Today is halfway day for the fall, 2023 semester. To celebrate it we are heading out on the Aroostook river for a few days in canoes. We have had the wettest September I remember, and the rivers in northern Maine are near or at spring flood levels. This means that traveling downstream will be easy, and fast. Many of our big projects for the semester are behind us, including the canoe paddles all the students made with hand tools. We’ve been out on the water and used them, but this will be their first multi-day trip with them. Using the crafts that we make is a key design feature of our immersion programs. How else do you learn how well it works other than by using it?
To go along with the rainy and wet summer, the bugs have been a bit brazen this year. Now the night temperatures are slipping into the 40’s (F) and they are gloriously bug-free, something we have been looking forward to for a while.
The picture above was taken the other day at sunset, behind our headquarters and looking west over the North Maine Woods. Friendships are built fast on immersion programs, and this group of individuals who were strangers a few weeks ago has formed into a team and are ready to face the many challenges of living in the forest. And they are ready to face those challenges together.
