cougar Kill through the Old Growth Rainforest
Tracking the mountain lion was the most epic adventure of the whole week. We took a field trip to the Old Growth Rainforest with hopes to find some good tracking. Patrick, the instuctor, had been dreaming of tracking a mountain lion and had put this intention so strongly out into the universe that it actually happened. I was not expecting to come around the corner of a dry river bed to see fresh, wet blood of an elk dripping off a log. We spent hours moving all over the land in search of the elk or mountain lion but we never found it. Even though we didn’t find either, we still learned so much and got to experience this awesome thrill.
- Instructor Patrick Wiley bringin’ together plants and tracking with an Epic Improvisational Story
- Hangin’ with the Older Teens at the Artesian Well in Olympia
The week ended with all walking away with greater knowledge about the animals around us and many hours of dirt time staring at the ground learning all that we could about who made the little dots on the ground.
- Some of the Herbalists Showing Off Facials with Instructor Megan Damofle