My Journey on a Wilderness Ranch as an English Teacher

I am coming to the end of my second time at the ranch. Even now, with just a few days to go I am not sure if leaving is the right thing to do but it is time to get out of my comfort zone. I also think of the saying that was mentioned during a recent Transformational Journey Review, our weekly meeting where we share everyone’s achievements and plans for the future. The saying was “A harbour is a safe place for a boat but that is not what the boat was built for”. 

As I mentioned, this is my second time at the ranch. My first was to set up the hiking program. Up until then, it had only been on horse pack trips here so we thought it would be a good idea to get people up here to hike the alpine. I spent several months setting up contacts, doing a hike show and meeting many people. The plan was for me to do all the organizing and maybe get to go on one or two of the trips. As it turned out, none of the guides here at that time wanted to hike so I ended up taking out every hike trip for the season. I quickly went from a size 28 pair of jeans down to a size 22.

I have much to thank the community for during this time. I took the guide school and fell in love with nature. I developed in many ways from gaining self-assurance, being confident guiding people and stepping right out of my comfort zone. I also had to buy several pairs of smaller jeans! The community helped introduce me to the wilderness experience of nature connection, grizzly bears and DNA collection from rub trees and much more. I took this newfound interest and have been pursuing it ever since. I am now in a position where I can pass on my knowledge and experience to others.

I felt the urge once more to return to the ranch and after a long telephone call with the community, I was convinced to return and to try my hand at ESL. Before this I had never even heard of English as a Second Language but it seemed like something I could make a good attempt at so back I came. I had to start from scratch, looking up agents, web sites etc. Of course, a teacher would have been a good idea and luckily one of the team, Julie, had her TESOL certificate. Our first student came and things seemed to go fairly well but then Julie decided to leave which left us once again without a teacher.

Not worried by this setback, I started working towards getting my own TESOL qualification and do the teaching as well. This was not part of the original plan and I fought against that idea. I had never taught anything in my life and did not have much confidence in being able to teach English. I looked into on-line study programs, found one I thought would be fairly easy, paid my money and signed up. It was quite a lot of work every evening and studying at my age was something that I had not planned to do but I have never looked back since. It turns out that I seem to be quite good at teaching English and passed the course with 97% and a pass with distinction. 

Once again it was back to the drawing board. Julie had put together a 4-week course but she had not had much time to prepare and my TESOL course had given me many ideas about how to organize lessons etc. After reviewing many websites, I decided that the optimum time for students to come was for 4 weeks and to prepare to teach three levels from beginner, intermediate to advanced. So I built a set of curricula around these ideas. I had to research into getting textbooks, finding a lot of information and teaching aids on-line and building a day-to-day working schedule that also included reading material. This school was to be unique, both in it’s location and programs. Once the seed was planted in my mind I developed a plan to make the school special. We were going to offer our students 3 hours of classroom study which was the same as most other schools in BC, but unlike the other schools that just turned out their students to fend for themselves after class, we were going to offer a set of activities around riding and ranch life.

As in most schools, I divided my lessons up into grammar, reading and debates/quizzes. Most of the grammar came from the textbooks that we have but the reading passages each day I produced locally and are about horses, nature and the wildlife around us. Over the last two years I have deleted some passages and added new ones and now I think we have a great program for the school. Feedback from the students that we have had has also been very positive about this reading material. Next came the activities and it wasn’t too hard to find enough variety for the students although sometimes it was not easy to find staff to help out here.

We turned our attention to Europe. I made a couple of trips to Europe, going to Switzerland and Germany and here we had much more success. The agents were interested and the people I met at the fairs were also keen on coming to the Canadian wilderness. Since then this has been our main target area and will continue to be I think.

However, enough of the school and students. How has my last 2 ½ years led to a transformation in me? Why do I now feel the need to leave just as the student numbers are increasing? First my time at the ranch; I have seen many many staff come and go. Some left within hours of arriving and obviously did not fit in. Others left after several months. I saw a few of my ESL students come back to work on the ranch as volunteers. The ranch philosophy of ‘be your own boss’, take initiative and be responsible has created some really good team members here. Personally I have developed in areas I least expected. I have a new skill – teaching English, and have enjoyed being able to pass on some of my knowledge and skills to others both in the classroom and also outside doing bear aware orientations and by just answering the many questions that people throw at me. I think the most rewarding time was seeing a mother grizzly with her 4 cubs and being able to get close enough to take a few pictures. 

Last year, mostly due to my teaching schedule, I was not able to get up into the alpine or do much of the photography that I enjoy. In fact I only went on one trip to Cinnabar for 2 nights and there was so much activity there with the film crew that even the squirrels left. I am a 33 year (ish) old fart who should just be happy to be in this environment but I still have a bit of a yearn for adventure and when it was suggested that I try my teaching skills in Germany I thought – why not give it a try. It may work out or I may head back to Canada after only a few short months but I still need to try.

Paul, UK