This summer, 10 young individuals were given the opportunity to participate in the 2009 Sustainable Living Leadership Program, a 25 day, 1400 kilometer environmental education odyssey down the Fraser River. The opportunity of a lifetime!

The program, designed in the wake of Fin Donnelly’s Fraser River swims, is run by the Rivershed Society of B.C. and facilitated by four outstanding individuals: Sharolise, a First Nations leader and fisheries expert; Glenda, an active sustainable rural and urban community developer; Doug, an environmental activist and formal educator and Fin, the executive director of the Society.

10 individuals were selected from around the Province of British Columbia. Fortunately, I was chosen to be one of them! I was truly looking forward to spending time with like-minded individuals, bouncing ideas off one another and experiencing the outdoor environment firsthand.

The program started in early August at the foot of Mount Robson in the Rocky Mountains. The first couple of days were spent getting to know each other and discussing the adventures to be had over the course of the next 25 days. The program was divided into three sections: leadership skills, sustainable living, and project planning.

Leadership skills
The first section was launched in a canoe into the headwaters of the Fraser River. While taking in the pristine wilderness, participants discussed leadership and team building. We established that any good leader should exhibit certain characteristics: honesty, integrity, truthfulness and open-mindedness. We felt leaders should be supportive, caring, inspirational, respectful, gives recognition, intelligent and responsible. We learned to work as a team and navigated a 34-foot, 15-person canoe for three consecutive days, stopping only for lunch and to camp for the night.

The canoes were pulled out of the water in Crescent Spur and loaded onto a trailer along with all of the gear. We shuttled up to the Goat River in a 15-person van where we spent the next couple of days camping in remote wilderness. A day was spent helping the Fraser River Headwaters Alliance clear and build an eight kilometre section of the Goat River trail. The leadership section of the trip came to a close with a blindfold activity. All 10 participants were blindfolded and tasked with building a shelter within which all could fit, using the given supplies: five sticks and a handful of string. Coming together as a team, we successfully built an A-frame structure.

We then shuttled through Prince George, stopping in an ancient rainforest, the site of 1000-year-old cedar trees, on our way to Xat’súll, an Aboriginal heritage village just north of Williams Lake. The site, complete with traditional housing, was our home for two days. An Aboriginal elder emphasized the importance of the Fraser River to his people’s livelihood. He spoke to us about their traditional lifestyles, some of the complex issues facing aboriginals and the obstacles they encounter in their effort to rebuild their culture.

Sustainable living
The odyssey was now a third of the way done and we were ready to transition into the sustainable living section of the program. Fraser River Rafting Expeditions met up with us at the edge of the river. Their rafts had to be strong enough to transport all of the gear as well as each individual through the rapids that we would encounter in the next eight days.

For the most part, we drifted through the foreign landscape that is the Fraser Canyon. Marked by steep, narrow cliff walls, desert sands and sagebrush, it was hard to imagine that such a place exists in B.C. The scenery over the course of the eight days was breathtaking and the conversation inspiring. All aspects of sustainability—voluntary simplicity, bioregionalism, deep ecology, peak oil, urban densification, green economy, as well as global and social issues—were the subjects of conversation.

We also had the chance to see firsthand the opportunities and consequences of sustainable living or lack thereof. The closure of the Fraser River sockeye salmon run made the potential consequences of unsustainable living very clear as we passed through Lillooet, a town whose livelihood depends on the fishery. A trip to an organic farm highlighted the opportunities for individuals to create change by making sustainable food choices and eating locally, in season and lower on the food chain.

The final day on the raft required us to navigate one of the most famous parts of the Fraser River. We were in for a day of back-to-back rapids, including the notorious Hell’s Gate. The day started with the unloading of all the gear in preparation for the unstoppable forces of the water that we would encounter. The raft eventually came across a section of seemingly harmless rapids; however, within a split second, the group was spiralling in the midst of a giant whirlpool that had appeared out of nowhere. With no time to anticipate the sudden change in direction, one of the participants was catapulted off the side of the raft and into the raging river. For a brief moment, it appeared the river had swallowed him whole. Thanks to the quick actions of the raft guide and a little help from the team, he was back on the raft in no time. After this event, one could only imagine how the rest of the day would unfold. Having witnessed someone fall into the river, all of the participants were white- knuckled as we approached the narrow waters of Hell’s Gate. Luckily, we managed to make it through the turbulent waters with everyone on board. The rest of the day was spent navigating a series of rapids, each one more ferocious then the last. The exciting day came to a close, along with the program section on sustainable living.

Project planning
In Hope, we loaded up all of the gear into two canoes and made our way towards the Pacific Ocean. The last leg of the trip would take us through a very populated and industrialized section of the Fraser. Logging and gravel operations became more and more common along the River as we approached the Lower Mainland. During this section, participants worked on developing the outdoor river education activity that they had outlined in their application essays. Individual projects involved the implementation of art projects, eco-tours, school programs, community centers and environmental programs. The main idea behind the projects was for each participant to have something to bring back to their community in hopes of engaging others, much like a ripple effect.

Paddling for five consecutive days, we passed under all of the major bridges and through all of the major cities in the Lower Mainland. On the final day, we paddled out of the Fraser River and into the Pacific Ocean. Coming around the corner, the concrete jungle that is the city of Vancouver was visible in the distance. Finally, we landed on Jericho Beach and everything came full circle. After 25 days it had come to an end.

We experienced a multitude of environments and learned about the various issues affecting those environments. We had discussions about global, social and economic issues. The focus was on future sustainability and seeing obstacles as opportunities rather than problems. I learned that individuals could make a difference by simply making sustainable choices; for the decisions we make as collective individuals, affect the future course of the planet.

Ask any of the participants and I can assure you they would say that this trip truly was the adventure of a lifetime!

For information about next year’s trip, visit the Sustainable Living Leadership Program section of the Rivershed Society of B.C.’s website. http://www.rivershed.com/programs_sllp.shtml