Court Rustemeyer has been an outdoor education teacher at Vincent Massey Junior High School in Calgary, Alberta, for the past 12 years. For the past eight years or so, he has travelled to the northern Sunshine Coast with close to 30 grade eight students who decide to take on the challenge of a multi-day trek on the Sunshine Coast Trail (SCT).
This year, the group arrived on May 22 to begin an eight-day journey starting from the Manzanita Hut trailhead and ending at the Shinglemill.
"It's an extra kind of curriculum, a kind of club, at the public school here in Calgary that we call outdoor leadership," said Rustemeyer. "I saw a need for these kids to have an opportunity to do something a little more challenging."
Although Alberta has the Rocky Mountains and plenty of outdoor hiking spaces available, Rustemeyer said one of the roadblocks he hit while trying to find a suitable place to do a multi-day hike was that there is always a possibility of snow, even in May or June.
"We're very lucky in Alberta, we get snow year-round," said Rustemeyer. "We would do all this planning and June comes around but there could be two feet of snow."
Rustemeyer said he started exploring hiking options in BC around 15 years ago. While in Comox he heard about the Sunshine Coast Trail in the qathet region and decided to pop over and check out the trail, where he met Eagle Walz, a co-founder of qathet Parks and Wilderness Society (qPAWS).
"It's a pretty big undertaking for anyone, even adults," said Rustemeyer. "We hiked to Manzanita Bluffs first and spent two days there, and did a day hike to Wednesday Lake and back."
The group then headed south, eventually to Scout Mountain and the Shinglemill, their final destination.
"They loved the old-growth forest, and all the shades of green," said Rustemeyer.
Students brought their own tents, dehydrated food, water and hiking gear with them on their backs, enough for an eight day hike.
"There have been some years where it rained here and there, but this year, it rained on us every single day," said Rustemeyer. "But the kids were just incredible, the weather didn't phase them at all."
The students' outdoor journey usually begins about a year before the launch date of their hike, and only the ones who choose to work through all the hoops and are successful in making the application will go.
"It's a full year journey for them, beginning in September or October," said Rustemeyer. "I ask all the grade eight students at my school if they want to go to a fun, leadership-type of outdoor camp, and I take around 140 kids."
He said throughout the year students are given opportunities to take part in mini-outdoor camps and in January they go on a multi-day ski camp in the Rockies.
"Then we go on to build skills, such as food dehydrating, setting up tents, using cooking stoves and setting up bear hangs."
Rustemeyer said the process is self-selecting and he ends up with roughly 30 students who are ready to take on BC's coast.
There are no cell phones used on the entire trip, beginning on the bus in Alberta.
"We have a no cell phone or technology policy," said Rustemeyer. "They play cards or whatever they want to do, and they get to be kids again."
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