Anchorage Daily News

HAINES -- I was doing great backing up the truck and the attached boat trailer. I was almost a natural, the instructor said. All I had to do was not turn the wheel so hard, not think so much and trust the mirrors. I needed to become one with the pivoting trailer.

The class was part of the three-day "Becoming an Outdoors-Woman" workshop sponsored by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the national Outdoor Heritage Foundation. The class was called Skiff Handling, but this section could have been subtitled "Zen and the art of trailer mobility."

Sixty women from Southeast, including a handful from Haines, took what they call the BOW course here last weekend at Rainbow Glacier Church Camp.

I had already guided the trailer down and up the long, narrow concrete ramp to the cove twice when some local friends showed up to go fishing. Three men and a teenage boy pulled in right next to me. I smiled and backed up like I knew what I was doing but got flustered when the trailer went off the wrong way. My friends are not macho men. Two are artists, and one teaches yoga.

But when it comes to teaching women things like driving a boat trailer, casting a rod, shooting a rifle, aiming an arrow with a compound bow, making moose calls or using a chain saw, I learned that the fewer men around, even very nice men, the better.

Here are a few more new things I learned last weekend: A large plastic trash bag can save your life if you are injured or lost in the wet woods. Crawling in one makes a quick shelter, and if you have two you can shove moss and leaves between them and make an insulated waterproof sleeping bag. The best place to shoot a deer with an arrow is behind the shoulder. Salmon like to bite bright pink flies and lures, and not all charging bears behave the same way, so sometimes you don't play dead, and children never should.

I also learned that recognition of any outdoor trouble begins before you leave home. I had assumed, based on my families' reaction to my own bulky emergency kit, that planning for the worst-case scenario of every outing is a bad rather than a good thing.

The woman from Sitka who taught survival skills had the pockets of her jacket so stuffed with "just in case" zip-lock pouches it looked as fat as a life jacket. (I would not be surprised if it was equipped with an inflatable one.) She confessed that she takes a mirror for signaling planes or boats, a compass, space blanket, fire starters, dental floss for lashing shelters together, a knife with clippers and a saw blade, a headlamp, Band-Aids, folded up foil (to cook with or make into a cup), a whistle and a small book on edible plants with her when she drives to the grocery store. I wanted to hug her.

The first thing we did when we got in the skiff was hear a safety talk. That didn't mean it wasn't fun though. After our instructor Becky taught us how to operate the throttle and use the fancy steering console, I went first, putting along the way I usually do with our tiller-handled little outboard, smelling the low-tide mussels, looking at the shore-front homes on one side and the glaciers in the mountains on the other.

Suddenly she hollered "get it up on step" and thrust the throttle forward as we lurched back and held on tight. "Don't be afraid to give it gas," she yelled over the wind and motor, and then, "OK, now back off a little and feel how smooth it is." Finally she said, "Don't be timid; act like you know what you're doing. Guys do it all the time, and it works."

The fly-fishing class was quieter. I had thought fly-fishing was so difficult and mysterious that you had to have inherited the fly-fishing gene, or have a Scottish minister for a father, to even attempt the graceful sweep and loop of casting the long line and light feathered hook.

Turns out, I am better with a fly rod than a boat trailer. At least that's what my instructor Michelle said. Never underestimate the power of good teaching and pointed praise to make a student shine. Her kind words and the way the delicate rod launched the pretty flies set a hook in my heart.

I never went to camp when I was a kid, but I have a feeling the skills children learn there don't sink in nearly as well as they do on adult campers, especially adult women campers. We're the ones who have been telling everyone else to go out and play until dinnertime for years, but it's been way too long since most of us have taken our own advice.

Heather Lende lives in Haines and is the author of "If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name." She can be reached at hlende@adnmail.com.

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