Where Survivor meets Amazing Race meets Punk'd
The players :
Hilary
Julie
Pablo
Rebecca
Trisha (New office manager)
Me
The leaders :
Mike
Nikki
Kristin
The helpers :
Armel
Facundo
After arriving at Kristin’s house at 4 am that morning, we all met at the One Sky office at 9:30 am sharp for an initial exercise called the Stress Matrix. This exercise consisted of a list of various origins of stress (fear, personal space, hunger, sleep, cold, heat, personal sharing) and we had to rank ourselves on a scale to 5 and discuss our choices. This proved to be an important precursor to what was awaiting after… We all had to select 2 areas where we wanted to be challenged. Initially, I chose sleep and fear.
When the Stress Matrix exercise was over, we were told that we had about 90 minutes to go buy food and pack up for a 3 day camping trip. In “Amazing Race-esque” fashion, we quickly planned the meals for 11 people and rushed to the nearest grocery store (there are 2 in Smithers). This rush set the tone for this entire adventure because we were told that there would be role-playing scenarios popping up at any point.
“Ouch, my head”
Riding in Kristin’s car and Mike’s truck, we headed towards the hiking trail that would lead us to the cabin. Along the way we found a cyclist lying on the side of the rural dirt road we were driving down. Her helmet had been cracked in half and it didn’t look like she was moving. My first reaction was that this woman was seriously injured but I quickly realized that, in reality, it was Trisha “role-playing”. We were told by Nikki and Kristin that no 911 service is available in the area, and later that we had to pretend that this was in West Africa. Luckily, Julie and Hilary both had formal first aid training so we able to determine that we needed to secure her neck in a brace. When it was all said and done, Trisha was in the backseat of Kristin’s car and we had gone in the ditch to carry her there.
Lesson #1: If you’re going to transport a potential spinal injury victim, you might want to plan and prepare your destination ahead of time.
“Soy tu gatito, General?”
After a debriefing (group discussion) about the positive and negative things we did (this exercise followed every challenge and role-playing scenario so I won’t mention it every time), all 5 interns were told to get in Kristin’s car. As soon as we got in the car, we started thinking of what could happen and, as anticipated, a man was standing in the middle of the road no more than 500m from where we left. He directed us to pull over and was clearly made out to be a Military Officer (played by Facundo). The man only spoke Spanish so that instantly turned Pablo into our chief negotiator. Thanks to my ESP 1991 as well as informal training (muchas gracias pekeetita), I became the translator when Pablo was required to step out of the car. The man said our car was not properly registered and that we were required to pay him a bribe of 25$ or we would all go to the police station. We refused to pay and so he started pulling Pablo away because he had to ride with him but that quickly lead to the poor guy being dragged behind the car and beaten like a rented mule.
Lesson #2: If you’re travelling with only one native speaker of the country you’re in, you might not want to try to take the high moral route. Just pay the bribe if your safety is in jeopardy.
Sidenote: These lessons may seem obvious and I have written them with that intention. However, they seem obvious now but I quickly learned that it’s much more difficult to think rationally when you’re in the middle of such a situation. Let’s continue…
“Sure, I’ll carry your backpack without questioning why you can’t/won’t carry it.”
The hike up to Silver Creek Cabin was approximately 9 km uphill and the interns had to carry all the food and cookware. At one point we found Nikki standing in the trail with her backpack on the ground. She told us that we had to carry her backpack and the naïve gentleman I am, I picked it up without questioning the reason for it. To make this story a little shorter, we had to carry both Nikki and Kristin’s backpacks for about 1/3 of the hike.
Lesson #3: Being a gentleman can also mean being a sucker. Assertiveness, when properly employed, will send a message that you will not get trampled over.
Hammer the egg
When we arrived to the cabin, we were immediately presented with this teamwork challenge. I will update this post to give you more details once I have a picture of the conundrum we were required to solve.
“No fucking way”
Again, it will be easier to explain this with a picture but the challenge mainly consisted of getting the entire team across these rapids using a rope that was tied across. Armel, an expert in climbing, had rigged up the rope and gave us some tools to use. The bag he left us had 3 harnesses, a helmet, various types of rope and climbing gear. We were presented with this challenge in the evening and had until 11 am the following day to complete it.
When we came back to the cabin, Mike gave us another challenge (see next section) and so our time was limited. The next morning, the whole team got to work on planning the rigging of the harnesses in a way we can cross. We spent hours experimenting, rehearsing and asking Armel questions in “yes or no” form. In the end, we were all ready to go, Hillary was strapped in the harness, when Mike turned to Armel and asked “Would you do this?” The entire team froze when Armel replied “No fucking way”.
Lesson #5: The technical side of planning can shorten your vision to the point where you think you can cross a gorge without even verifying the other side of it and asking the simple question: “Would you do this?”
Yo-de-lay-hee-hooooooo
On the evening of Day 1, Mike pointed way up in the mountains and told us we had to complete 9 trips with a team of 6 people. It was already about 7 pm and the sun goes down at around 11-11:30 here so we figured that we would be required to complete some trips in the dark with headlamps. A group of 5 left immediately without supper while one stayed behind to re-energize.
The climb was hands down the greatest physical challenges I have ever been through, especially after a 9 km uphill hike that day, 6 hours of sleep in the past 2 days and 3 hours of jet lag. Part of the climb was through the woods, then through snow, then through loose rock, then through wet moss and finally through smaller, thin and sharp loose rocks. Every time we stopped for a break, Mike stressed the point of constantly thinking of a plan B and being aware of what could go wrong at any second. Luckily, well made it safely to the top and the way down became even more of a challenge, not only because the sun was going down but also because of the loose rocks. After reaching the snowy part of the mountain, we started discussing whether some of us should make another trip up before dark and that’s when Mike took the weights off all of our shoulders by saying that what we did was sufficient. His justification for it was that we had taken the hardest possible route (without even realizing it) because there was a trail that went through the pass and we could have done the trip in half the time. The rest of the way down felt like I was floating over the snow and rocky terrain.
Lesson #6: Always think ahead. In fact, always be thinking. It is crucial to develop the ability to step out of the group dynamics to critically analyze the situation individually.
The Kispiox Music Festival definitely exceeded my expectations in terms of size and overall ambiance. There are some extremely talented musicians in the Northern Central Lower Mainland; they seem to call this region by so many different names that it gets quite confusing. There are three groups that are worth mentioning because they stood out:
Also, there was an artist working on a piece near the main stage who happened to be there at 3 am when I finished my volunteering shift. He was using fingerpaint on a poly tarp (kind of a plastic) and anyone could try it out. It was an enlightening experience, especially with a group of 4 genius guitarists jamming right next to us. The piece was constantly changing but I put some more pictures on Flickr.
To keep the random train of thought going full steam ahead, I thought I should mention that we made the greatest dinner EVER tonight. A generous woman I met last week offered to give all five interns some free salmon that she caught last year. That free salmon swam its way into a dish of linguine alfredo with caramelized onions, mushrooms, red peppers, fresh green onions and tomatoes. It was, in one word, divine (enough for me to want to take a picture). Now we just need a name for the dish so leave your suggestions in the Comments section.
