Jono made you think about it, but he is not your saviour
For our second PLP Field Study, we returned to Loon Lake, where we went for our first field study. However, this experience was very different. If you have not read my blog post on the previous Loon Lake trip, I encourage you to do so.
Our journey began on November 28. We arrived at Loon Lake probably around 10:30-11:00. The first thing we did was go to the gymnasium to meet Jono. Jono runs a company called Pinnacle Pursuits, which is sort of like a mix between a leadership seminar and a tourism agency. They bring people to outdoor learning experience places like Loon Lake, and teach leadership skills. After the introduction activity, we had lunch. After lunch, we went to the Pan Abode for our first lecture. Jono gave us these workbooks, full of activities about personal development, personal values, and more. In this first lesson, we took a personal evaluation to determine which category of leader we fall into. I am both and Enabler and a Modeller. Afterwards, we went outside for our first 2 outdoor activities. First, we went into groups and were tasked with solving a scavenger hunt. We were given a few pieces of equipment to help us. A sheet of paper with puzzles we needed to solve using clues on the signs we were trying to find, a compass, which is much more complicated than I thought, and a map. After about 30 minutes, my group finished the scavenger hunt and finished the puzzle. Next, Jono took us to the high ropes course and showed us the area. It was basically a bunch of large wooden posts, probably 30 meters tall, connected with ropes. It was dark and we had no experience so we didn’t do the tall ones (yet). Instead, we practiced going across a much lower rope, about 2 or 3 feet off the ground. By this time, it was dark and cold, so we went back to the Pan Abode for lessons. In this lesson, we did a partner activity where one person would ask the other “what do you love” and the other person had to say the first thing they thought of. It started off pretty fun and interesting but as it went on, I couldn’t think of more things to say, and I got stressed. After this, we went to the Dining Hall for dinner. When we returned, to the Pan Abode for our last lecture of the day. The last lessons of the day were usually less structured. On this night, we were given pieces of poster paper to draw pictures of things we love. I drew a variety of things, such as music, food, and my friends. I only took a picture of a small portion of my poster, which contains my drawing of my friend.
After this, we were assigned our cabins. My room also held Max L, Max R, Zach, Declan, and Mateo. To any PLP teachers reading this, we always stayed on our best behaviour and went to sleep on time.
Day 2
Day 2 began early, because Zach set an alarm for 6:50 AM, even though we agreed to wake up at 7:00. It didn’t matter though, because we all stayed in bed until 7:30 because there was a horrible buzzing noise in our cabin the first night which kept us awake. We saw that it had snowed a lot over the night. At 8:00 we had breakfast. I decided to horrify the people at my table by cutting a big piece out of the middle of my pancake. After breakfast, Jono took us to the shore of the lake for a bonus early lesson.
First, we did an activity where we looked people in the eye and calmly said “I see you.” It was pretty powerful. After that, Jono invited us to grab some water from the lake and splash it on our face. By this moment, I fully trusted Jono, so I took off my gloves and hat, scooped some water in my hands and rubbed it on my face. The cold water against my skin woke me up and prepared me for the day. During our main morning lesson, we opened a chart in the workbook of a list of values. First, we were told to pick 5 that were important to us. After a few minutes of deciding, I made a list of 5. After that, we were told to cut it down to 3, which was just as hard. After that, we went to the Dining Hall for a challenge. We put ourselves into groups of about 5. Once we got in our groups, we were given some materials. We got some pieces of spaghetti, tape, string, and a few other things. Our challenge was to build a tower as tall as possible within the time limit. By the end, our team of genius engineers had built a tower 0 cm tall. Due to my poor attention and time management skills, I was slacking off and not fully doing my job. We had a few pieces we were going to attach together, but we ran out of time. Afterwards, we had a discussion on what is the difference between a group and a team. The next activity I remember was rock climbing after lunch. I used to go rock climbing all the time so I was doing totally fine during this, but the climbing instructor taught me a very valuable lesson: Consider the Foot. I don’t entirely know what it means but I will live the rest of my life considering the foot. After rock climbing, it got dark, so we went for dinner. During our evening lesson, one activity we did was we put the drawings we did the night before on the wall. After that, we went and wrote kind messages on the posters to people who did something we appreciated. It felt very nice to do something good, and I felt good reading the supportive messages on my poster. Our main activity this night was writing a credo, which is sort of like a personal message. A few people shared their credos, but I felt like mine needed some more work, and also I was a bit nervous. After, we went back to the cabins and went to sleep (on time, of course.)
