Discovering Fulfillment Through Group Cohesion in the Wrangell Mountains
It was a strange and anxious feeling to get on an airplane alone and fly from the dark night sky of Seattle and enter what felt like the edge of the earth. It felt like time travel or space exploration to keep inching towards the sunlight that had supposedly left hours before.
I landed in Anchorage at 12:30 AM, gathered my excessively large duffel bag, and caught a taxi to my hostel. I still felt nervous, not really knowing what I was getting myself into this summer. The next morning I emailed my new classmates, trying to find anyone I could to give me clues to the rest of my summer. Who are they? Will they like me? Will I like them? Do I really have to share a tent with someone? What are we doing? Where are we going? Most of the students here had a strong interest in natural sciences, glaciers, or simply just backpacking in Alaska. While I shared those interests as well, the thing that had been on my mind for the two months leading up to this adventure was how and whether I would be able to form relationships and make connections with complete strangers without any of my usual comforts around me.
Myself and 13 other students met outside the Bent Prop Inn, a hostel in downtown Anchorage, at 9 AM to pile into some vans and drive 8 hours east to the town of McCarthy in the center of the largest U.S. national park. We are participants of the recently revived Wrangell Mountains Center Field Studies Program, a summer college program that began in the 1970’s out of the University of California Santa Cruz. The program, based mostly in field journaling, went through many transitions and changes throughout the years until it ended around 4 years ago. The Wrangell Mountains Center, a non-profit education and arts organization, tried for a few years to partner with new colleges until they were finally able to connect with The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA. As we traveled across just a small portion of Alaska which nearly doubled the length of my home state of Washington, I observed the sparse forests filled with small black and white spruce trees; a stark change from the towering and dense old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest. We started getting to know each other during the long ride, speculating what our program would be like, while occasionally asking questions of our eccentric driver Kim whose laugh was as large and rough as the Alaskan landscape.
Close to McCarthy we stopped at the Kuskulana Bridge, one lane and 525 feet tall towering above the Kuskulana River. It was our first glimpse of the wilderness we were entering. After about 6 ½ hours (Google Maps overestimated for once), we arrived at a parking lot and Kim announces, “End of the road! This is where I leave you! HA-HA-HA!” and we pile ourselves and our bags out of these vans, everyone with a bit of confusion across their faces. In front of us is a footbridge, the gateway to the towns of McCarthy and Kennicott: formerly abandoned copper mining towns from the early 1900’s turned tourist destination and one of two entrances to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. But more importantly, the town of McCarthy represents a diverse and sometimes controversial community of remote Alaskans that is quite unlike any rural town I’ve ever encountered. It is a community that our group will mirror quite closely at the end of our 7 week program.
The day after we arrive things were moving fast and my head was spinning. We were introduced to many people, sometimes unsure of exactly who they were. There were Wrangell Mountains Center staff that ran the operations of the Old Hardware Store where we attended class, ate meals, and helped out with chores, also known as “Joys of Community Living” or simply “joys.” There were past instructors of the program who were just around for that first week to help out and then there were our full time instructors who would be with us throughout the duration of the program. We had one week in McCarthy before we set out on our first week-long backcountry trip, 6 days longer than any backpacking I had ever done. There was so much to be done, so much to hear, I was craving for a little bit of structure to my days, which were busier than back home often lasting 10–12 hours. I knew I’d get a handle on those changes, but I was impatient to start building friendships with the people around me. I saw so much potential for community around the Hardware Store those first few days, but I was nervous I wouldn’t be a part of it. I spent some time writing in my field journal to process what I was feeling and practicing positive self-talk, something I would end up doing a lot throughout the summer, and reminded myself: “this feeling isn’t new, and it’s not unique to this time or place. And I also know this feeling doesn’t last.” referring to the anxiety and strong discomfort I was feeling being around new people in a new environment where I had nowhere to run and hide. I had no distraction devices up here (at least so I thought), no internet, Netflix, or room to isolate myself in. I had to interact and be social and attentive all day, and man was that exhausting.
