Delicious, freshly prepared lasagna on the river. One with regular pasta, one gluten-free.

Parents sometimes inquire whether our programs are suitable for those on a gluten-free diet. The answer is a qualified yes. Although we can’t guarantee a completely gluten-free environment for the most severely afflicted celiac patients, we do provide gluten-free pastas and bread options for celiacs and those with pronounced reactions to wheat flour and other gluten products. The chief reason why Deer Hill has been among the first teen outdoor and wilderness programs to cater to gluten-free teens and other food sensitivities, is that owners Doug and Beverly have been following a wheat and gluten-free diet for many years, ever since their doctor advised them to use the approach it to address some health issues in the family. Now the whole family eats gluten-free. Here’s the story from Deer Hill Owner and Founder Beverly Capelin:

“Our family embraces a gluten-free diet, because through trial and error, we found it was undoubtedly the healthiest lifestyle for our family. As each of us took gluten out of their diet, we developed a stronger immune system, a healthier metabolism and we had a greater sense of well-being. This did not come overnight. It took a few weeks to get a sense that changes were occurring, and after months of improved health we became true believers. Back in 2006 I was actually losing sleep wondering how I was going to feed Ben, our now 6’5″  junior Olympian nordic skier, and optimize his health. He was devouring calories. The stress of his training regimen exaggerated his reaction to gluten and provoked severe health issues, catapulting us into gluten-free cooking.

We’d eaten organic foods for years and have always been a family that eats well and relishes creative cooking. But, no wheat, no barley, no gluten at all?? That felt crazy, and costly! Gluten free was just creeping onto the shelves of natural food stores. Now the choices are so varied, gluten free is in national chain stores and it is possible to find breads that do not crumble with every bite. Gluten-free may be dismissed as a fad by some. For us it has been a Blessing and we are committed to providing that option to those who come and break bread with us at Deer Hill… gluten-free or not.

Yum!

 

A Deer Hill custom program participant cleans up after a service project in the Bri Bri village of Yorkin. For the first time, participants on our Costa Rica Exploradores summer program will work with the Bri Bri during their 3-week expedition.

Deer Hill Program Director Jason Kroll reflects on the 10th anniversary of our Costa Rica Exploradores program:

After 9 years of continuous refinement and reflection, we are especially excited about our program in Costa Rica this summer. Thanks to continued discussion and feedback between me, Miguel Cabrera (owner-founder of our partner organization “on the ground”), and our field instructors, the program elements and itinerary for Costa Rica Exploradores 2012 are our best yet.

In addition to a very authentic homestay experience in a charming Tico village – where last year our group worked with local people on a reforestation project – the redesigned program includes service and cultural exchange with the Bri Bri, an indigenous people of Costa Rica and Panama who live in the mountains above the Caribbean coast, subsisting on farming and agriculture. The Bri Bri live very simply in balance with nature, in communities based around small-scale agriculture. Key crops are cacao and bananas. The Bri Bri speak their indigenous language, as well as some Spanish. We visit a community called Yorkin, which is situated above the Yorkin river along the border with Panama.

In addition to this new element, the program flows as well as ever between adventure and service elements as it moves from the capital of San Jose through the Cloud Forest, along the Pejibaye and the Pacuare River (one of NatGeo’s top 10 whitewater rivers in the world), and finally to the Caribbean Coast. In Costa Rica, Deer Hill works very closely with another organization, Exploradores Outdoors. This company is owned and operated by Miguel and Yency Cabrera. Through nearly 10 years of collaboration, we have been deeply impressed by the Cabreras’ sense of quality and concern for risk management. Miguel and Yency both have an impressive record of river descents and backpacking expeditions around the world. Their intimate knowledge of their homeland allows Deer Hill to offer you one of the most refined programs, off the beaten path, in Costa Rica.

All this, and the participants will also get to work on their Spanish every day of the trip through conversation with local people and guides, and the occasional relaxed class with our fluent leaders.

Whether you have taken a Deer Hill trip before, or you are considering your first trip with us, our Costa Rica program offers all of the quality, depth, adventure and reflection of our Southwest programs, with a little added “pura vida”!

Learn more about the program, see a photo gallery, and read the detailed itinerary here.

Deer Hill program leaders Miles and Britt pose with their Bri Bri hosts

The story begins in 1915, when Laughing Boy, an idealistic and very traditional young Navajo man, travels to Chinle, AZ for a tribal dance and horse racing. While at the dances, he meets Slim Girl, a beautiful woman who is Navajo, but who attended American boarding school and now has one foot in each culture.

Although Laughing Boy’s family doesn’t approve, he marries Slim Girl and they move to her home in Los Palos, setting up a quiet sanctuary for themselves; she, working in town, he, silversmithing and raising horses.  Life is wonderful until her past begins to creep into their world, causing a strained dichotomy between traditional Navajo life and the life led by Americans and also by Slim Girl.

