Volunteer Vacations Across America: Bear There

Volunteer Vacations

Volunteer vacations are working vacations. You might choose to build or renovate homes, teach or tutor, translate and aid in communications, garden or farm, build hiking paths, or lead tours, among many other options. Volunteer vacations reward the traveler and the host through mutual growth, understanding, and experience. They are reciprocal—benefiting both the person who serves as well as the recipient, improving the quality of life for everyone.

The “vacation” part of volunteer vacations refers to the reality that for most people any time away from work is vacation time, and taking time off to do good for others is a carefully considered decision. These are projects, trips, and opportunities for people who are serious about helping others all over the USA and want to make a difference. You will leave an important mark on the community you visit, take a big piece of your experience back with you, and return home a different person from the one who left.

Volunteer with The American Bear Association

The American Bear Association, (P.O. Box 77, Orr, MN 55771; 218-757-0172; www.americanbear.org; bears@americanbear.org) offers an opportunity to volunteer at the Vince Shute Wildlife Sanctuary (VSWS). Located on 520 acres in the North Woods of Minnesota, two hours northwest of Duluth, VSWS is a seasonal home to many black bears. Volunteering outdoors in an extraordinary setting, meeting people from across the county and visitors from abroad, and learning about the bears and other wildlife and their habitats are rewarding and exciting experiences.

The work varies, and your interests and skills are matched to appropriate jobs when possible. Most activities involve manual labor, so good health and stamina are necessary, along with enthusiasm. Jobs range from daily clean-ups to cooking meals for staff and volunteers, picking up and unloading supplies, maintaining the property, planting, mulching, weeding, road maintenance, and preparing bear food. You may also greet visitors, park cars, educate the public and answer their questions, or work in the gift shop.

Volunteer days begin early and may end late, with time off in the afternoon, from May 1 through September 30. You may volunteer for an hour, day, weekend or the entire summer, or any period of time in between. While it is not possible to provide housing for everyone, efforts are made to accommodate long-term volunteers. Some people stay at nearby Cabin O’ Pines Resort (218-757-3122, www.cabinopines.com), which offers a discount to sanctuary volunteers. The town of Orr offers a variety of accommodations, including motels, resorts, and campgrounds. Contact the Orr Tourist Information Center at 1-800-357-9255.

Volunteers enjoy social events together, relaxing around campfires, enjoying barbeques and picnics, and swimming in nearby Pelican Lake. There’s also fishing, boating, and canoeing in area lakes, and hiking at the International Wolf Center, Superior National Forest, and at Voyageurs National Park.

Note: Both of my new books, VOLUNTEER VACATIONS ACROSS AMERICA and IMMERSION TRAVEL USA are out in the stores and available through Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. Drop me a note to Sheryl@immersiontraveler.com if you’d like autographed stickers for your books!

How I Became an Immersion Traveler

How I Became An Immersion Traveler

I became an immersion traveler three months after my divorce became final. My first trip on my own was a long weekend. My ex moved in to stay with our teenage daughters; I went to a spa on Long Island. It was pretty wonderful, but on the first day I realized I needed to do more than be pampered. I asked my masseuse what her favorite activity was and she invited me to join her that afternoon, painting the house of a senior citizen in her neighborhood. I’d never painted a room before, but I pitched in and learned how to prepare a wall and begin painting it. The next morning, on my nature hike, I asked the leader where she liked to take her kids on weekends. She told me about a wonderful installation art museum I’d never heard of before.

The add-on activities became my most cherished memories from that weekend – in addition, of course, to the facial and hot stones massage.

 

It’s not like I was new to traveling after my divorce. I’d traveled extensively with my ex, but that was a whole different world. I didn’t really take part in the planning, my fault. I left the decisions about where to go and what to see to him, my mistake. He always seemed to know where he wanted to go and it sounded good to me. I was more the passive traveler. My contribution here and there was adding places I knew about from reading or experience. When we were in Milan and Vienna I made it a priority to go to the opera and in Florence I insisted on time for the flea markets, and in Rome, I knew exactly where to go for the best tartufo – my favorite Italian ice cream dessert made with Neapolitan gelato scooped into balls and covered with dark chocolate.

 

Once I found myself single and on my own, I remembered how I’d always wanted to take one of those long, exotic-sounding immersion travel trips to Europe or Costa Rica to jump into a different culture, learn the language, experience the food, traditions, and activities as a local and become one of them. I’d never taken a trip like that because of time and money constraints, but it sounded like the most meaningful way for me to travel, to get involved.