A silver lining was this familiar feeling I had: a group of people that worked together, but acted more like a family. This community living environment of the Hardware Store reminded me so much of a community I had once been a part of. 6 months prior to arriving here in McCarthy I left a family I had been a part of for 10 years to return to school. I worked as an early childhood educator for a small non-profit whose mission was inclusion. Northwest Center, which also began in the 1970’s, operates two early learning centers with inclusion-based classrooms for children birth-12 years old fostering educational environments with typically developing and special needs children growing and learning together, as well as an early intervention team of therapists supporting children throughout the Seattle area, and job placement and coaching for adults with special needs. I began teaching there in 2007 and was introduced to a community of teachers, families, and therapists who worked together to provide an exceptional space for learning and development that is rarely seen in our world. We created classrooms and curriculums that were set up to meet every individual child’s needs, we dealt with difficult behavior and uncommon problems that always kept us on our toes, we learned and worked with all the unique quirks of our old, dilapidated building we rented from Seattle Public Schools, and we supported one another through every difficult hurdle that was thrown at us forming a family unit that laughed, cried, fought, and loved together. During this time I also earned a degree in Early Childhood Education at North Seattle College in a program developed by Tom Drummond, which taught me valuable lessons in effective communication, understanding cultural differences, using environments to promote learning, behavior management, and the power of observation.
Working alongside classmates and the staff of Wrangell Mountains Center that first week provided me that same familial feeling as everyone completed their “joys” of gardening, chopping wood, heating water, fixing broken fences, and cooking meals. Immediately everyone had a role to fill and other people to rely on. I began to feel appreciated, needed, and incredibly comfortable being myself and letting my guard down. The Old Hardware Store is a building that needs a lot of love, but has also given a lot of love over its 100 year lifespan just like that old elementary school building.
Around this same time I finished reading Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger which discussed our human instinct to belong to small groups with purpose and meaning and how we have in many ways, lost that ability to connect in our modern world. I began to wonder if this place, not quite modern, not quite ancient, could create these tribes that Junger talked about. Junger introduced me to self-determination theory, initially developed in the 1970’s by psychologist Edward L. Deci, which Junger describes as,
“human beings need three basic things in order to be content: they need to feel competent at what they do; they need to feel authentic in their lives; and they need to feel connected with others.”
Intrinsic values, in other words, are what drives happiness. This theory is very much something I used teaching my young students focusing on rewarding children with intrinsic rewards which creates a much stronger motivation to learn, take risks, and communicate with others. The unique environment of this program before us, living in small groups reliant on one another with limited resources, seems like it would be capable of mimicking the nomadic bands of early humans described by Junger in Tribe.
My curiosity about whether this environment could fulfill that instinct to belong to small groups and gain intrinsic rewards posed the question: How do internal and external factors contribute to group cohesion: when bonds link members of a social group to one another and to the group as a whole, during the Wrangell Mountain Center field studies program? Alternatively, how do internal and external factors disrupt group cohesion? Beyond my own curiosity to test out my past experiences of group dynamics in an inclusive setting and applying Junger’s ideas to a controlled and observable environment, I believed information I gathered by attempting to answer this question could greatly benefit the Wrangell Mountains Center, future instructors, and future students of this program. I could provide suggestions of how to create a cohesive group, which would ideally gain much more from the education and experience of the Field Studies program, than a group that lacked those social bonds.
Our program continued on with lessons in the natural history of Alaska and the Wrangell Mountains, field journaling, climate change in Alaska, flora and fauna of the area, history of McCarthy and Kennicott, and backcountry preparation and safety skills. This included a one week exploratory backcountry trip through National Creek Pass and along McCarthy Creek.
