Camp Chief Hector

Hey guys! This will have to be a quick post because its 10.30pm and I'll be getting kicked out of thelodge soon, and I've only managed to score the computer for a few minutes

So I arrived here on a snowing Sunday night after a sweet dinner in Canmore with Uncle Jack, AUnt Shielia and Shannon (Thanks so much for having me by the way guys! And I'm sure I'll be asking more favours of you in the months to come!!:) )

Sunday night we were lucky enough to have a real dorm (cluster) in a real building! But since then Tipi life has begun and so everynight is spent walking through snow that at some points reaches your knee. It has snowed all day every day I've been here except today! So everything is white! which makes things SO COLD but also so beautiful. So far all the nights have been around -10degrees celsius. So I make sure I'm wearing all my clothes and am absolutley covered by my sleeping bag, including your face because otherwise my face actually begins to go numb! And yet the moment the fire goes out I wake up as the temperature jsut drops so much! Today was the first day I have actually used my drink bottle because every morning I wake up the water in it is frozen through...and it's sitting right next to my bed! Anyway so you should just know its cold...I think today is the first day it actually got above zero (to about 2 in the middle of the afternoon! YAY).

So kids arrive on Tuesday every week and each of us leads a group of 9 kids who stay in the tipi with us and we are in charge of for the rest of the week, apart from an hour off on weekday nights when their teachers take them for an activity or something. So we've been learning how to track animals and know what animal males what type of track, adn what type of mood they might be in to make that track. I've also learnt the different steps of different animals (like pacing and overstepping etc). We followed bear tracks for a bit yesterday...that didn't make much sense to me...but I suppose it would be pretty cool to see a bear. They also have cougars around here which are pretty common and more of a worry than the bears. That's a worry.

What else have we learnt...oh yeah HEAPS and HEAPS of games (that's what alot of our dday is spent doing...playing games) and I've learnt facts about the trees around here and there names and properties.

I better go because everyones leaving..and I don't want to walk through cold snow by myself...

Oh and we all have to have 'Nature names" which is what all the kids and other staff call us while we're here.
Mine is Kootenay, Koots for short:)

xx Koots