My name is Jamie Black and I am the founder of Wild Craft Play ‘sCool.
People who know me, know that’s a small title for the many things that I do within Wild Craft Play.

I teach resilience.

Watch this presentation by Jamie Black about Connecting Youth to the Earth to Protect Old Growth Trees:

My intention is, ultimately to share some light on this topic and also to engage in conversation and to add to the movement.

I have an MA and Environmental education and community and communication. I barely cracked open the can of consumerism, capitalism, patriarchy, racism. I felt naive when I dove into five years of my life, studying some of the most intense communications that I’d ever seen about this stuff. And I thought, well, why am I here? Why did I get brought to this place? I get the answers from my heart and I want to influence the children in the world, and provide support for them at all levels, emotionally, physically, and also spiritually.

A pandemic is ravaging the world today and young people are going through a lot, the mental health of youth is crashing by the day. The question now is as an individual, how can we provide support and solution.

How can we guide children through their discovery of regenerative resilience, supporting their search for solutions?

That’s me right at the very front. I worked on a tall ship in New Zealand for 10 days. When I started, I volunteered to coach sailing and competitive sailing. When I started, a bunch of punks showed up with their hats on sideways calling me names. I was stuck on a boat for 10 days. That was one of the most moving experiences I’ve ever had. I was 21.

As at that time, I’ve been coaching sailing for two years and it completely moved my understanding from the tactile experience of teaching somebody how to sail. The way Captain worked with me, and taught me how to get out of my own way, and be responsible for those kids, even when it was hard.

As a leader of four groups, there were 10 youths in each group. We’re about 60 on the boat. And my groups were making sales go completely backwards. I then took all the blame upon myself and the captain came over and he said, and I quote “put your hands in your pockets and say, I don’t know, go figure it out”.

I told myself, I can pull that rope, and I did. I said I can put my hands in my pocket. I had my own therapy session with a captain that night. He told me to wait till the end of 10 days. On the ninth night, The youths sat at the back of the boat and then decided who’s going to sail the ship home. My 10 kids were the captains of the ship and then sailed the ship home. They all started eating chocolate in the tent.

But the big part of it is that I fell in love with a place called Little Mountain. I intend to shift what’s happening there. There’s a lot of garbage at the base of the little mountain. And there’s another story to what’s going on there. Yet, I share this because, I’m slightly connected to the land, and my head is sticking out of the Earth at the bottom and children need to be guided in their discovery.

This is a picture of a skiff, attached to a little dinghy with some kids with pfd’s. And some kisses out back in the day. Trying to see what it feels like to have rushing water, tickle your fingers. Those were the days when we lived outside and didn’t have a house.

According to Richard Lewis and many others. Children need adults who understand the relationship between boredom and creativity. Adults are willing to spend time in nature with kids, they are willing to set the stage so that kids can create their own play and enter nature through their own imagination.

There’s a ton of research that talks about the benefits of connecting children with the earth hurt. Shirin Yoku where they stuttered. When studying the biology of the people while they’re spending time outside, it was observed that their alien system improved, their neurological system improved and their stress levels went down just by standing outside, you don’t have to do anything. All you have to do is to breathe near a tree.

However, as a professional outdoor guy for 20 years, I’ve been to places and done many things. It happens that I could just stand up and fight with kids. And if you want to compete with video games, you may want the games to be a little bit more exciting by taking them kayaking, hiking, rock climbing and climbing or even sailing.

Nature is everything, have them experience natural phenomenons that will create a sense of wonder in their eyes.

For a child to keep alive the inborn sense of wonder, the child needs the companionship of an adult who can share this with them. It helps the child to rediscover the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.

In the world today, many people don’t care what you know, especially children and youth, they don’t care what you know until they know that you care and see the affection in your attitude and how you relate with them. It takes more time, more resources, energy and effort to take the children to that level where they know how much you care for them. In fact, it may be exhausting and you can get tired in the process, but always remember childrens’ are the future and leaders of tomorrow.

{Three weeks ago I came across this image. The person sitting on the pole.Is that coal? It’s a he’s in the rain.} INSERT IMAGE HERE?

He doesn’t look very happy. It’s about fairy Creek and it’s about to get rain there. I want to know what that is and why all the people present are standing, sitting, talking, eating, parking, jumping cars, dealing with all of these situations.

But I am more interested in the guy on the pole. What the heck is that? It’s called a flying dragon.
Why is there a dude 20 feet out dangling his life over a cliff on a pole under a car tire.
What is this? Why is this happening? Who is that? She looks intense.
Why is she looking at a bucket? Those buckets are 20 feet in the air like when they’re moving? How come her head is the same height as the object?
Why is there a person dangling from that tripod thing? Oh, that’s a sitting dragon.

