Tuesday’s Boundary Water Connect speaker was Maxine Christopher, producer of the short film Wood on Water.
The film covers a six week girl’s canoe trip led by Keewaydin Temagami camp, one of the oldest summer camps in North America. The camp was founded in 1893 as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution.
With North America’s move from primarily agrarian means of employment to the urbanization of the Western economy, kids were missing out on being outside.
Keewaydin founder A.S. Gregg Clark was adamant that young boys needed to go on outdoor expeditions to become good men, “The training and discipline he receives in being so close to nature and in learning to meet the conditions of a primitive life, such an experience cannot fail to increase a boy’s manliness and self-reliance.”
A boy’s camp from its conception, teenage girls were only allowed onto trips in 1999. Emily Schoelzel, the current director of Keewaydin, was instrumental in pioneering the girls program.
In Wood on Water, she talks about the doubters and naysayers when girl’s canoe tripping was introduced.
“I think there was a lot of question if women could actually do canoe tripping… could they really handle it? Will you really be able to keep pace on the routes we travel, or will you need a little easier trip because what we do is too hard for you?”
To Schoelzel, “the most simple and direct path was that we just needed to do it exactly the way they did it and they wouldn’t have anything to question.” The fact that these young women keep coming back year after year speaks not only to their ability to do it, but their craving for real connection to nature.
Christopher speaks to this need for all children as well. Becoming a single mother taught her the importance of getting her kids into nature as often as she could, packing up her red Volkswagen Sprinter van and going out into the Utah desert wilderness. She traveled with other families looking to prioritize a childhood spent outside, “Community matters, and sometimes the view while you’re just so weighted, sometimes the view is what keeps you going.”
She cites a book titled “Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Civilizations can Teach Us about the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Healthy Little Humans.” In the book, former research chemist and science journalist Michaeleen Doucleff compiles evidence from early childhood development experts, as well societies across the world from the Inuit in the Arctic to Hadzabe families in Tanzania. They all agree: kids need more fire and knives.
Fire and knives are in abundance in the film Wood on Water. Beginning the trip timid and questioning their own capabilities, nine teenage girls transform into confident outdoorswomen in a matter of weeks.
Cooking real food from scratch over a fire, paddling 400 miles over 40 days, and portaging heavy wooden canoes are only a few of the physical challenges. The mental load of bugs, rain, rapids, and hunger builds these women up instead of breaking them down. By the end of the film, they have proven themselves, gaining memories that will last a lifetime.
Hannah Maia, the film’s director, participated in the trip, “We laugh and sing, and the tough parts of the day ebb away…an adventure set up to promote manliness and roughing it in the woods over 100 years ago has absolutely proven to be relevant to teenage girls today.”
Against the backdrop of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, Wood on Water drives home the importance of Ely. Many tourists, transplants, and life-long Ely residents alike share memories of summers spent in the natural beauty of the Boundary Waters. Not only are these memories important milestones in life, but as Maia put it, “Memories of this summer will prove life-affirming should we ever doubt our own strength and resilience.”
Wood on Water can be viewed for free on Youtube.