Once we returned we began preparing for a 3 week backcountry trip where students would gather data researching various topics including backcountry impact for the National Park Service, small mammal populations, climate change impacts, and others. I decided the best approach to answer my question of how different factors affect group cohesion, while also being an active member of this group, would be to use my own personal reflections, observations of group activity, and informal interviews with the students of the program about different characteristics of groups and social bonding. I would focus this research on the group I would be with during our 3 week backcountry trip which consisted of 8 students and 3 instructors. I wrote a total of 5 journal entries reflecting on the roles of myself and others within the group, leadership, characteristics that bond and divide members, and the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards associated with being a part of a group. Upon interviewing other students of my group I proposed 6 questions in individual interviews:
1. What is the most rewarding aspect of being a member of a group for you?
2. What is your ideal group size? Why?
3. What do you think brings group members together? Why?
4. What do you think divides group members? Why?
5. Do social groups need leadership? What does that look like and how are leaders determined?
6. Do you feel like a member of a group on this trip? Why or why not?
I also asked these questions of the other backcountry group, though it was done in a different format at a different time, thus I decided not to include the responses in this essay. Lastly, I took observational notes throughout our backcountry trip on factors that seemed to affect group cohesion positively or negatively. I would use all of my information gathered to find commonalities and themes that supported answering my question.
Speaking on the realization of American society’s “war with itself” Junger describes in Tribe,
“Unlike criticism, contempt is particularly toxic because it assumes a moral superiority in the speaker. Contempt is often directed at people who have been excluded from a group or declared unworthy of its benefits… People who speak with contempt for one another will probably not remain united for long.”
As we prepared for our three week trip our group seemed united on the surface but tension laid below as people began to do what I’ve observed people often do in uncomfortable and new situations, which is cling to the peers they have a safe and emotional connection with, avoiding differences, judgement, and conflict by forming into smaller cliques, or tribes. I myself was included in this, and these smaller groups seemed to fuel a feeling of Us vs. Them when communication broke down. As I reflected on this observation I wondered if leadership was an internal factor affecting our cohesion as a whole. Our amalgamation of tribes had many people trying to be leaders, but from my perspective, it was because they thought they should be leaders and not because they had earned it. When I interviewed group members about leadership, a majority of responses said that groups do need leadership, but leaders are determined naturally. When asked what leadership looks like, a common response was that leaders recognize the ability and needs of other members of the group and take initiative based on the group as a whole.
Towards the end of our program we visited with local naturalist and McCarthy resident Mark Vail who has lived sustainably year-round in McCarthy for the last 30 years and has served as president of the McCarthy Area Council for the past 8. Vail explained that this is the third time he has been voted as president by other local residents, only 45 of which live in McCarthy full-time, and feels this is because of a combination of his experience and knowledge of the community and his ability to address conflicts and issues from multiple perspectives. I don’t think Vail thinks of himself as a leader, but he happily accepts a role that supports the community he is such a big part of. When I think of our best leaders throughout history, they all share the qualities of active listening, compassion, empathy, and have acted as voices representing their community. But these leaders don’t always step up to the plate, rather they are pushed. I recognized what I considered to be many natural leaders within our group and hoped that they would be able to bridge our growing divide as we moved forward. This internal factor I found was pivotal to the bonding of groups and to the competency portion of self-determination theory.
