夢想成真 - Black Tusk登山記

North Shore News

Reaching for new heights
Classes unite while carrying student up Black Tusk Mt.
Joanna Habdank, North Shore News
Published: Sunday, October 26, 2008

Shayne DeWildt had wanted to climb Black Tusk Mt. for three years.

When he first mentioned it to Chris Johnston, the special education aide was taken aback by the request. How do you take a wheelchair-bound teen who has cerebral palsy 12 kilometres up a mountain?
Every year for 16 years it's been a tradition at Seycove secondary that the Geography 12 classes make the trek to see the volcanoes and glaciers. And Shayne wanted in on it, says Johnston.

He contacted two agencies, InterFit and the Disability Foundation, which helped them access a special chair (a cross between a rickshaw and a wheelbarrow) that makes it easier to carry a person up tough terrain.  It turned out that finding that may have been the most challenging part of the trip.

On a weekend in late September, 50 students accompanied by three teachers set out on the two day hike, and what happened during it moved both Earl and Johnston. There was no shortage of volunteers wanting to carry the roughly 175-pound chair during the four-hour climb.

"It certainly slowed us down but one thing about having Shayne . . . usually when we hike up we are a bit strung out around the trail, the faster kids are up higher faster, but (carrying Shayne) . . . brought them all together in one large group, which served to unite them all," says Earl.

"Even kids who couldn't push him, they were around him and chatting with him and encouraging everyone."

Despite being snuggled in a chair, the trek may have been toughest on Shayne. Whereas everyone else would keep moving to stay warm, he had to sit through the cold and damp weather for hours and had to have assistance every step of the way.

But both Earl and Johnston noted he didn't complain once, and that he doesn't allow his condition to stop him from reaching his goals. "He's a pretty bright kid and he has a great sense of humour. He doesn't make excuses, he does the work he has to do," says Earl.

"I've worked with people with disabilities for an awfully long time and this was the first time I've done anything this extreme. And he put up with some indignities, but he was willing to just do it for the experience," says Johnston, who has worked with Shayne for several years.

"And for him to know that a group of 50 kids found it important enough to pull it together and bring him up there, and to really enjoy the fact that he was there, it meant the world to him."
The teamwork and sense of unity they had during the climb carried on beyond the trek, says Johnston.
"Just them knowing they were part of something really cool, and just their level of co-operation in the classroom, in a day to day way, it's really remarkable," he says.

"It's one of those situations where there aren't any disciplinary issues any more (in the classroom)."

"They have grown up," says Johnston.