The children at Tottie’s Summer Fun Camp had a different day at the beach last week.
Roger Outhouse of the Bay of Fundy Discovery Centre Association took them looking under seaweed and in tidal pools.
“Children today can’t be shown this enough,” says Outhouse. “Even if parent’s do show their kids once or twice a year, it’s not enough, if we really want them to know something about the diversity of life on our shores.”
Dressed in rubber boots and plastic sandals, the kids, from the summer camp at the Digby Area Family Resource Centre, happily tromped down to the water below the Cannon Banks.
Outhouse encouraged them to peer into tidal pools, under rocks and even to fold back the thick strands of seaweed for a peek into the secret world of sea creatures. But he also had a warning for them.
“How would you like it if someone turned your house upside down?” asked Outhouse. “So when you’re done, just carefully turn that rock back over where you found it. That’s their house.”
The children followed periwinkle trails, saw the holes left by Dog Whelks, they picked up crabs, both big and small, dead and alive, they found mussels, clams and scallop shells.
Outhouse also brought several jars of little animals he had gathered earlier including two beautiful sea gunnels.
Miya Brown said she loved the slimy things Outhouse brought, and Rosie Wescott agreed it was “the funnest day”. Best of all, Sarabeth and William Turnbull asked their mother if they could show her what they had seen on the beach nearby.
The resource centre offers the six-week day camp at no cost. This year 26 children enjoyed the camps activities including a day with Gaels of Fundy pipe major, a variety show that they put together themselves, a day with First Nations cultural outreach personnel from the Child Help Initiative Program and Roger Outhouse’s beach trip.