 

Voila. Immersion Travel USA was born. I applied the concept of European Immersion Travel right here, to my own way of life with accessible travel opportunities. Living life on a tight budget with my newly found single freedom, I learned to expand and increase my travel experiences in mostly free or very inexpensive ways.

 

Weekend getaways with the family became outdoor adventures in State Parks where the girls and I could volunteer our time and talents doing a wide variety of needed jobs, hike, enjoy each other, and camp out or stay in really cute cabins with modern facilities for about $50 for the weekend.

As a writer and single mom, I desperately needed think-time on my own. I did some research and learned that the National Park Service (NPS) has an extensive Volunteers-in-Parks (VIP) program (www.nps.gov/archive/volunteer/air.htm). Twenty-nine national parks currently offer artist-in-residence programs, including Acadia National Park, Maine; Buffalo National River, Arkansas; Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Ohio; Devils Tower National Monument, Wyoming; Herbert Hoover National Historical Site, Iowa; Isle Royale National Park, Michigan; and North Cascades National Park, Washington among others.

 

The artist-in-residence programs bring together professionals in the arts to publicize, share, and preserve resources in our national parks and to educate and communicate with the public.  Search “Artist-in-Residence” at www.nps.gov; a few programs charge a nominal, nonrefundable application fee. Visual artists, photographers, sculptors, performers, writers, composers, craftspeople, and other artists are invited to apply to live and work in the parks. I applied and received free housing and a free pass to the Everglades National Park, and free time to devote to my writing.

 Immersion travel includes Helping (volunteering), Learning (new skills), Working (short and longer term jobs, many freebies or trades), Caring (animals’ rights and care and the arts), and Playing (out of the box fun stuff!)– great activities for all ages and stages of life. And I haven’t forgotten about spa possibilities. I’ve just learned there is more to a weekend than pampering–and combining pampering, learning, hiking, and growing is just my style.

 

Parker Dam, PA

Celebrate Earth Day and Everyday: Leave No Trace Behind

Leave No Trace Behind while drinking hot chocolate. I had a summer job working in Alaska’s Denali National Park, performing living history vignettes for visitors on women in the gold rush and conservation. On my day off, I was one of 51 other people signed up for an eight hour bus trip into Denali National Park.
In an effort to cut down on the impact of approximately 3 million visitors each year to the park, individual cars were not allowed past the first few miles. Buses took visitors through the park, stopping to observe bear, moose, sheep, ptarmigan, and whatever else could be seen from the bus with binoculars. On that particular day a huge black wolf followed our bus for about a mile and later we came across a family of red fox with three babies peeking out from their fox holes between the rocks. It was very exciting. I learned that brown bear come in a multitude of colors including black, brown, grayish and tone.
We stopped for a bathroom and snack break. Annaleigh, the bus driver, handed out cookies and asked for our attention as she put out two containers, one blue, one red. “The blue container has hot chocolate for you to enjoy. The red container is for you to spill out the excess hot chocolate you don’t drink.” She paused as we all looked at her quizzically. “We practice Leave no Trace behind. Do not spill out any drinks onto the ground. That’s why I put a drop cloth under the hot chocolate, to collect any drips. The sugar, milk and chocolate can make animals sick and don’t belong in the ground. Please think about everything you are doing, and leave no trace behind yourself. Nothing should change because you were here to visit.”
I thought back to the night I’d had a date with a nonstop, gum chewing lawyer from New Jersey. As he drove, he removed a piece of gum from his mouth, started a new a stick, and dropped something out of the window.
“What did you just do?” I snapped at him.
“What are you, my mother?” he darted back.
“Really, did you just litter?”
“No,” he said in a little bad boy voice caught in the act.
“Did you throw out the gum or the wrapper?”
“Both,” he said. I couldn’t believe it. I was blown away that anyone in this day and time would throw anything out of a window as if it didn’t matter.
“A bird could choke and die on your old gum.” I chose not to see the gum chewing lawyer again, but I did send him a gift, a reusable trash bag for his car.
The night before my bus ride into Denali I had attended a class with Park Ranger Tom on the importance of practicing Leave No Trace Behind for a backcountry wilderness hiking trip I planned to take. “You need to understand,” said Ranger Tom, “that Leave No Trace is an attitude that applies to your own front porch, backyard or park just as much as it does to the wilderness.”
I practice his words. Earth Day will be celebrated this month all over the country in many different ways. Many communities are holding events with exhibitors providing information on recycling, global warming, and hybrid vehicles. Visitors are encouraged to walk, bike or take the bus to participating events.
What will you do to celebrate Earth Day? My friend Marlene collects lint from the clothes dryer to stuff pillows. Janice collects egg cartons to give to a friend with chickens. And Sarah recycles the tops of bottles for art projects at her local school. What will your celebration or contribution be? For my Earth Day pre-planning event, I weaned myself off of paper towels in the kitchen and am amazed by the efficiency of dish towels. On Earth Day, I’m going to take a walk in a nature preserve, enjoying it exactly the way it is, without leaving anything behind but my footsteps.

