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First published in Foxprint, Summer 2004.
Trailing an animal or person through a landscape is one of the most fun and difficult tasks that one may undertake. It is a great outdoor activity for children.
It is fun for everyone, and a great way to get young people interested in tracking as a study. It is exciting to follow a fresh set of tracks and realize that you are getting closer and closer to the maker of the tracks, perhaps getting a glimpse of the creature as it slips away through the trees.
Getting kids interested in trailing is a bit different than teaching it to adults. Adults can handle (and often like) some rather cerebral tracking lessons. Kids usually like something that is more experiential. They don’t usually need to know the theory behind the lesson as long as it is fun. One game you can play with younger children is to have them follow you around stepping exactly where you stepped. You can wind around and step in all kinds of ways. This begins to bring track awareness into their brain as they try to follow you exactly.
With older kids, you can start to set it up as a hide and seek game. They have to find you. Use your imagination to come up with a great reason why they need to find you. You will be hiding and running away from them, but you will have to drag a log behind you that has nails pounded about halfway in all around it. As you drag the log along behind you it will leave scrapes and scratches on the ground. The kids will be able to follow these marks until they reach you. After playing a few times you can start to remove nails so that it gets more and more difficult to follow, until the log is being dragged without any nails.
Most importantly, spend some time trailing with the young people that you are mentoring. Bring them along and show them the tracks that make you excited to trail and follow. The excitement and enthusiasm that you have will be passed along to them.
Tracking has been passed on for generations by trackers taking younger people out with them as they trail animals, hunt, and track. Seeing what is possible gives young people something to strive for. They will look up to you as the example, they will copy what you do, and they will get ideas for what they want to do in the future. Be the best role model you can possibly be. It's good to have a repertoire of outdoor activities for children.
Encourage kids to follow every trail they find as far as they can. You will be surprised at how quickly they start to be able to do this, and the stories they start to bring home after spending some time on this endeavor!
Gabe Spence is lead tracking instructor at Wilderness Awareness School. He leads the tracking apprenticeship program.
Click here if you are looking for another outdoor activity for children.
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