Youths pull together for corps work

Eight weeks of fixing trails, pulling weeds, planting trees and learning other natural resource management skills isn’t how every high schooler spends his or her summer

But for dozens of youths who work for the Montana Youth Conservation Corps each year, it’s an experience they will take with them for the rest of their lives.

The Youth Conservation Corps is a partnership between the Montana Conservation Corps and the U.S. Forest Service. The corps provides the leadership staff for the small teams of young adults while the forests offer different projects and learning opportunities for the participants.

The program is open to young adults aged 16-18, and during their two-month stints they are paid (modestly) to work with a variety of natural resources agencies and organizations, including national parks, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, tribal natural resources agencies and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Crew leaders Nick Daly and Bryce MacCallum spent their final day with their crew along a trail in the Flathead National Forest’s Tally Lake Ranger District, where the youths pulled invasive ragweed.

Daly explained that the physically demanding work was balanced out by conducting amphibian, loon and huckleberry surveys, learning about fire behavior in Big Creek and studying tree ecology in the Coram Experimental Forest.

“It’s all about getting youth out in the field to do conservation work,” he said. “YCC helps round out good job service while also being a steward to the environment.”

Crew member Ben Kooper, 16, described himself as an “avid fisherman” who hopes to eventually land a job as a fishing guide.

“For later experiences, it helps me to get a foot in the door for guiding,” he said.

But the exposure to other aspects of natural resources management, he noted, brought him a greater appreciation of the myriad services that resource managers provide.

“I’ve had to twist my perspective a little on the world” as a result of the experience, Kooper said. “I was interested in silviculture, and how that affects the environment.”

Elsa Baltz, 17, already knew Kooper and some of the other YCC’ers from school, and described herself as the only one who was “not a redneck.”

“It’s been interesting to work with three people that are more redneck than me, having them trying to make me be more redneck,” she joked.

An aspiring photographer, it was the second year for Baltz in the corps, and she said that in addition to the resource management lessons, the work provided ample opportunities to turn her lens on the natural world around her.

“I loved it so much I came back. Just the fact that I get to be outside and work, make friends and take pictures of people and places,” she said. “I found out I definitely want to stay more on this career path.”

After eight weeks, their crew leaders said they were impressed.

“I feel Iike I’ve seen them mature a lot,” said MacCallum.

“I presume at the beginning of this program they were more familiar with the people who were shooting these signs, rather than the people who were putting them up.” Daly added. “I think they’ve seen a lot of positive examples of how to spend your days working.”

Reporter Samuel Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.