Early last week I had the opportunity to accompany and supervise the grade 5/6’s during their camping trip to Tlell. On Monday morning, the students hopped on their bikes and biked 37 kilometres from Sk’aadgaa Naay elementary to the fairgrounds campground in Tlell. I opted to get a ride with one of the parents, both because I’m not much of a biker and also so I could help set up the camp before the students’ arrival. The students made great time and were in high spirits when they arrived in Tlell. I was really impressed with their positive attitudes after such a long bike ride!

We spent two nights at the camp. The students were excited to set up their tents as soon as they arrived, and they were all very independent and capable. Once everyone was settled in, they immediately wanted to walk down to the beach to go for a swim. Once we finally got everyone out of the water, we headed back to camp for some dinner, and not 5 minutes after being all cleaned up they wanted to go right back to the beach! When we arrived back at camp after a second lengthy swim, everyone played a couple games of manhunt before going to bed. I couldn’t believe the amount of energy the students had – a 37 km bike ride, two trips to the beach to swim in the waves, and about an hour running around the campground playing manhunt, and they were all still happy. Impressive!

The next day we hiked to the Pesuta shipwreck. It was about a hour and a half, but most of the students didn’t make it all the way to the end because they had been before and because they preferred to play in the sand dunes. It was a really lovely hike, starting through mossy forest, continuing along the Tlell river lined with sea asparagus and sand dunes, and eventually opening out on to vast expanses of pebbled beach ending at a spectacular shipwreck. I would definitely recommend this hike to anyone that makes it up to Haida Gwaii!

Pesuta shipwreck

There was a bit of a storm Tuesday night and many of the tents soaked through resulting in wet students (and adults). But still, there were very few complaints. However, it was a bit too windy to bike back to Sk’aadgaa Naay safely, so we were lucky to have plenty of very helpful parents with pickup trucks that were able to take the students, all their gear, and their bikes back to the school.

On Thursday, Angus took us out on a fantastic tour of Masset. We spent some time at Tow hill, hiking up to the lookout where we could see Agate beach, North beach, and even Alaska! We hiked back down to the blowhole, which wasn’t too impressive as the tide was too low for any action.

View from the top of Tow hill

Overall, I had a fantastic, action-packed week!