The importance of making outdoor education accessible for all youth: Insights from adventurer Adam Shoalts
The excitement was palpable when Outward Bound Canada (OBC) teamed up with renowned Canadian explorer, author (his latest, 2023’s Where the Falcon Flies, is a national bestseller), and adventurer Adam Shoalts for the 2024 Get Outside for Outward Bound campaign in May.
Adam’s journey as an explorer has taken him to some of Earth’s most remote and wild places. His experiences have given him a unique perspective on the profound impact of nature on personal growth and development. Adam emphasizes that outdoor education should not be a privilege reserved for a few but a right accessible to all, and passionately discusses how exposure to nature can build resilience, foster creativity, and instill a sense of environmental stewardship in young people.
Adam’s message resonated deeply with our mission to empower youth through experiential adventures in nature, cultivating a generation of environmentally conscious and socially responsible individuals. In the following Q&A section, we delve into Adam’s thoughts.
Adam Shoalts’s insights on outdoor education
OBC: Why do you think outdoor education is important for young people today? What skills and values can it help them develop, or what does it provide that’s unique?
AS: A recent study estimated kids between ages of 9-14 spend on average 9 hours per day in front of a screen. The generation growing up today could well be the first in history to spend most of their waking lives looking at screens. There’s already a mountain of research confirming what common sense guessed: namely, that there are serious mental and physical downsides to this. Those facts alone, I think, answer your question about why outdoor education is important for youth.
Getting into nature is a wonderful tonic to the stress of modern life. Evidence shows it makes people happier, healthier, and more relaxed. Of course, no one is suggesting screens and digital technology are all bad, just that we should aim at some kind of balance. The experiences one gets traveling by canoe in the wild, or hiking, or snowshoeing, are indeed unique and can help youth acquire all sorts of useful life skills—fortitude, patience, self-reliance, teamwork, you name it.
OBC: Can you share any specific instances in your life where the skills learned outdoors have proved crucial in “day to day” life?
AS: Well, I tend to think of my outdoor skills as part of my “day to day” life since I try to spend as much time as possible in the wild! But in terms of transferring outdoor skills outside the wild, I find the organizational skills I’ve learned in the wilderness very useful. On a long expedition such as my four-month solo canoe journey across Canada’s Arctic, managing your time efficiency is crucial. The journey was a race against the changing seasons. I therefore had to do a lot of strategizing in terms of how I could maximize my efficiency to ensure I spent as much time traveling (i.e. canoeing or portaging) as possible. That means organizing my morning routine and evening routine into a series of tasks that are done in a logical sequence quickly and efficiently without overlooking anything. That habit I try to keep up even when I’m at home.
OBC: Facing challenges in solo expeditions can foster a sense of independence and adaptability. At OBC, we believe these qualities are important for both individual development and effective teamwork. Can you describe an experience where you overcame a challenge on a solo expedition and how that experience influenced your ability to work with others?
AS: Challenges happen every day, I might almost say every hour, on a solo expedition. So rather than focus on any one specific incident, I’ll say that in a nutshell, traveling solo in the backcountry forces a person to learn how to stay calm and carry on. You get used to dealing with lots of potentially stressful situations, again and again. But eventually, they don’t feel that stressful anymore. You learn to stop, think, analyze, formulate a plan, then move on. That mindset is very useful and I think transferable to many other walks of life.
OBC: Outdoor education programs emphasize the importance of calculated risks in a young person’s development. Do you think it’s important to encourage ‘risky play’ and, if so, what benefits does it bring to a child’s life?
AS: Speaking as a parent myself, I worry much more about the risks from excessive screen time, than I do about one of my kids falling out of a tree or tripping over a rock and scraping a knee. The truth is, risks are inherent in whatever we do. We just tend to think more about physical risks like breaking an arm than the potential mental health risks that might result from spending enormous hours on the internet.
I think with the right training, mindset, and approach, backcountry trips are remarkably safe, low-risk activities, particularly when compared to the rate of injuries in contact sports such as hockey. To be clear, I’m not saying kids shouldn’t play hockey or video games (my kids will play both), just that moderation is important and mixing it up with some outdoor adventure is a good thing.
OBC: Beyond technical skills, what mental and emotional strengths do you find most valuable in the wilderness?
AS: The ability to look on the bright side. The fact is, on any long wilderness undertaking, as in life, things won’t always go your way. The weather might be against you, at times you might be wet, cold, and hungry, the bugs might be bad, your back might ache, there might not be any level ground to sleep on, and the terrain ahead might be difficult. In these circumstances it’s easy to get discouraged. The key is to remind yourself of all the things to be grateful for.
When I’m choking on clouds of blackflies, I remind myself that the bugs are only bad because the wind is calm, which therefore means good paddling conditions. When I’m exhausted from paddling into headwinds, I remind myself that the wind takes care of the bugs. If the weather is cold and rainy, I tell myself that just makes the campfire and tent at the end of the day feel all the cozier. If a bear eats all my food in the night, I tell myself that just makes the loads lighter on portages. If I take a wrong turn into a dead-end bay and lose hours of extra paddling, I tell myself I got the chance to explore a bay few people ever get to see. This sort of positive outlook prevents me from getting discouraged and keeps me motivated to keep pushing on.
OBC: What do you think about the current state of outdoor education in Canadian schools? Do you see opportunities for programs like Outward Bound Canada?
AS: I’ve been lucky enough to visit and speak at schools all over Canada. What I’ve found is that while a growing number of schools do have dedicated outdoor education classes, others have nothing at all. I always ask how such programs get established at schools, and what I’ve been told is a lot of it comes down to simply having an individual teacher at a given school with the interest, ability and means to create a program. Certainly, it’d be great to see an expansion in these programs to include more schools, perhaps in partnership with OBC in cases where schools lack the staff to handle the programs.
OBC: What shared values do you see in your work and OBC’s mission to be a vocal champion and leading provider of social, emotional, and environmental outdoor learning experiences for underserved youth.
AS: In my books, I’ve tried to communicate in different ways how important it is to preserve wild places.This includes trying to put into words the magic that comes from experiencing remote, wild places first hand. OBC allows young people to experience these places for themselves, including many who might not otherwise have the opportunity. And I think that’s one of the best things we can do to foster the next generation of environmentally conscious stewards of our planet’s wild places.
OBC: What advice would you give to a young person interested in a career in outdoor exploration?
AS: The most important thing is passion. If you have that, you’re already halfway there. Next, you need to acquire the technical skills needed to travel safely in the backcountry. This is where organizations like Outward Bound Canada can be highly valuable, especially for people who might not otherwise have the opportunity to learn these skills. I think learning and practicing outdoor skills and knowledge combined with an underlying passion is the key to a career in this field.
Did you miss Adam Shoalts’ first Q&A with OBC?
Discover how Adam found his wild side and grew into a renowned explorer, best-selling author, and adventurer. Read the first part of OBC’s interview with Adam Shoalts to get inspired!