Why is it idealize with this fancy name dragon sitting right here. Why is this dude cutting into the ground?
Why is that person looking like he’s stuck in the ground. Oh, he is? That’s a sleeping dragon. Somebody has concreted his arm into the earth to stop the RCMP from moving their body so that the logging truck doesn’t drive down one road.

What is this? Why is this happening? If you haven’t gone to the Fairy Creek blockade on Facebook, you could sit here all day and cry, you know, they do a really good job of sharing the story of what’s going on out there. And there’s more that can be done.

I saw a woman who sat out there for probably five days. And when the day came that she decided that she was going to put herself up there. Could you imagine what that feels like, the trauma that these people choose to put themselves through to protect old-growth trees.

Presently, many people perhaps believe or think this environmentalist is just here to save the day. But No! I’m always very curious about things and I do it publicly because I don’t have the answers and I don’t have an idea of what’s going on.

But this is clear to me, and it’s that there’s a whole lot that we don’t know about the system. I’m here to fix the system, because our youth rely on it. To add some more fuel to the fire, more people campaign, arm stuck in the earth. They talked about it at the midnight, and we waited till it’s dark. All the RCMP went home so that we could pour the concrete and hopefully that it’ll set before 4:30 in the morning.

When the rains came, I have never interacted with an RCMP member that needed to alter where my body was that needed to talk to me in the ways I hear that they’re talking to indigenous people.

Why is this happening? I don’t really understand.
Why is it that one chief is standing up? Bill Jones is standing with us. He’s the ringleader of this whole thing. But who are the other two chiefs? And why are they not standing? Like why don’t I see anything about that?

I remember learning in my research, that you only see what you want to see. You can create stats out of whatever you want. And people will believe you if you’re loud enough and that you’re a good presenter.

So where’s the elected chief? And was he the one that signed the contract with teal Jones to give them permission to love your groceries? If it was you, how come they’re not having their private conversation and not involving hundreds of 1000s of dollars and efforts and RCMP and helicopters pulling people out of trees? What the hell is this? Why is this still happening since September? Sure, I might be a tree hugger, but do you know what they turn an old growth tree. They turned it into toilet paper. You can’t even use it to build a house. They’re too old. That heartwood doesn’t have enough strength in it.

When you cut down an ecosystem, It’s will no more be an ecosystem. It’s a mono system. Furthermore, when you plant the same tree and create a second growth. Third growth for this one. We’ll just hear that the RCMP is underway to our camp.

Everybody is jumping in or tactics or clipping into this clipping and box here. Our repeller is suspended off this cable. if they cut this cable our repeller Falls 200 feet down into the Gordon River. I’m just about to repel down to my platform and attach myself. I’ve got food there and I’m ready to be staying there for days,

How long does it take them to get me out of there, I’ll sleep, breathe, and meditate down there. The reason to do this is to slow things down and to make the government British Columbia realize what’s happening there. People and citizens put their lives in the line front and are doing everything to protect them. There’s the adrenaline, but it’s like, we all are just here, sitting here doing this. Yeah, we’re going to feel like I’m going to be here for a while. And it’s pretty comfy. Could be worse. For me, it’s to try and mend all the hurt that’s been done.
First, Nation people, the land, the ecosystems that only thrive in these forests, and to change what’s been happening for hundreds of years, were just talking and not realizing what we’re leaving for the future. And this is the reason we’re here. This is where we’re taking a last stand. Being at the front line, it’s choosing to walk across the line. And then getting really selfish and being like, well, if I get arrested, will I be able to travel? Well, I get to do fun things. If I get arrested.

Did you see how young that girl was? They all look into me. We’re going to remain curious and do something. I mean, all of you can go on to the Ferry Creek blockade. And look at all the ways they say, they say it’s the very top post please read just go down, you can look at all the ways you can communicate with your MLA, you can call people you know and send them any media you have, whatever you want to do, what I’m choosing to do is to share stories, and bring additional light to the movement that’s already happening. And sometimes I physically go on site. And sometimes I just share a real story and put the word out there and I’m ready to have people shame me.
Even family members on to loggers. I’m only interested in putting myself out there. And this is a systemic problem. This is not like the old growth trees. And the fact that people are taking a stand. It’s just the catalyst under that deeper issue that when you see the media, you’ll see all of the other things that are coming up. And then the active remaining curious. How are we going to support the youth? How do we show up for them? There’s some research that says under the age of eight, don’t bring this stuff up. You can’t handle it at all. Psyche is not designed for that. over the age of eight, make it a bit of a game. Make it silly and more interesting, be weird, magical, fantasy pretend over the age of 10 to 12. Okay, expose them to it but just for an hour, not the whole day. The 15-year-olds that are thrown in jail and laughing about it. They’re traumatized.

So let’s remain curious.