The Third Day in the Wilderness

By Sierra S.

Green Group

October Sixth

Theme: Human Environment Interaction

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The third day at Cardigan, we had French toast for breakfast, after packing everything up. We managed to have no ORT, but there was a puddle of maple syrup left. We decided to do a geocaching like thing, where you found trees instead of little boxes. It was called Mystery of the Trees, and it gave you instructions, like "take a bearing of 180 degrees and walk twenty steps forward, then turn right and take seven more steps," to find the tree or whatever you were trying to find. Sometime in the middle, it started raining, and everyone stopped to put on rain jackets, which was the environment influencing us. The first tree was a White Pine, at the second campsite. Then there was another tree, near a bear box, and we couldn't find the third one because our GPS had awful compasses. We went back to the lodge to get an analog compass and using that, we eventually got to the last object. It was an old car whose engine was used to power the lift on the ski slope. It was green and rusted, the wheel rims embedded in the ground. We took sketches of it, then walked back down the ski slope to the campsites. After we finished the Mystery of the Trees, we walked along the Nature Trail, looking at different types of moss and plants. We stopped at a stream and ate lunch. I had a sandwich with lettuce, tomatoes, and onions. Jen, our group leader, had brought some crackers, a sleeve of which someone dropped into the water, which was humans influencing the environment. Then we did a stream study, where we found little creatures in the water and sketched them. Jen explained that they were either sensitive, somewhat sensitive, or insensitive, to the water's condition. The stonefly and caddisfly we found were both somewhat sensitive. We hiked back to the lodge on the road, because we didn't have enough time to make it back along the trail. We boarded the bus soon after and rode home. Human Environment Interaction, a theme of geography, was present at Cardigan. The trails we hiked influenced the environment, because humans cut trees and plants to maintain them. Also, humans passing drop litter occasionally, which affects the environment. The weather and climate affected us. It started raining, and everyone took out rain gear to keep themselves dry. Additionally, everyone was instructed to wear cotton, because if cotton got wet, it took a long time to dry, which was an example of the environment influencing our choices.

Part of Cardigan's slopes are ski trails, and back before modern ski lifts, this car's engine was used to turn the gears of an old lift.

Small macro-invertebrates we found in a stream by the Nature Trail.