They struggle to make their lives work and to find balance between their worlds. Their immense love for each other keeps their compass pointing north through the storms and they carve a path that is uniquely their own.

Laughing Boy is a beautiful read: poetic, lyrical and accessible to all ages.  It is a love story, a history book and a cultural statement, all in one fascinating story.  It gives such insight into the history of the Navajo culture and the beginnings of the changes that took place with the influence of the European Americans. This, and the fact that it takes place locally, in the Four Corners area, makes it a favorite read for those of us at Deer Hill.

Suzanne Strazza, Admissions Manager

Solar panels installed on our straw bale Meeting Place, at Deer Hill Basecamp in the Mancos, SW Colorado

Although grey skies have descended upon Southwest Colorado this week, we are still creating plenty of  energy with our solar system, which has been in place throughout the summer. It feels magical to us that we are meeting 100% of our electric power needs from the sun. Every month we generate around 2000 kwh of electricity from 2 large solar arrays, saving 2 tons of CO2 emissions.

Of course, we are still in an energy-intensive business. Vans and trucks need to be fueled; food needs to be shipped in to Basecamp; participants travel to Deer Hill from far and wide. We are looking into local sources for our produce, and already grow a huge quantity of salad greens for Basecamp meals in our organic garden. But, the economic environment, and the nature of our business, makes it impossible to implement every initiative we can think of. What other practical suggestions do you have for reducing our footprint? Should we partner with our adventure summer camp participants, and the schools who work with us, to purchase carbon credits to offset the environmental cost of their trips?

(A portion of the costs of this solar installation were offset by grants from the USDA Rural Development fund, and the State of Colorado Governor’s Energy Office).

Authors Stephen Trimble and Gary Nabhan collaborated on this revolutionary book that examines today’s children and their relationship with nature and wild places. They begin with the premise that children’s experience with wild places has become a luxury, and that our children are no longer playing outside like previous generations.

They argue that a connection with nature is a “basic human need” and we are short-changing our children if we are not providing them with the opportunities to be in the outdoors, exploring, learning and coming to love places that are a part of their personal geography.

Trimble recalls his childhood in the American Southwest, reminiscing about family trips, camping and specific places that he continues to hold dear in his heart. He believes that by “forging connections with plants, animals and land, by finding ways to experience some relationship to the Earth, individuals can gain a sense of worth.”

Nabhan, the father of two young children, claims that it is imperative that we find ways for children to go beyond the concrete and “gain access to vegetation and earth that allows them to tunnel, climb or even fall.” After travelling through native communities of the Southwest and Sonora, Mexico, he mourns the loss of the peoples’ connection to land and nature, which carries with it a direct correlation to the loss of their cultural language and traditions.

Both men believe strongly in the necessity of a connection to the natural world; that this connection brings with it many other necessary abilities such as observational skills, curiosity, critical thinking and compassion.

Here at Deer Hill Expeditions, we too believe that an affinity with the natural world is imperative – in fact, this is at the heart of our mission.  Our permits and experience allow us to take our students to the real “wild places”, away from busy National Parks and tourist trails. Here our leaders share with their students the natural history of the area, how to be stewards of the land, and further, how to be quiet and comfortable in nature, open to unfamiliar landscapes. Through immersion in the landscape as a group, and alone, our participants observe quietly, and interact respectfully with all that goes on around them.

We also nurture relationships with Native cultures, celebrating their cultural inheritance and their knowledge of their lands, working with families who maintain traditional lifestyles and a connection to Mother Earth.

This mission is urgent, and what is at stake is not just health, but identity – the deeper understanding of “self” and “world” that we believe most teenagers are avidly seeking. To encounter nature is an opportunity to see your life, and your sense of self, against the relief of its demands. In the wilderness, our participants learn about their strengths and weaknesses, their true passions, and how they communicate and share with others in the context of scarcity and challenge. As Robert Coles states in the Introduction to The Geography of Childhood, young people…

“ …want to take stock of things, try to make sense of them, and so doing, hunger to find a place where such moral introspection can occur with grace and dignity.  The “geography” boys and girls ultimately want to explore and comprehend is that of life itself…”

The DHE Photo Competition Winner for 2011 was announced today on Facebook. Liana Ray wins a $50 iTunes gift card and a box of Deer Hill goodies for her beautiful, intimate and unusual picture of bighorn sheep on the Green River, Utah. Runners-up Josh Espy and Mollye Zahler win Deer Hill goodies to remind them of their trip. Many entrants sent us their best picture from a summer of outdoor adventure and community service with other teens. Thank you to everyone who sent in pictures – sorry we couldn’t include everyone!

