[Philmont]: Dance Lessons in Alaska

The report below was written by Eagle Scout Ryan Reynolds, a graduate of
The University of Texas.

During his 7 1/2 years with our troop, Ryan took part in six high
adventure trips, including three trips to Philmont (Backpacking in '97,
Cavalcade in '98 and Kanik in '00).

YiS,

-- 
Calvin H. Gray
Scoutmaster, Troop 405
Associate Advisor, Venturing Crew 405
Georgetown, Texas
I used to be an Owl (WM-62-2-98 @ Philmont)
http://www.troop405.org/
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http://thesca.org/con_crews.cfm#alaska
Commuting 90 minutes by canoe and foot to their worksite each morning was
just the beginning of the Alaska adventure for SCA’s Lake Clark crew.
After several weeks, Jillian Morrisey and Ryan Reynolds led their crew
even deeper into the Alaska bush via float plane to work on extremely low
impact trail brushing on mountain trails. In this remote location, Ryan
reflected on his own, and humanity’s, connection to the land.
Dance Lessons in Alaska
by Ryan Reynolds
Sitting at water's edge, I realized in a manner more potent than ever
before that the land has a voice. A soft low hum. A melody the wild things
dance to. An esoteric rhythm of wind and water, fire and sky that keeps
the world in balance.
This is what I had come for, the reason for bringing six high school kids
from across the country deep into the Alaskan bush.
Somewhere along the path of modern human civilization, those that came
before us stopped dancing to the rhythm. Falling out of place with closed
ears, they began to create a new song to drown out the old one, and in
doing so cut the ties that held them to the Earth as the scalpel cuts our
last connection to the womb.
Free from the constraints experienced by the so-called "lesser beasts,"
people began to harm the Earth. Softly at first, but with a gradual
intensity that has brought us awkwardly forth into a world where clean
air, pure water, and a necessary amount of biodiversity are increasingly
scarce.
This is our mission as crew leaders for the Student Conservation
Association. With the hope of reawakening the delicate laces of our minds
drugged to sleep from a false rhythm, hundreds of students are led into
the field each summer to listen for the voice humming soft in the hollow
of a Mountain Harebell, intertwined amid the roar of water's fall, notes
placed in melody as dewdrops along a spider's web.
In his cabin adjacent to the trails we worked on, Richard “Dick”
Proenneke, author of One Man’s Wilderness, wrote "Is it proper that the
wilderness and its creatures should suffer because we came?" I thought
about these words as I walked back to camp, the chorus of laughter
punctuated by the shouts of conversation that inevitably accompany a merry
group guiding me truer than any compass.
In a few days we would be moving on again, only this time to Port
Alsworth, then Anchorage, and finally home through tearful goodbyes and
parting words that would fail to express the depth of friendships we had
created through our adventure together.
But there was still tonight, and as the daylight slowly gave way to ever
increasing shades of gray, I looked around my circle of friends and took
comfort in the fact that at this moment, and in a hundred other wild
places, SCA crews were scattered as seeds of hope across the country. Even
though it has been generations since our ancestors listened closely to the
rhythm of the world, here among the spruce with fire's jeweled embers
glowing in our eyes, this band of gypsies and others like them have
remembered how to dance.
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As you gather around this virtual campfire with fellow
Scouts and Scouters, do your best to be trustworthy,
loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient,
cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.
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