Instructors and university students from the Tatoosh School are in Wrangell on a kayaking and wilderness-learning excursion across parts of Southeast. From left: Tatoosh director Peter Chaille, Allie Petersen, Amanda Osborn, Sara Naval, Tommy Digiovannangelo, and program director Erin Steinkruger.
Students from the Tatoosh School, a Klawock and Portland, Ore., based educational outfit specializing in studying the “ecological and human dimensions of the landscape of Alaska’s Inside Passage,” made a stop last week in Wrangell with their instructors, Dr. Peter Chaille and Erin Steinkruger.
The school’s program, which runs for six week sessions June-September, offers college credit of up to 12 units for students and teaches the foundational skills of wilderness sea kayaking and camping, with the basics of cooking, stove use, navigation with maps, charts, and a compass, and Leave No Trace ethics as the core curriculum.
Unique to the program is the kayaking curriculum, which includes paddle strokes, tides and ocean currents, weather, marine hazards and wet exits. A full course also includes discussions of leadership styles, expedition behavior, and risk management.
According to Chaille, as the journey to Wrangell progressed, they joined instructors in identifying and managing the hazards of wind and waves, rocky shorelines, currents, open crossings, and cold water.
“It was a six-week journey to get here, studying the ecology and resources of this place and the communities that people depend upon,” Chaille said. “We traveled by kayak and foot, and a little bit by vehicle on Prince of Wales Island. We then headed from Ketchikan to Wrangell, studying all along the way.”
The six-week expeditions include two upper-division courses taken concurrently, one in science and a second in policy. While in the field, students experience the cause and effect of natural history and ecology and land management decisions hand-in-hand. In addition to the core curriculum, students become field scientists and participate in several long-term ecological research programs.
“It’s important for them to study these things here because there is no better classroom than the Tongass (National Forest,)” Chaille added. “It’s a place where you can see things that are happening as well as a place that is undergoing transition.”
As the school’s program manager and co-founder, Steinkruger said she looks to learn as much, if not more, than her students on each journey.
“I think I always learn more than they do,” she said. “The way they learn with open eyes and soak up all the different perspectives, they have a really genuine way of learning, and the respect they develop also opens up my eyes as well.”
Colorado State University junior Allie Petersen was one of the students in Wrangell with the class. She said she enjoyed the trip – and Wrangell even more.
“The trip was awesome,” Petersen said. “I’m from the Midwest, so we don’t get to see a lot of big mountains, big trees or big water. It’s been really cool to see the scenery and be with some awesome people while learning. And I love Wrangell. It’s a cute little town with a lot going on. The people are all really nice, too.”
For more information on the school and its curriculum, go to http://www.tatooshschool.org.
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