Runner-up 1: Weminuche Wilderness of Colorado, by Josh Espy (Wilderness Leadership 2011)

Runner-up 2: Centennial Peak, by Mollye Zahler (Ancient Pathways 2011)

A Tradition of Closure and Sharing

In our meadow there sits a simple domed structure of willow branches that we cover with fabric to shut out the light and hold in the heat. We sit in a Circle in the lodge, steam rising off rocks that were heated outside in a wood fire. The heat and moisture are relaxing and cleansing. It feels like a sauna without the light on. In 27 years, we have conducted hundreds of sweat lodges for thousands of teenage participants. For each group, it is an important closing ceremony full of song, stories, laughter, and heartfelt sentiments.

At Deer Hill, a sweat lodge is an intimate, powerful experience for a group, and it’s fun! We gather in the sweat to honor the camaraderie of the group, to celebrate friendships and adventures shared. This is a Deer Hill ceremony, not a Native American one, though it draws on the traditions of Navajo, Ute and Apache people. It is important that the sweat lodge is run by someone experienced in the practice. In our case, it is usually one of several “elders” who are part of the Deer Hill community, or a senior member of our field staff. The safety rules and the nature of the ceremony is made clear before we enter the lodge, and participants can leave the lodge at any time. Everyone eats just a light meal earlier in the day, and we make sure that everyone drinks plenty of water before, during and after the ceremony. It feels amazing to jump in the nearby pond after the heat of the lodge. As with all aspects of our program, our sweat lodge procedures have been examined and evaluated by the Association for Experiential Education as part of our ongoing accreditation.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions about this unique element of our teen summer programs, and custom school trips.

The leaders call time for a break, and everyone grabs a water bottle or a snack, and lounges for a while. Stanford tells jokes, teases the group, and chats with them about his horses, and growing up nearby. A plume of smoke rises from the chimney on the family home, as Grandma Charley prepares a simple Navajo meal for the group.

This is a typical moment from a Deer Hill service project, but what kind of relationship am I describing? Are we “helping” the family? Clearly. Are we working to “fix” something? Of course, and yet somehow these verbs, so often used when discussing community service, don’t paint a full picture of the interaction that is taking place.

I recently came across an article entitled “Helping, Fixing, Serving”, by Rachel Remen, and although she is writing from the point of view of a medical doctor, her ideas might help me to define to the goals and philosophy of our work with families in the Navajo, Hopi and Zuni Nations.

Service is not the same as helping. Helping is based on inequality, it’s not a relationship between equals. When you help, you use your own strength to help someone with less strength. It’s a one up, one down relationship, and people feel this inequality. When we help, we may inadvertently take away more than we give, diminishing the person’s sense of self-worth and self-esteem.

In this insightful piece of writing, Remen argues that neither “helping” nor “fixing” are ideal paradigms for those serving others. When we help, we assert our own strength, and imply weakness on the part of the person we are working with.  If we set out to “fix” an individual, or a community, we inevitably assume that there is something broken – whether physical, financial, emotional, or social. Both approaches, Remen writes, reinforce a “one-way” relationship between a “giver” and a “recipient”, creating a sense of debt. They tend to reward the ego, without nourishing deeper connections between the players.

Remen believes that focusing on “serving” can support a more balanced power dynamic. If we can approach our hosts as equals, with the idea of “serving” uppermost in our mind, then we work freely, openly, for the simple pleasure of it. Approached in this spirit, service springs not from the ego, but can be instead, in Remen’s phrase, “the work of the soul”.

This is not a tourist experience in which we purchase a specific cultural product that we expect to be delivered on schedule, and in the expected way. We come to work, and to learn, and we hope that in perhaps unforeseen and surprising ways we will receive understanding that enriches our lives. For example, hearing stories, wisdom and history first-hand can show students a different, and more reverent, relationship to our Earth.

I do not mean to imply that all is well, and that life is simple and harmonious on the Native American reservations of the Southwest U.S. Our groups see the difficulties that these communities face; they see the living struggle between traditional ways and the conveniences, ironies and, yes, humiliations, of modern American life. Always, there is real work to do for our hosts that makes hard lives a little easier. But, our primary goal is to facilitate cultural exchange. At its best, this is a profoundly interactive, “two-way” relationship. We work together as a team towards a common goal, discover humor and common ground with people with very different lives, and in the process to learn something about our selves. Spending time with those who cherish their culture and history so much, can cast our own culture in relief, encouraging us to think about our roots, to speak proudly of where we come from, and to share the traditions and unique ways of our family.

Deer Hill host Milton Bluehouse of Ganado, Arizona, is the grandfather of an extended family with whom we have worked for many years. This is how he describes Deer Hill’s service projects:

“We all have common concerns – we want to learn, we want to help. Working together as people of different societies can build bridges and, ultimately, respect and understanding. That’s what I believe Deer Hill does. What’s even more important than the projects we complete is how we solidify our friendships and look together for peace in the world”.

What Mr Bluehouse describes is something beyond helping, or fixing. As Remen summarizes in her article, “Fixing and helping create a distance between people, but we cannot serve at a distance. We can only serve that to which we are profoundly connected.” Just being there, working together, creating a genuine connection, can be an end in itself.

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