Day 3
Day 3 was probably the most important day of the whole trip. After waking up at 6:50/7:00/7:30, we went in for breakfast. After breakfast, Jono took us back to the high ropes course. It was Jono’s last day with us, so he made sure to make it a day we wouldn’t forget. He told us that later that day, we were going to go across the course. Since it was the bright morning, I could fully see how high the course was, and I began to think if I should or shouldn’t do it.
Jono told us to create a goal for today, and we all said ours out loud. My goal was to try my hardest in all activities and participate, even if I am intimidated. We returned to the Pan Abode for our main lesson on emotional intelligence. Emotional Intelligence is broken down into 4 categories, which are broken down into several other concepts. Jono passed out some cards to everyone. Everyone got 5 random cards, each one with an EI concept on it. We were told to keep the ones with concepts important to us, and to trade the other ones until we got 5 important to us. After that, Jono told us to get rid of 2 of them, just like the values chart. After lunch, we had our outdoor activities. The first thing my group did was the High Ropes course. By this time, the confidence had built up and I was ready to do the course, but I decided to do another activity first. This activity involved building a tower out of milk crates. 2 of the builders would be attached to harnesses and being held up by a cable, meaning they can go high off the ground. Me and Carter put on the harness, while a few other people stayed on the ground to pass us crates and keep it secure. Our incredible building skills helped us build a tower 17 crates tall, the highest out of group in the class, and according to the instructors, close to the all time record. After the crate tower, I tried a section of the high ropes course. Since the crate building had killed my fear of heights, I pretty much ran across the rope. The next activity we did was trust falls. We started small by falling just a few inches, then falling about 2 feet, to falling 5 feet off of a chair on top of a table. After that, we had dinner and went back to the Pan Abode for our final Jono lesson. First, we continued to work on and share our credos. I would have done mine but we ran out of time, and we moved onto the main exercise: crossing the line. I don’t want to get very specific about this exercise because it involves many private and personal stories, but I will say it was very powerful and emotional. I learned a lot from this exercise and I will not forget it for a long time.
Day 4
When we went for breakfast the 4th morning, the people at my table were still talking about their experiences the night before. I think the PLP teachers knew, so after breakfast during our morning lesson, we did a reflection worksheet. We were told to use any kind of emotional experience we had, but I think everyone chose the same thing. By this point, we hadn’t really done any PLP activities or anything led by the PLP teachers, so we had our first one. Ms Willemse had us turn our personal credos into wallpapers for our phones and iPads. We also made a personal logo relating to the values and credos we made.
Mr Hughes showed us how we can use Things for goal setting/achieving. I don’t think the PLP teachers really knew what to do with us with all the time we had without Jono, so after lunch, we went on a 2 and a half hour hike all around the perimeter of the lake. A group of us tried using the rope barge to cross the lake and finish about half an hour earlier, but the rope was frozen and wouldn’t go through the pulley.
After the hike, we didn’t have anything planned, so we got about 2 hours of free time. During this time, a group of the guys on our floor in the Student Centre watched what might be the greatest movie ever made: Killer Bean Forever. I could write a whole blog post about Killer Bean, so I’ll describe it short here. Killer Bean Forever is an animated movie about a bean assassin who takes down a crime syndicate, so it’s kind of like John Wick but good.
At dinner, me and Zach tried explaining the movie to Mr Hughes and I don’t think he believes its a real movie. After dinner, we went back to the Pan Abode for the last time. For our last activity, the teachers put on another movie. I was pretty disappointed because I knew it wouldn’t be as good as Killer Bean. We watched the Tom Hanks movie Apollo 13, and I thought it was pretty good. After the movie, none of the guys in the cabin were tired, so we hung out in the common room talking, listening to music, and playing cards until a late hour which I won’t be specific about incase the teachers are reading. Also, this whole part was a joke and happened in a dream I had because I went to sleep early.
Day 5
We didn’t really do much on the last day. We ate breakfast, Had a short lesson, packed our bags, and left.
I definitely grew over the course of this week. It was probably the best week of my life in terms of learning and personal development. I was able to clear my mind and learn to develop valuable skills. I set goals and created a message I can follow for the rest of my life. Something interesting I thought of is I already somewhat knew most of these things we learned about. However, putting it into practice and developing experiences really changed my perspective. The main difference between this trip and the last one was that this one was less influenced by PLP. Also, not everyone who went to the previous Loon Lake trip came on this one. If I had to choose, I would say I preferred this trip over the last one.