Throughout my career working with all different ages of children, I have found that my sweet spot is 2 year olds. It’s right around the time that they start demonstrating more independent self-help skills, gaining conversational language, and practicing cooperative play instead of parallel play. Additionally, this is also the age that children begin to develop preferred peer groups and will actively discriminate against peers outside of these preferred groups. You’ve all probably heard kids tell one another they can’t come to their birthday, or that this area is only for boys, or refuse to share their toys. Adults do this too, although it’s usually much more passive-aggressive. Sebastian Junger says, “The earliest and most basic definition of community — of tribe — would be the group of people you would both help feed and help defend.” This is essentially what kids are doing when they begin to form groups at a very young age, protecting resources and defending the members of their group by keeping others out. This is when I find promoting inclusion becomes most difficult, but is also the most important time to teach. When I asked students of the Field Studies program what their ideal group size was, most answered somewhere between 3 and 5 people. Some negative reasons given for larger groups were that they caused hierarchal systems to form, they created more miscommunication, and it made forming bonds difficult. Similarly groups of 3–5 were preferred because they are easier manage and it’s easier to form close relationships. I followed with the question of what brings group members together. Simple things like sharing meals and common interests were often the first responses, but as students expanded their answers, I was somewhat surprised to hear everyone say virtually the same thing: shared hardship and frustrations because those situations create a familial unit that supports and trusts one another.
This external factor of hardship put on to groups seems to be extremely important and something that Western society rarely has to deal with anymore as a group, but rather as individuals because we are a society that promotes independence from communal groups and as Junger states, “As affluence and urbanization rise in society, rates of depression and suicide tend to go up rather than down.” As we get older, our culture, and our biology pushes us to form these small, isolated groups or be more independent altogether. This, along with a number of other factors can take away our ability to connect with others when we need it most: during hardship.
Without a connection to a group you can feel unable to be vulnerable, trust, or accept support. I felt this feeling at times during the program’s 3 week backcountry trip and recognized that other members did as well. Being a very independent person myself, this was a familiar feeling, and I typically resolve it by pushing myself into a support role to feel better connected to my group. Other times independence can go into overdrive to the point that a group member can separate themselves in search of control, or a fear of not being taken care of or held back by the group. This can obviously disrupt the cohesion of a group if these traits of independence are interpreted incorrectly by other members. I asked students in my backcountry group what they thought divided group members. Many answers related to independence such as ego, selfishness, lack of trust, and unwillingness to accept other viewpoints. One student responded, “Selfishness and not pulling your weight [can divide groups] because it can create a chain reaction of more group members acting that way.” We can see then how quickly one independent person can dissolve into an entire group of independent people who are scared that their group will not defend and take care of them or their resources. This is where inclusion becomes a key strategy at forming connectedness within groups of people. A key example of inclusion at Northwest Center that we often use is that our typically developing and special needs children learn from one another. Children with developmental delays in mobility, speech, or cognition are able to be in classrooms with peers of the same age and strive to play, talk, and complete tasks the way their friends do. And with the help of early intervention therapy that is the goal. On the other end of the spectrum teachers and typically developing students alike learn to adjust their environment, expectations, and communication to meet the needs of a peer with developmental delays. The goal is to teach children at a young age to accept individuality and meet people where they’re at to build stronger connections and care for one another.
This idea of inclusion can certainly apply to anyone that is different than ourselves. Promoting an environment where every individual feels taken care of and welcome can do nothing but create connections. When students were asked what the most rewarding aspect of being a group member was I received many answers about relationships and connections with others. They enjoy gaining different perspectives, people who will challenge their ideas, trusting relationships, a feeling of inclusion and acceptance, and being able to learn new things. During our 3 weeks in the backcountry I met and bonded with a diverse group of individuals that I would likely never had formed relationships with back home due to superficial differences, age, backgrounds, or friend groups. We formed bonds over frustrations like finding a suitable pooping location or eating oatmeal for the 12th day in a row; sharing the hardship of difficult crossings over steep moraines and slippery glaciers; and built trust through listening and understanding when solving problems. None of this is possible without putting aside independent thinking and accepting an inclusive way of thinking.
