ASPEN Sweden; Joy of life, Knowledge, Future

Gransäterskolan has a profile where the pupils once a week can choose, from grade 6-9, among study extra music, theatre, dance, art, physical education (especially this year in sports with a ball; football, handball, indoor hockey, volleyball, rugby and basket), outdoor life and health. We´re trying to include our pupils in those activites.

This autumn four of our pupils from Aspen in grade 7 and 8 decided to go for a canoe hike with 25 pupils from Gransäterskolan, the profile “Outdoor life and health”. 

Here is the story about two day’s adventure, written by some of our students;

I woke up earlier than I´m used to that morning. I packed my things 10 minutes before we went to the train station. May be a little bit too late… Food, sleeping bag, mattress for outdoor life, tent, clothes, sweets, chips and so on.

The train ride was pretty long, we went to Gnesta, a ride for about 90 minutes.

When we arrived in the start of the paddle tour, a car came with all the items we needed to begin the paddle tour. The man in the car started saying all the things you need to know about canoeing. In the beginning it was pretty hard to make the canoe go your way but you learned how to do pretty fast. But when you became tired in your arms and a lot of wind came, it was hard to make the canoe go your way. We argued a lot in the beginning but it was no use to do that because the canoe needed our muscles and brain all the time. At the first lunch break we made pea soup at our Trangia-kitchen. After the lunch break we paddled in quite hard wind and big waves and through a part like a forest by reeds. We crashed in the wall of reed and it was pretty hard to get out from there.

The wind was hard all day long, and it was blowing from the front, of course. It was a hard work to reach the camp this first day.  We switched some people in the canoes to be able to reach the end of the tour that day.

We paddled near a rare seagull nest where we had to be quiet.

When we tired arrived in the camping place we settled up our tents. Some people slept under the canoes, like a wind break or something. After the long fight to get our tent up it was time to make dinner. The dinner was for example hamburgers; we had made our food list together with one partner.  When I was looking for the ketchup 20 meter away from the frying pan it’s started burning in the pan. My partner didn’t saw that, he stood 1 meter from it, so it was pretty hard to get the food ready. So I needed to run all I got to save the hamburger. Some friends food was fast noodles with turkey, grilled pork or meatballs.

In the evening we sat at the camp fire, talking and just took it cool. Our teacher learned us about the echo. In the evening, the sea was calm and like a floor, no wind at all.

When it was time to go to bed me and my friend was very tired. It was raining, but lucky our tent was safe from rain, my other friends tent was leaking so he didn´t slept at all.

The next day I woke up by my friend, he was talking to a teacher. It was cold and humid in the morning. My breakfast was loaf and chocolate milk. After the breakfast it was time to pack everything. We started paddling almost directly after we had packed our things, but it took two hours to find all our things…. This day it was my partner who sat in the back, responsible to manoeuvre this day.

After some hours I started to get blisters all over my hand. We needed to carry de kayak pretty far now, between 100 to 800 meters, and with my blisters it hurt a lot. My arms were hurting, the chips and sweets was ended and we were all very tired, longing for the end. We had to be in a hurry so we didn´t miss the train home, too.

We reached the end in time, took care of the canoes and walked for about one kilometer to the bus. After a short bus ride we took the train to Stockholm, switched to the train and was in Bålsta at six o´clock in the evening. So tired!!! Never go for a canoe ride again!!!! But….

After some weeks I can feel that I want to make a new canoe hike! It was an experience and now I know what´s all about. A good memory!!!