Sitting down to our sandwiches and Dunkaroos, the victims of the 2003 Galiano trip took a moment to breathe. Maybe a feeling of victory floated around the crowd. We had survived a potential landslide, we had come to the top of the largest hill on the island, and we had proved to ourselves our own physical dominance.
The cliffside was beautiful—the sun had come out to shine from behind the angry looking clouds—and lunch was well received among the troops.
The grade threes, split on either cliff by class division, tried not to be heard speaking English. But as we ducked the glares of the Quebecois teachers and regrouped to chatter with our friends, the happy mutterings of the western cliff were rudely disturbed.
The sound of screaming from the eastern cliff jerked the grade threes and sevens out of their definitely
The screaming was coming from the side of the cliff, where, crouching on a precarious ledge about six or seven feet off the top of the cliff, was another grade three.
One of the guides lowered the kid a rope and pulled him up. No fatal injuries, but a broken ankle meant another patient for the bus. Darwin rolled in his grave.
Lunch ended early, and the teachers decided it was best to go through the woods, on a slightly longer, but less cliffy path. Our fallen comrades were not forgotten, and their names were passed through the ranks of children like the names of martyrs.
BC weather, not missing a chance to liven up a field trip, decided it was a perfect time for some light rain.
The cabin had become our only driving force. Our holy grail. The light at the end of the tunnel.
We clamped our mouths shut and daydreamed ourselves into the cabin, imagining hot chocolates and cookies by a fire, with pillows and blankets to comfort our cold, broken bodies.
Fighting back tears, we bit our lips until, through the trees, we saw something dark and tall standing solemnly and proudly by the cliff side. Something more beautiful than any stack of theater candy, and more inspiring than any showing of La Guerre des Tuques (a Christmas classic at our school).
It was the cabin.
We’re through! we thought. We made it! An end to suffering! World peace! we rejoiced.
Fifteen minutes? Fifteen minutes was barely time to pee!
But peeing was all we were here for, and so a queue of girls was formed in front of the spider-infested bathroom, and the boys formed their own queue into the woods.
Fifteen minutes, and all we had to show was a few spider bites and empty bladders.
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The route back was long, and winding, and, of course, soaking. We had been betrayed, and any fight in our hearts was dissolved in the rain.
However, despite the rain, one of the grade seven teachers had sustained his joi-de-vivre, and was conversing gaily with one of the guides about biomes. The pair made a snap decision to give us a quick education in the environment, and so they pulled five groups of sevens and threes off the path and into a bog (which was wetter and more miserable than the path).
The ecosystem is complex, and diverse, said the guide.
If you even stuck one finger in this water, countless worlds could be destroyed! said the guide.
And, in the spirit of the trip, he leaned forwards,
slipped on the wet wood walkway,
and crashed into the boggy water.
The walk back to the bus felt a lot shorter after that.
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The trip was a complete disaster. Three kids were in need of the hospital, many others were scraped and cut from various accidents, and everyone was catching colds from the rain.
No one felt bonded with nature.
No one had seen beauty on the islands.
We had only encountered hell.
Arriving back at Tsawwassen terminal, a parent had the audacity to ask my teacher how the trip went.
In response, she tried to smile politely, silently shook her head,
and stalked dejectedly to her vehicle.
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