David Attenborough said, “If children don’t grow up knowing about nature, they won’t understand it. And if they don’t understand it, they won’t protect it.” In the Methow Valley, we’re fortunate to have River Camp, which introduces children to the joy of playing outdoors, learning new skills, and becoming knowledgeable about the natural world.
In 1990, Dana Visalli, joined two years later by Anaka Mines and Rob Crandall, started a summer camp for kids focused on ecological studies. River Camp is a hugely popular event, filling up shortly after registration opens on Feb. 1 of each year. The camp has space for 21 campers and runs for five days. After more than 30 years, this camp by the Chewuch River now has children of the original campers in attendance.
Responding to an invitation to come and visit last Wednesday, June 16, I drove up to the Falls Creek Campground dispersed camping area to observe River Camp in action. I met up with Dana and the campers as they returned from a day spent snorkeling and canoeing down the Chewuch River. Dana, looking like he’d spent a vigorous and exhausting day out in the sun, exclaimed, “This is my last year of camp!” I’m not sure I believed him, especially after he said, “The kids are just stunning — just so well-adjusted and healthy.”
Initially, River Camp focused on teaching ecology and traditional outdoor fun; in recent years, more primitive skills training and wild crafting have been added by Katie Russell, who recently hosted Saskatoon Circle. Katie’s dissection of a road-killed deer that had been stored in Dana’s freezer for three months was a hot topic among campers. The deer’s bloody hide draped over a fence was a reminder of an event that was fascinating for most, gross for a few. One young camper shared with me: “I got to rip off the skin, which was kind of disgusting.”
The evening talk after the dissection was “How Does the Body Work Exactly?” Dana justified including the dissection of a once-living animal in the curriculum because “we all have these things (organs) we never see or even think about. The fact is, we have a body that is giving us our life, and it needs to be taken care of.” Most campers expressed enthusiasm and appreciation for the dissection when Dana canvassed them a day after the event.
While everyone was eating dinner, I chatted with a few of the campers and met Reisha Beck, new as an instructor this year. Reisha Beck moved Raven’s Roots Naturalist School and Wayside Botanicals to the Methow Valley last year after 10 years in Sedro Wooley and Whatcom County. Water bottle holders woven from reeds in various stages of construction and towels dyed with natural pigments attested to her contribution to the group’s knowledge base. Reisha showed me some bright yellow yarn dyed with wolf lichen (Letharia vulpine) that the campers had collected earlier in the week. Through Katie and their mutual connection to the Ancestral Skills community, Reisha became involved with River Camp. For more info: https://ravensroot.org.
The evening concluded with Procession of the Species. The campers had constructed cardboard masks of the various animals or plants they wanted to represent and may or may not have used the camp library for research. The masks varied: slug was a simple squiggly outline; moose had antlers, and heron had a beak. Campers gathered in a circle while Katie, dressed as Mother Earth or a pagan goddess, introduced each “animal” by waving her antler. Themes emerged: stop killing us, quit destroying our habitat, use less fossil fuels, and we must co-exist.
Organized activities are interspersed with quiet time at the river and free time, but no matter what’s happening at River Camp, all the campers appeared to be having a good time. Before leaving, I asked a camper if he would return to River Camp. “One hundred percent,” he said without hesitation.
