Watch: Great grey owls of Camp Valaqua
Did you know that owls pant to cool off, and that they fly without making a sound? Those are just two of the facts you’ll learn when you watch the latest edition of Ninety Seconds of Nature, a series of videos in which Camp Valaqua director Jon Olfert talks about the outdoors surrounding the camp.…
To the river
After the hour-long drive home from my sister’s with my four very energetic kids, I had had enough! Trying to quiet down hyper kids while driving is not an easy feat. Not wanting to yell at them over and over, I gave up and succumbed to their antics, eagerly longing for our driveway. I called…
Lessons in the Kinderforest
About once a month, 24 students from the Goshen College Laboratory Kindergarten class—a partnership between the college’s education department and Goshen Community Schools—spend the day climbing trees, building shelters and making mud pies in Witmer Woods. While it may sound like the children are given a whole day of recess, they are actually participating in…
Picture perfect
Jay Siemens was set to begin photography school in Winnipeg when, three days before classes started, his friend called him with a compelling proposition. “He said, ‘You’ve got to drop out of school and film a fishing show with me,’ ” Siemens recalls. So he did. That was in 2010. Siemens and his friend Aaron…
A new view of nature
I am so glad that summer is on the horizon. Spending time outdoors was a huge part of my childhood. My family shared many weekends at a small one-room cabin on a river, fishing, swimming, canoeing and just enjoying the beauty around us. We would watch the beavers make their way up and down the…
40 years of canoe tripping
The trickling of an indoor waterfall in the room where Ric Driediger sits evokes images of a northern stream while he reflects on 40 years on the waterways of northern Saskatchewan as a canoeing guide. His career began in 1972 when, at 19, he was invited to help guide a group of Mennonite students on…
Stereotypes Written Over with Faces
Last summer, we were camping at Crabtree Falls in North Carolina. It was a new experience for us. We’d been through the state before, but had never spent a night and had never tented in that area before. One night, after a relaxing evening around the campfire, I was peacefully dreaming, curled up in my…
