Every year, a group of enthusiastic student wilderness leaders plan, prep, staff, and execute week-long Outdoor Orientation Programs at College of the Atlantic to provide new students a setting to bond with peers and explore the State of Maine.On Debsconeag Lake in the beginning of September, during the tail end of summer and the first gentle wisps of autumn, Mafe Farias ’21 was tucked into a canoe with a trail of new students paddling in her wake. They were passing the time bonding with each other over the thrills of lakeside camping life, admiring the eagles drifting gently above the lake, and befriending two otters that were keeping pace with the canoes.
Farias recalls that the little creatures tugged on the group’s affections by playing peek-a-boo in the water close by, popping tiny noses and curious eyes above the waves for about half a mile before leaving the group to their adventure.
Every year, a group of enthusiastic student wilderness leaders like Farias plan, prep, staff, and execute week-long Outdoor Orientation Programs (OOPs) trips in Maine’s rugged backwoods, wild mountains, and meandering watersheds, providing a setting where new students can bond with peers over campfire meals held under the stars.
Some of the other leaders guided freshmen down parts of the 92-mile Allagash Wilderness Waterway, on a hike through Baxter State Park to summit Mt. Katahdin, Maine’s tallest peak, and to kayak around a collection of islands on the Maine coast called the Stonington Archipelago.
COA Outdoor Orientation Programs (OOPs) participants take a rest from their kayaking trip along the Maine coast. OOPs trips give new students a chance to bond with peers and experience Maine's great outdoors, while older students can put their outdoor leadership skills into practice.Leading in the wilderness is a wonderful way to become involved with the outdoors and your campus community at the same time, says COA Coordinator of Community Engagement Nick Jenei ’09.
“It’s an opportunity for you to build skills and to really work with a dynamic team to lead some pretty phenomenal trips, and to welcome the new students into our community,” Jenei says. “That giving back piece, I think, is one of the best things.”
Becoming a leader and participating in the program is free of cost, he notes, and participants become Wilderness First Aid certified.Two dozen students were able to take advantage of this no-cost leadership opportunity in the 2020-2021 school year.
For Farias, the moments she had on her freshman OOPs trip as a participant inspired her to become a wilderness leader. When she did, it changed how she looked at leadership entirely and increased the level of confidence she felt within herself, she says.
“When you’re out and you realize that you’re an OOPs leader, and you have to make decisions, and literally you’re dealing with participants’ lives, but you also know that you’re prepared, and that people trust you, that you can do it… that kind of leadership changes your perspective,” she says.
Throughout the year, COA outdoor leaders host kayaking trips, hikes, day trips, and overnights into the Maine wilderness. several other trips for students to take part inGrowing up in a city setting, Farias had little experience before joining the leadership program, but she says her lack of experience wasn’t a hindrance. “The fact that you didn’t do it before doesn’t mean that you’re not capable, it just means that you didn’t have the opportunity to do it,” she says,
Morgane Saint-Cyr ’22, who now trains leaders like Farias before OOPs, said it was valuable and impactful “to just see that different position and level of organization, and just this different dynamic of being part of the group as a leader instead of a participant.”
For Saint-Cyr, joining the leadership team led to being on the Outing Club work-study crew, developing outdoor-focused independent studies, prepping for a long hike post-graduation, a senior project focused on the school gear shed, a spot on the admin team to train new OOPs leaders, and a management experience with the program.
Jenei says Saint-Cyr has been able to work their way up from being a participant during their first year to now, as a senior, “helping to coordinate OOPs and to really have organizational and kind of managerial aspects of the program.”
Outdoor leadership is a journey that takes you deep into the community and ties your heart to the land surrounding you, Saint-Cyr says. It doesn’t just provide outdoor logistics as you go through school; it operates as an outlet to get stress out in healthy ways with peers and a way to form a strong sense of responsibility around giving back to the community.
“It’s been a very central part of my time at COA and I think it’s shaped a lot how I see COA, how I understand Maine, how I kinda see myself within the community, and I think it’s definitely fostered a big sense of wanting to give a lot back to the community,” says Saint-Cyr.
Mafe Farias '21, left, and Morgane Saint-Cyr '22 are among COA's dedicated Outdoor Orientation Programs leaders.Both Farias and Saint-Cyr share a fond memory of night paddling on Lake Onawa, during one of the canoeing training trips.
“It was just completely dark, and we went out onto the lake and people were kind of chatting at first, and then everyone fell silent and just kind of clung the canoes together…paddling without talking about it,” Saint-Cyr says. “It was just so nice to not really be able to see anything, and to really focus on the sound.”
There were loons breaking the silence, tossing greetings to each other softly from one nearby lake to another. Saint-Cyr describes a peace and awe in knowing they were not alone in the stillness of the world. Farias smiles as she describes the beauty of being able to hear a rainstorm approaching that night, still sitting together in the embraces of canoes, admiring the dark.
The three leadership programs the school offers that lead to events like the night paddle are sea kayaking, trekking, and traditional skills. In each program, outdoor leadership, general camping skills, risk assessment, group dynamics, and technical skills are studied. Outings happen every week, as well as weekend trips that go overnight so that students can fully immerse themselves in the topics. Come late summer, leaders get to plan and then lead multi-day adventures for new students.
Throughout the year, members of the program also lead COA Outing Club trips for students. These include kayaking lessons, coastal bouldering, canoeing trips, overnight camping trips on local islands, hikes in Acadia National Park, and much more.
Outdoor recreation at College of the Atlantic often includes awe-inspiring scenes. COA's outdoor leaders take students into the Maine wilderness and along coastal destinations to explore the outdoors all throughout the year.
