Published on Brock University (http://www.brocku.ca)
Samantha Allard, BLRS 2010
I've only been unemployed one month since I've graduated from Brock in June 2010. Here's what I've been doing in my field.
Ending fourth year on the Appalachian Trail was a perfect ending to my degree and days after returning I started at The Luna Project as an outdoor educator. The Luna Project is an off the grid sustainable outdoor education founded and operated by a man who lives next to the center off the grid in a yurt and has for the past six years. It was an amazing company to work for and I got the best of both worlds: canoe tripping and outdoor education programs. I ran all the programs on sustainability to creating my own summer camp programs. However, like most outdoor positions it was a contract to the end of October.
Job searching is fun and if you're willing to go anywhere there will always be a job waiting for you. I got hired in December at The Haliburton Forest and Wildlife Reserve as a dog sled guide. I'm coming up to my one year anniversary with the company. Haliburton Forest is the first certified sustainable forest in Canada, it is a privately owned 80,000 acre forest. The Forest has an outdoor education department as one of its four streams of activity; so I now get to continue facilitating outdoor education programs through all the seasons. There is so much variety at The Forest, one day I'm taking a group of students rock climbing and on our high ropes course, the next I could be guiding a Canopy Tour for the public, and packing out for a canoe trip the next. I really feel like I'm making a difference in the world by spreading the importance of sustainability and environmental education.
I'm now beginning to create my own outdoor education programs to grow outdoor education at Haliburton Forest.
