Christine is the Youth Programs Manager at Wilderness Inquiry, a Minnesota-based nonprofit that offers “incredible, planned and inclusive outdoor adventure trips…for adults, families, people of all ages, and abilities.” Christine’s main role is to assist new clients and educators with the scheduling of their own trips. Christine and her company strive to instill their clients with a sense of respect in both the nation’s waterways as well as the nature educators.
Transcript
My name is Christine Tomlinson and I am from a nonprofit called Wilderness Inquiry as a youth programs manager. Wilderness Inquiry is a nonprofit that focuses on making the outdoors accessible for everyone and anyone. So we were founded 40 years ago, a little over 40 years ago. Making the boundary waters particularly inclusive for people with, people using wheelchairs, women, and people deaf and hard of hearing, and our organization really has grown from there. I, like everyone at nonprofits, do a lot of different things, but I guess what I try to focus on is making that first contact with teachers who might be interested in Canoe Mobile, or just interested in having a fun, different experience for their students. So I'll talk to teachers and district administratives, as well as folks from, you know, the DNR or National Parks Service to just explain what Wilderness Inquiry does, and then, you know, talk a little bit more about Canoe Mobile and how that might work for them, and then go through that, you know, step-by-step process. How many kids are you, do you wanna bring? What activities do you wanna do? Do you have any particular goals, and those things. So our outdoor leaders will get to a location and this, you know, they'll come a little bit early before the students get there. They'll make sure everything is set up. So we have to unload our six Voyager canoes that, you know, take six people to get off our big trailer and set those up. We'll set up all of our safety gear, our life jackets, paddles, all of that, clean up the park if it needs to be, and then make sure our educational stations are set up, as well. And once kind of all of those logistics are in place, the team will get together, make sure everybody knows what they're doing, roles are assigned and all of those pieces, and then we wait for the students. So really, I mean, the ultimate goal is that they had a positive experience on this new waterway, as well as a positive experience with these adults that are taking them on this waterway. So I think that's our main goal is to make sure that they're having a good time and experiencing it in a positive way.
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