The Everglades, Homestead, Florida

Out for a sun bath

I wish I was in the Everglades right about now instead of here in extremely cold, more snow expected, Connecticut! One year ago I was the writer-in-residence in the Everglades National Park. There’s a national program that I want everyone to know about. You too can apply and who knows where you could be spending next winter.
Chances are you’ve visited a few of the National Parks Service’s network of almost 400 environmental, cultural and recreational sites but did you know that you can apply to live inside a national park as a special guest for a few weeks without paying rent? Imagine being surrounded by the sea views and dramatic cliffs in Acadia National Park in Bar Harbor, Maine or observing elk, bighorn sheep and the endangered California condor in the untamed wilderness of the Grand Canyon’s North Rim. Simply apply to be an Artist-In-Residence at one or more of the twenty-nine National Parks currently participating in the program.
Artists including writers, poets, screenwriters, photographers, painters and performers compete for positions all over the country. Each participating park must be applied to individually and has its own eligibility requirements, application guidelines, timeline and expectations (http://www.nps.gov/archive/volunteer/air.htm).
Artist-in-Residence Programs often host one artist at a time. They provide housing, accessibility to and education about the park with the hope that the artist’s experience will be expressed in future work. The artist is expected to interact with the public by offering a workshop or presentation and donating a piece of work representative of her style and reflecting her stay to the park’s permanent collection. The artist bears expenses for professional supplies and personal needs such as transportation and food.
The application process involves submitting a one or two page résumé, a one page statement of what the applicant hopes to accomplish as an artist-in-residence, a description of the proposed presentation, references from people familiar with the artist’s professional work and samples of recent work. Applications are available online by contacting the individual parks (search artist-in-residence @ www.nps.gov).
A few programs charge a nominal non-refundable application fee. The competition increases each year for an awesome opportunity of a lifetime. It’s definitely worth the effort. And the program is highlighted in my book, IMMERSION TRAVEL USA. There are over 200 diverse opportunities for phenomenal trips in five categories: helping, learning, working, caring and playing, and amazing opportunities you might not know about.

Immersion Traveler: How I saved a Loggerhead sea turtle’s life

July 2007– There were over a hundred wooden stakes, some with red strips of plastic tied to the tops, some with yellow, dotting the approximately 6 mile stretch of Juno Beach (Florida) marking Loggerhead sea turtles’ nests. The females leave tracks, called crawls, from the water into the vegetation lines and dunes to create nests and lay their eggs. Signs warn visitors not to disturb the nests at risk of breaking the law. My friend Beverly and I arrived early at the beach to walk as the sun rose. Volunteers from the Loggerhead Marine Life Center rode along the beach in all terrain vehicles (ATV’s) documenting the newest crawls, and nests. About 60 days after the eggs are laid, baby turtles will hatch deep in the sand knowing their mission, to climb up toward the light to make their way directly to the water. We paused to photograph the turtle crawls and nests when suddenly Beverly grabbed my arm and pointed to where my foot was about to trample a struggling new baby. The tiniest of turtles, smaller than the length of my big toe, scurried across the sand when suddenly she was pushed back by a mighty wave. She came out of it to push forward again, thrown by another bigger wave which flipped her over right before our eyes. I leaned down to watch her struggle to right herself. We’d read all of the warning signs as we approached the beach. I repeated the words as I remembered them, “Endangered Species. Penalty of law to interfere with the sea turtles in any way.” “Can I touch her?” I asked my friend.“It’s that or watch it die,” Beverly responded. The tiny turtle had climbed its way out of the sand and down the 20 feet of beach to the edge of the water but was unable to flip herself over. I dropped to my knees in the wet sand and with my left pointer finger gently touched the left underside of her shell which was cold and sand covered. She easily flipped over to catch the next wave out. The survival rate of newborn turtles making it to adulthood is estimated by some to be as low as 1% but I knew my turtle would make it. She’ll return to this beach someday to make her own nest and all because I was there to flip her over and save her life.