Taking the Long Way Around: A Mother's Journey into Wilderness Therapy and Beyond

This essay started out as a celebration of our daughter’s one year anniversary of entering the True North wilderness therapy program, the 23rd of January, 2019.  I began writing a few days before, possibly on the 19th January, 2020, the day the first case of Covid-19 was diagnosed in Washington state.  Our daughter was (and is of this writing) in Oregon as a student in the Dragonfly Transition program and at Southern Oregon University.  Spring break was coming up and she had plane tickets to come home.  After her return in early April, she would be moving into a dorm on the university campus, entering the last phase of the program, a lightly tethered foray into independence.  I didn’t know it yet, but everything was about to change.    For the first week or two I wasn’t overly concerned about the virus.  I had faith that the outbreak would be contained, having no idea how fast the virus would spread or how woefully unprepared governm...

On April 17, 2019 a few days shy of three months in the wilderness program, our daughter having completed all the tasks and requirements, graduated.  In the photograph, taken at the ceremony, she is demonstrating her ability to light a fire from raw materials, blowing the little wisp of smoke in the wood dust wrapped in the birchbark cone into flame.   One other person was graduating.  The two and their fellow students, guides, therapists, and parents, stood together in a big circle outside.  Currents of emotion swept around and through us: excitement, anxiety, some envy, pride, and a bit of awe from everyone as the two demonstrated their skills.  The third skill, using the bow-drill to light a fire, was last and toughest.  Our daughter’s first tries did not take and, frustrated, she retired with her therapist for a few minutes to regroup.  I knew she could do it; I was pretty sure she would do it, but everyone was dead quiet when she r...