The third pillar of self-determination theory as described by Junger, the “need to feel authentic” in life could have multiple definitions. My definition of feeling authentic is being comfortable in my own skin without a need for filters or constant second-guessing of one’s actions. It’s easy to feel anxious answering a simple question like, “How are you doing?” when you’re unsure if answering someone with intentional thought and honesty will be returned with appreciation and understanding. Kids don’t have an overwhelming sense of self. They talk, play, and cry and let it all hang out without concern for what others think. A really important aspect for myself as a teacher when I am creating a learning environment is one where my students are not afraid to be who they are. No matter if they’re quiet and sensitive or loud and in-your-face, I want them to develop their personality in a place where their emotions, concerns, wants, and needs can be heard and understood. Environment and all aspects of it, including the tangible things like furniture, lighting, meals, resources, and the intangible things like schedule, consistent interactions, clear expectations, and a good nights rest all need to be accounted for for a student to thrive. And man if you want a challenging environment come to the Wrangell Mountains in the summer.
The sun almost never sets, your chair is a rock and your desk is your lap, the temperature could drastically change in a day, it takes a lot of extra effort to do simple tasks like cook dinner and find a bathroom and you will probably never sleep. Okay maybe my description is a little exaggerated but this is a hard environment to adjust to from modern living, and to put social interactions on top of that can be difficult. Thankfully what I found this summer is that this environment, sometimes as chaotic as it is, brings out the best in people. I connected very strongly with my classmates within our first week here. I was extremely comfortable being myself (which is something that can’t be often said back home), and I felt competent in my role here because there is always something that needs to be done. I asked my backcountry group if and why they felt like a member of our group during our trip and I found every need of self-determination theory fulfilled. My group members felt they had roles they could fill, people to laugh with, welcoming feelings, trusting relationships and they were not afraid to be themselves. They created an environment, within this vast and unpredictable one, that was able to fulfill their needs. So how did they do that? They created a schedule when they didn’t have one, they communicated with each other clearly and effectively, they solved problems together, they fed one another, they supported one another, and they listened to each other. Even if a group’s external environment is hellbent on breaking them up, if they recognize what type of internal environment their group thrives in they will be able to overcome those external obstacles.
The most important factors that affected our group cohesion this summer were leadership, hardship, independence and inclusion, and our external and internal environments. Each of these factors that affected our bond have strong connections to the needs of self-determination theory. These intrinsic values of feeling authentic, feeling competent in our roles, and connecting with others were able to be filled because of our cohesive groups formed throughout the duration of the Wrangell Mountains Center Field Studies program. In an attempt to promote these factors in the future, I think it would be beneficial for the program to incorporate more reading, discussion, and activities related to group cohesion and dynamics. I was able to lead a group exercise with our other backcountry group where I asked of them the same 6 questions I used to interview members of my backcountry group. Each individual answered the questions on a sheet of paper, then broke up into groups of 3 to share their answers. We came back as a whole group and discussed common similarities or differences in responses. Overall the group said they enjoyed the activity and found that it would be beneficial at the beginning of the program. In addition to learning about the natural history and backcountry of the Wrangell Mountains, I believe a foundation of the ability to form cohesive groups is essential to the success of the other parts of this program and potentially the most beneficial experience to be had here overall.
When I wasn’t spending my time during this program in the classroom or the backcountry, I was getting to know the community of McCarthy. We went to the infamous weekly open mic night at The Golden Saloon, devoured fries and burgers at The Potato, and witnessed the silliness of Friday night softball games.
Everywhere I went I saw happy people being themselves, looking out for everyone, welcoming and including outsiders, and doing the many jobs required to keep this town moving. Nobody was bored, nobody buried their faces in cell phones, and everyone genuinely connected with one another. People smiled and said “Hello” as you walked down the street. This used to be the norm in America but somewhere along the way, as our cities got larger and our technology improved, these ideals were lost. McCarthy, with its diverse populace, represents the ideal community to me. And I feel my group of classmates and I reflected the extraordinary community we were able to be a part of and now embody it. I want us to take this strong community of inclusiveness, support, and acceptance and share it when we return to wherever we came from. A lot of residents I met said, “This place changes you.” And I believe that to be true. Not quite modern, not quite ancient, McCarthy has got it just right.
