“It was dark, but there was so much life”

Ruben Hoekstra about his outdoor training in Poland

Last August, I spent a week in Poland at a training on outdoor education on behalf of the Out of Office Foundation. The focus was on experiential learning. I came for the outdoor education programme itself, but two unexpected experiences turned out to be the most meaningful.

The Village in the woods

On the training's website I read: "For a full week, you will live and learn outdoors however being accommodated in a nice and cozy seminar house."

A nice and cozy seminar house? I want to sleep outside under a tarp!

So I asked, and it was fine.

While everyone else picked a room on arrival day, I took my sleeping gear and tarp into the woods behind the accommodation. The undergrowth was dense, and of course I didn't want to sleep under a widow maker, so it took about ten minutes of bushwhacking to find a good spot. I was very happy with the red deer tracks and the countless birds that welcomed me, and I spent that first afternoon setting up my home for the week.

The first evening of the training ended at the campfire, like almost every evening. After brushing our teeth, everyone headed off to their nice and cozy rooms. I put on my head torch and hoped I'd find my sleeping spot again in the pitch dark. And it was dark. I've rarely been anywhere with so little light pollution. The starry sky was immense and it was dead quiet.

I've slept alone in a forest before. Still, I always feel more tension than I expect, especially on the first night. Once I was settled in my sleeping bag, I noticed how alert my body was, trying to make sense of every sound. I know the wolves, foxes, lynx, wild boar, red deer and European bison that live here have no interest in coming under my tarp. But the idea that they could still feels different from lying in my bed at home.

At breakfast the next morning, the other participants were very curious about how my night had been. The next day it turned out there were hammocks for anyone who also wanted to sleep outside. Since so many people were curious, I started tempting others to join me.

On the third night, it finally happened. My German mate Erhan had never slept in a tent, but he was up for joining me in the woods. How brave is that? I showed him which knots work best for hanging a tarp and hammock, and after the campfire we walked into the woods together.

The next morning, of course, everyone wanted to know how Erhan's night had been. Slowly more people got inspired. That night there were five of us in the woods, and the night after that there were seven. Our corner of the forest even got a proper name: The Village.

It was great to inspire people, during a week about experiential learning, to sleep outside in the pitch dark and to let them feel that they can do it and how special it is.

Night walk

One day we visited Białowieża, the Polish primeval forest close to the accommodation. After a short guided tour of the forest, we had some time at the end of the afternoon to visit a supermarket.

As I browsed the aisles and put some local treats in my basket, I thought I heard a Dutch accent in the English of a young guy who was also shopping. He wasn't part of the training. In the queue, my hunch was confirmed when I saw the word 'Boomspecialist' (Dutch for tree specialist) on the back of his jacket.

"Hey, a tree specialist," I said in Dutch. He turned around. "Ha, more Dutch people."

I asked him what he was doing in Poland. He immediately started telling me, full of enthusiasm, about his internship at the National Park for his forestry and nature management studies. He had been staying in a cabin near the primeval forest for a few months.

"So you could show us around here?" I asked.

He certainly could. He had already taken several groups out. Even better, he was doing his usual round with his night vision scope that evening. Did we want to come along?

Leslie, one of the trainers, is Dutch and had overheard the conversation. I looked at her, and she thought it was a good idea.

The guy turned out to be called Sjors, and we swapped numbers. All that was left was to convince the rest of the group. That wasn't hard: everyone wanted to come.

A few hours later, a few cars drove for a good half hour through the pitch-black night to the meeting point. Sjors had told the drivers not to go too fast, because a lot of wildlife crosses the road at that hour. He was waiting for us at a crossroads, smoking a cigarette in the pale light of one of the few street lamps for miles around.

Speaking softly, he told us about the area, the animals, the political context and his own experiences, with plenty of knowledge and humour. Then we set off on a walk through the fields in almost complete silence.

Sjors had a night vision scope connected to his phone. We could hold his phone, so we saw what he saw. We could even take photos and videos of it. And there was a lot to see.

We 'saw' a whole herd of red deer and a few on their own, as well as a fox and an animal from the marten family.

In the end, as a group we lay down on our backs in the middle of a field to look at the stars. Hooves thudding, and now and then an 'ooh' or an 'aah' when another star fell. Otherwise it was quiet. It was dark, but there was so much life. It was magical.

Uncontrollable nature

We live in a time when it's tempting to track everything with apps and to tame, measure, check and control everything. Letting go, seeing how things turn out, making big choices without overthinking them: society doesn't really encourage these things. In nature I feel that I'm only a very small part of something very big. That doesn't make me fatalistic or nihilistic. Instead, it gives me the trust that I belong somewhere and am seen.

Nature can feel quite scary. Especially at night, when everything is dark and you don't know which sound belongs to what. But the more often I've been out at night and slept outside, the safer and more at ease I feel. Partly because I've experienced that I'm still alive, that nothing bad has happened and that my fears (a mouse in my sleeping bag, an elk running through my tarp) haven't come true. But also because I feel welcome in the forest. The animals know I'm there, certainly by the sixth night in the same spot.

If I can help people experience that nature isn't something to fear or control, not even at night, and that we're undeniably part of it, then I'm a very happy man. So I can definitely say, this week, with all its night-time adventures, made me a very happy man.