An Inside Look at the Orcas Island Youth Conservation Corps – Week 2

— by Izabela Janacek, Martha Lum & Molly Troxel —

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Have you ever wondered how people make trails? The kids of Orcas Island Youth Conservation Corps or OIYCC learned just this, during a recent Camping Trip to Shaw Island. Fourteen enthusiastic crew members from the corps, aged from 12 to 16, embarked on a one-night camping trip from July 5th to 6th. The purpose of their stay was to construct a trail through the San Juan Preservation Trust’s Graham Preserve. The new trail would connect the Shaw Island Campground to the North-South oriented trail already on the Graham Preserve.

On the first day of their camping trip, the OIYCC participants biked off the ferry to the Shaw Island Campground, where they immediately got to work constructing the trail. The crew members built the trail using tools such as McLeods, hoes, loppers and many more. Under the instruction of the leaders the crew excelled at trail building. The group was joined by trail building expert Kathleen Foley from the San Juan Preservation Trust. After about 4 hours of trail building the crew had constructed almost a third of the trail. Next, the crew went back to the campsite where they set up camp and ate a delicious dinner. Afterwards, the members were joined by two Leave No Trace trainers from Lopez who taught the crew how to have a minimal impact on the environment. Following a rousing game of kickball on the Shaw Island Baseball field, the campers biked back to the campsite to roast S’mores. After the crew had loaded themselves with sugar they walked to the beach for some reflection time. A majority of the campers said they liked trail building and could not wait for another day of it. The crew went off to bed ready for a good night’s sleep before another busy day.

To start off the morning, the crew members took down camp and ate a plentiful breakfast before going straight to the trail to work. The team sawed, hacked, hoed and sheared through the wilderness. There were four main groups in the trail construction. The Seekers were people who scouted and marked the trail route. Miners were those who found and collected dirt to fill in divots and shallow areas. Rough Grain crew cleared large objects out of the way and pruned vegetation back for the Fine Grain crew, who finished the trail and made it more usable and nice to look at. The workers put much physical exertion into the eight hours they worked and were rewarded by completing the trail just within the time limit.

After a very successful day, the crew biked to the ferry landing and rewarded themselves for their hard work with ice-cream from the Shaw Store. Says participant Martha Lum “I learned a lot and had lots of fun. It was a great experience, and I am really excited to continue doing jobs like this one later this summer.”