Long Walks and Movement with Munchkins

Another month's gone by since I last wrote... hard to believe. My days are full of new ideas, employment-commitment-anxiety, dancing, and the great outdoors. A few weeks ago I attended a graduate seminar on Learning for Change - an introduction to the field of Adult Education and what it means, taught by my Mom's old professor from Chicago. I learned that "Adult Education" isn't necessarily just for grown-ups - it started as education for democracy, and for empowerment. Sweet. It made me think more about what I'm doing and how it does and doesn't empower people become who they'd like to be. And about who I'd like to be. My brother sent me an email the other day that says "Our goal should be to relate with others in such a way that they become stronger and more aware of how beautiful and valuable they are, and more able, when they take leave of us, to go out and powerfully express their love with others." I like it. I think I'll try it.

I spent last week teaching dance to kids ages 7-14 at a folk arts camp in Wasilla. Since learning more about this "adult education" business, I've tried to come up with new plans on how to make dance an empowering experience. So, amidst movement games and "formal" dance instruction, I had the older kids class make up their own "favorite" moves, and then we put them together into a dance that got extended throughout the camp - which the class decided to call "The Coolio Dance." They even got so excited about their dance that they performed it at the final concert, although I unfortunately wasn't there to see it (I was watching Bela Fleck... bad teacher). For the littler guys, we tried to make up our own dance, but they didn't like it, so I dropped that idea and we played freeze dance instead... I did have them all "perform" for the class at the end though, and they really like it, so cool - validation of the way they move/dance, if perhaps not empowerment. In addition to attempts at empowerment, my classes were full of laughter and silliness, as well as plenty of classroom management learning opportunities, so all in all, they made me pretty happy.

Because the "create your own move" game worked so well in my Movement for Munchkins classes (I don't think that was the official name, but hey), and with Dustin's suggestion (he's home in Nome... I have to teach all alone now...), I had the teens in my SWING class make up their own East Coast Swing moves, with the conditions that they had to be both rhythmic and leadable. The teens got into the creating dance moves idea, and, although most of the moves that came out of it may fall a bit short of the conditions I set forth, I think we all had a pretty good time.

Mom, Dad, and me in Crow Pass

Between dancing, I've gone on a couple long walks with my Mom and her friends. First, we hiked Crow Pass - a 26 mile journey up to a glacier, through two rivers, and down into a beautiful valley. I hadn't agreed to go on the full marathon with them at the beginning - Dad and I planned to hike up to Raven Glacier, then turn around and come on back. But, the crew was going at a pace I could handle, and I felt pretty good about my food, water, and energy supply. So, in front of the glacier, I agreed to go on.

The Crow Pass Crew in front of Raven Glacier

Down into the valley we slipped, stopping only to change shoes and wade across our first glacier-fed river. As we ventured onwards, the scenery was beautiful, and my snack supply was filled with chocolate-covered-ginger. By the time we got to the second river, my feet were ready for some cold-water therapy. After our group effort to make it through the 40' wide, thigh-high flow of icy water, I gained a new appreciation for how crazy Alaskans are. We just think the strangest things are great fun... Mom, the eternal optimist, told us all how athletes pay lots of money to put their sore muscles into cold temperatures to rejuvenate them, and all we have to do is wade across a river... well, my muscles did feel surprisingly rejuvenated. And to ensure that we had plenty of water treatment, the last 12 miles or so rained pretty consistently... After a few hours, Mom said she wasn't sure if leaving her pants up to use the bathroom would really make any difference in her soggy level. Onward and through we continued, making it to the other side of the pass in about 14 hours, which isn't bad. But... every year people run the Crow Pass race in about 3 hours... crazy Alaskans...

Luckily, after 7 days of rest, we all suffered from hikers' amnesia, and decided that going on another long walk would be great fun. So, off to Lost Lake, which we did eventually find. I invited my friend Hiroko, the local Argentine Tango teacher, and goodness, she's speedy! However, the weather was much sunnier than our Crow Pass experience, the miles only numbered 17, and Hiroko even made rice balls with sour plum inside for our lunch break. Tasty.

"The Mill" at Kennicott

In lieu of more walking, last weekend Mom and Dad and I headed up to Kennicott (of Kennecott, or Kennycott), an abandoned mine about 8 hours drive from Anchorage. In the early 1900's, a phenomenal copper deposit was found next to a glacier in the middle of nowhere. So, an enterprising and wealth-seeking man named Stephen Birch went about getting financial backing from the Guggenheims and Morgans and Havenmayers and built a railroad and the most technologically advanced city in Alaska at the time. Then he shipped in a bunch of foreigners seeking to immigrate to the States, worked them hard, paid them decently for a depression-era job, and built lots of fancy gadgets for getting high-grade copper to be shipped off to Tacoma for smelting (the park ranger told us that Tacoma is now a Superfund site because of the arsenic involving in the smelting process... interesting). I learned that the copper that's currently mined is pretty good at about 5% copper... while the Kennicott stuff was about 70%. I guess, when the mine was no longer economically viable, they shut it down in 1938 and abandoned it, leaving all their equipment (is that's what going to happen with all the other oil and mining stuff in Alaska? What about leave-no-trace?).

Nature's Work in Kennicott

Nature seems to be starting to do her work on the equipment though, taking out buildings and decaying wood and rusting old metal parts... Until, of course, the mine became a tourist attraction that's now owned by the National Park Service, as it's in the largest National Park in the country - Wrangell-St. Elias.

Dad and Mom dancing on Kennicott Glacier

It seems that Kennicott has kept the tradition of importing non-local residents to work... The National Park Service evidently has a policy of hiring locals (yay!), but also of not running out previously established businesses (makes sense). However, when patronizing these previously established businesses, it seems that the young people guiding tours and taking tourists ice climbing and working in the lodge were all up in Alaska for their first time. Sounds like a great experience, but makes me curious... are the locals just not interested in being summer tourist guides? Or is there no advertisement to Alaskans? No one seems to be offering a guiding job to any of my friends here... I went out kayaking a few summers ago in Whittier where the girl running the kayak rentals hadn't been in a kayak until she got the job. I guess I go to plenty of places where I don't know anything and seem to be able to find work... but it'd be nice if the Alaskans who know stuff about guiding and ice climbing and kayaking could also be offered those jobs...

Well, it sounds like there's a screech owl flying around the house, and I'm leaving in the morning to go fishing in Prince William Sound for a few days. Wish me luck with the fishing, as fresh salmon would make a tasty meal on the boat.