CJ4: And We're Off to Build a Fort
My eco-identities were formed as a young child and still continue to grow to this day. As a child, I was one that was always outside, ready to explore. Coming from a small town in Alberta, this was made possible. Seeing as we were young and did not have any phones, we knew it was time to go home when the street lights turned on. One place especially popped in my mind when I think of special places which was at my house, on an acreage. It brings back many memories and to say the least, it sums up my childhood.
At my house, my sisters and I built an ongoing fort in our backyard for years. We would find all types of materials and spend our days out there building this awesome fort. We would use many different resources that the land had to offer and creatively, used whatever we had. In a way, I am able to relate this back to the blanket exercise as the Aboriginals would use any resource that they would find, which did not allow for any waste. We in a way did the same thing. Instead of buying materials to use, we would go on walks through our “forest” and around our land and find material we could use. Curthoys (2012) discussed how, “the unstructured and informal nature of the gathering gave power to the participants to share their landscape experiences in a joyful, non-threatening way, as is the case when [sisters] gather [to build a fort]” (pg. 183). Although it never got to the point that we were hoping for, it was still memorable. Today our fort still stands and every time I see it, it brings back an emotional wave. There were smiles, tears and most importantly laughs.
Looking back I am able to see just how connected I was to the environment. I lived my days outside and did not have the time to sit down to watch a movie. I loved the outdoors and I am thankful for all the time as a kid I spent outside. It has formed my eco-identity and it is still continuing to be constructed through a variety of ways. Being a future educator and a leader at a Before and After school program has definitely helped my eco-identity to change in positive ways, as I get to explore and experience a different, beautiful environment everyday.
My creative visual is different today than it has been most days. Using materials I found at B&A, I created a tree to show our fort we built with random circles, which are represented to show our random materials we used to build our fort.
