Editor's note: Director of Alumni Relations Gail Clark recently returned from helping to lead the August Wilderness Program. She offers the following reflection on that experience.

“YOU'RE doing August Wilderness?!” The number of times I had heard this from friends and colleagues amazed me, and scared me too. Seeing my reflection in my Carpenter Hall office window, I realize that the suit, panty hose and two-inch pumps I’m wearing make me look like an unlikely candidate. So many times during the week of instructor training and route planning, I had pondered that question and also wondered, “How can I be away from my ‘day job’ for three weeks? Am I strong enough, physically and emotionally, for August Wilderness? Will I be a good teacher? Will I get back to Richmond without mosquito bites on every inch of my body?”

YES! I did it! As it turns out, the alumni association can function without me for three weeks, I’m actually a pretty tough gal, being a good teacher is not as easy as it looks and I narrowly escaped what is now known to Earlham’s Wilderness Programs as the Apocalyptic Year of Mosquitoes in Wabakimi Provincial Park. Even better than these personal accomplishments while on the water course of August Wilderness is the clarity, authenticity and simplicity that was achieved.

We called ourselves “Brigade About…,” pronounced with the proverbial Canadian accent, and allowing us to be “about” anything at any time. We were Brigade About…to be the best brigade ever! We were Brigade About…to set out on a 660 meter portage. Brigade About…to break camp. You get the idea. What we always were, though, was Brigade About...to be forever changed.

Because of the nature of my role as the alumni relations director, I was only able to participate in half of the August Wilderness program. Those thirteen days of mosquitoes, paddling, eating, mosquitoes, sleeping, learning, teaching, mosquitoes, singing, discussing articles and issues, laughing and mosquitoes were some of the best days of my tenure at Earlham, and considerably of my life. In that time, we moved over seven lakes, paddling over 60 kilometers (probably more since we no doubt weaved all over the lakes before we really paddled our strokes correctly) and completed roughly 13 portages. Yet with all of this movement, I experienced a stillness. There was a wholeness and a completeness that settled upon me. I loved the feeling of being absolutely present in the back country with the students and with myself. There were no distractions, no excuses; only my own questions as I wandered about, having faith that the answers would come. My group learned to understand that everyone must work hard individually and as a team to make the paddling work or to get across a portage. How wonderful it felt to have quiet moments of personal pride and loud group celebrations in achieving common goals, knowing we had all worked to come to consensus on decisions and challenged each other’s ideas for how to move forward (or sometimes backward if we didn’t read our maps correctly) in the process.

Brigade About…to be terrific first-year students and leaders at Earlham College is ready for the next challenge. I am also excited to bring back to the front country with me my sense of wholeness and completeness, and even stillness. This is no easy feat for my busy life in Richmond. I know I must work harder to maintain these senses in the front country. When I feel myself forgetting, poet David Wagoner helps me go back with his poem “Lost, “which was shared with Brigade About… on our first night at camp in the back country. Perhaps it will take you back to your own wilderness experience or help you settle into a much-needed stillness.

Lost
David Wagoner
From Traveling Light: Collected and New Poems” published by the University of Illinois Press in 1999

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

—Gail Clark

Dear Earlhamite,

Thank you for publishing the photo of Joy Brown in the article "Opening the World," (Summer 2007 issue). You probably know that Joy never came back from France, She met and married Yves Sarfati and then died young. I shouldn't say she "never" came back because she visited her family.

Joy was the reason I came to Earlham. We were friends in high school in Galesburg, Ill. She had chosen Earlham, told me about it and gave me a catalogue. I read about, "educating the whole person," and was sold.

It touched me deeply to see once again the directness and brightness of her smile. Thank you very much.

Sincerely,

Kathryn Work '58