David Pool: Outward Bound Canada, Class Afloat - Teaching on a Tall Ship in the Middle of a Storm

Hot Drinks - Stories From The Field

David Pool grew up in Ottawa and currently lives in North Vancouver with his wife Katey and his two kids. He worked for Outward Bound Canada from 2001-2007 and with Class Afloat. When David moved to the west coast of Canada, he started working in the outdoor education Explore Program at Collingwood School before moving into student services as a counsellor, a position he currently holds.

During his time working in outdoor education, he has led canoeing, sea kayaking, hiking and winter expeditions and twice crossed the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. He loves providing opportunities for youth to learn, grow, and succeed. He believes that students learn in all environments and through all experiences. As an educator, his role is to challenge youth to see every opportunity as a learning experience and provide guidance and moments for reflection.

In this episode:

• [3:20] David Pool talks about him and his friend Jonathan Carroll building a sauna for his students so that when they came back from the two days of solo hiking, they could enjoy and have fun in the sauna. But things didn’t go the way they wanted them to be. After completing and making sure there were no leaks for the steam, also they were on a pebble beach instead of a sandy beach. Which made the beach suck steam and made the sauna pretty cold.

• [9:43] David Pool shares his experience working for Class Afloat, where he taught senior English and History. While they were on their tall ship, some of the people got GI-BUGS. A few days later, the weather started to roll in, and the waves were about 9 to 10 meters, as well as the pounding wind hitting the deck. Their decks were consistently going in the water, so they had to bring the sails in. David, alongside another person, goes to square sails, which is about 100 feet off the deck, and clipped the sails while hanging over the dark ocean as well as rolling and pitching.

• [35:42] David talked about his personal trip where he got stuck alongside one of his friends. They started their trip at Lytton, BC. On their way, they saw a rescue landing pad, and they joked about it that if they got into any sort of problem, they could go up there. What they didn’t know was later on, on their way back to their home, they would get stuck due to snowpack, and they didn’t have any snow gear. So after few days of being stuck, they got to the rescue landing pad, and a couple of days later, they saw a chopper which David’s dad sent to rescue them. The story is much more when you hear it yourself, so hop onto the podcast and get the best of it.