by Mike Hudgins
On four wooded acres west of Stevensville, kids spend their summer days turning over rocks looking for bugs, building bows and arrows from willow branches and string and swinging in hammocks hung between the trees. There’s a garden, a climbing dome, a slackline and a small cabin that serves as a classroom, but much of the learning takes place wherever the kids wander.
For these kids, it feels wild, and that’s the whole point.
Katie Wyskiver is the owner and teacher behind Swift Fox Farms (SFF), an outdoor education program near the Kootenai Creek Trailhead that is expanding its offerings this fall from summer camps to year-round programming.
After three summers of camps, SFF will begin offering an outdoor preschool and Friday camps for homeschool families and students attending four-day schools.
Wyskiver spent 15 years teaching high school in Missoula and taught in Corvallis last year. A lifelong Girl Scout whose mother was involved in outdoor education, she later became involved with an outdoor French camp at Georgetown Lake.
When the camp’s nonprofit, volunteer-based model became difficult to sustain following the COVID-19 pandemic, Wyskiver began looking for another way to keep outdoor education in her life.
“I just kind of felt like I couldn’t not have camp in my life,” she said.
Living west of Stevensville, Wyskiver began wondering if she could create something similar closer to home. She founded SFF in 2023 and offered the first summer camps the following year.
Now, Wyskiver has resigned from classroom teaching and is focusing on SFF full time. Construction is beginning on a yurt equipped with a woodstove that will allow programs to continue through the colder months.
Beginning after Labor Day, SFF will offer preschool Tuesdays through Thursdays and camps on Fridays.
With Victor and Florence schools operating on four-day weeks, Fridays can leave working parents looking for something for their children to do.
“I know that there are parents that kind of scramble either for all of those Fridays or just a few Fridays here and there,” Wyskiver said.
For Wyskiver, though, SFF isn’t simply childcare.
“In my programs, I always want to be learning something,” she said. “It’s not just activities and crafts and games. It is all those things, but around a theme.”
During Bug Camp this summer, Wyskiver placed information and photographs about honeybees throughout what she calls the “learning forest.” Younger children could study the pictures while older children read the information, and the group later came together to share what they had learned.
Other lessons begin with whatever the kids happen to find. Turning over rocks might uncover larvae or insects, which can become an opportunity to learn their names and explore their life cycles.
“It’s so much fun teaching outdoors and watching what the kids observe,” Wyskiver said.
The summer camps serve kids from four to 12. Wyskiver said the mixed ages give older kids a chance to help younger campers while allowing siblings to attend together. She also wants children to learn how to be outdoors comfortably throughout the seasons rather than treating rain or cold as reasons to stay inside. “Just an opportunity to be outside and to observe and to play in the rain and to be comfortable in all seasons is something that I think parents want,” she said.
Wyskiver is a certified K-12 Montana teacher and has completed the Montana Master Naturalist program through the Montana Natural History Center in Missoula. She said certified teachers have served throughout SFF’s camps.
The four-acre forest is fenced, giving children room to explore safely.
“So it feels, you know, like we’re wild and in the forest,” Wyskiver said, “but we have the amenities that we need to have.”
SFF isn’t alone in taking education outdoors in the Bitterroot Valley.
Wyskiver points to Heartwood Schoolhouse in Darby, the Farm School in the Skalkaho area and Crafted Wild in Victor as other small programs offering outdoor learning opportunities. Bug Out Montana also offers outdoor survival programming.
SFF is partnering with Blooming Imaginations, a local speech therapy service incorporating outdoor settings, and The Big Sky Backpacking, founded by licensed educator Skyler Genazzi. Genazzi will give older campers opportunities to explore local trailheads as they age out of SFF’s summer camps.
Wyskiver has registered the name Montana Outdoor Education Association with the goal of connecting more of the valley’s outdoor programs.
For Wyskiver, the goal is to keep giving kids a place to learn outside, whether they’re examining a bug, building something from a willow branch or just hanging out in a hammock among the trees.
For more information about SFF programs, go to swiftfoxfarms.com or email swiftfoxfarms406@gmail.com.
Leave a Reply