Forest School Adventures in Canada

Back to Northern Weather

Preparing to start our first year of an outdoor forest-play program, I recently read Linda Akeson's book, There's No Such Thing As Bad Weather. Quickly I realized that so much of Akeson's stories and research from growing up in Sweden and having children in the US resonated with my experience living between Canada and the US.

The only outdoor program experience we had with kids in the US, was with our 15 month old son at a small outdoor pre-school program in California. It was focused on music and grounded in a belief that interaction with nature and animals is important for early development. We rarely brought jackets and if so, we always left in our tee-shirts. We have many fond memories of picturesque, dewy mornings spent outdoors in the soft, rolling, green hills with baby lambs, friendly goats, and wandering ducks.

Moving back to Canada I realized how "out of practice" at cold weather I had become (and how my Californian husband had a lot of acclimatizing to do). Canadians, as Swedes, are much more willing as a general rule than their southern neighbours to accept that up to 8 months (or more) of the year require the Swedi