Dunning Brings Skills and Leadership to Urban Wilderness Program
By Kier Malloy
Cherry, ash, pine and ballistic nylon. Over the course of 14 days, these materials can be milled, bent, lashed and riveted into a beautiful and sturdy watercraft ready for whatever adventures its paddler may undertake. And Trace Dunning is the man who will help you do it.
Dunning, a Cincinnati native, has been attending Kooch-i-ching since he was 9 years old and recently took the reins of the Urban Wilderness Program, the Camping & Education Foundation’s educational outreach initiative.
Trace helps out during an Urban Wilderness Program Event in Cincinnati. (Ben Woods)
“He’s an incredibly hard worker. I’ve seen it firsthand. Obviously, some of that comes from Kooch-i-ching, but really it’s just his work ethic.”
“He really just lives and breathes this stuff,” says Foundation President Hugh Haller of Dunning. “I started talking to him about this program years ago. I told him to be patient and to get involved and that’s what he’s done.”
Dunning began helping with the Urban Wilderness Program while still in high school, taking fellow students on short canoeing excursions on the Ohio River and teaching them basic wilderness skills such as how to construct a fireplace.
“He’s an incredibly hard worker,” Haller says. “I’ve seen it firsthand. Obviously, some of that comes from Kooch-i-ching, but really it’s just his work ethic.”
Haller launched the Urban Wilderness Program in Cincinnati in 2011. That year, the program ran for just one week in the fall and served a single school, Gamble Montessori. Later, it expanded to two weeks and then multiple sessions as more and more schools partnered with the Foundation to offer hands-on wilderness activities such as canoeing, knot-tying, campfire cooking and fire by friction.
Today, the program runs from September to May and serves nearly 20 schools and 1,000 students per year. The boatbuilding program was launched in 2017 with the help of Phil Winger, formerly of the Minneapolis-based Urban Boatbuilders.
“It gets kids engaged in something that they can physically see the progression of,” says Dunning. “It teaches them to work with hand tools. They’re standing, they’re moving around, but at the same time they’re learning about fractions, about surface area, the cellular makeup of various types of wood, and the chemistry of [polyurethane] ‘gooping.’”
“Kids these days are always just on their technology or sitting down in a classroom staring at a board,” he adds. “So getting them up, moving around and working with their hands is really rewarding.”
But Dunning didn’t always possess the maturity and leadership qualities required by his new role. And by his own admission, he is still growing into them.
Following his CIT year at Kooch-i-ching, Dunning spent a summer in the Junior Camp and then two in the Senior Camp, supervising Red Lodge and helping lead two trips to Hudson Bay, the first on the Hayes River and the second down the Gods River. In 2019, he moved to the Intermediate Camp and became a trip head for the first time. He also took over the morning program’s canoeing class.
Trace teaches a camper how to portage a canoe at Kooch-i-ching. (Kate Downey)
“It’s always been an incremental step: from camper to CIT, from CIT to first-year staff, from first-year staff to trip head, and now to Urban Wilderness Program coordinator.”
“Having those other leadership roles really prepared me for my work with the Foundation in my new position,” says Dunning, who is in his last year at the University of Cincinnati, where he is majoring in organizational leadership.
“This is my first real job, and I still have a lot to learn, but I’m ready to tackle whatever is thrown at me,” he says. “It’s always been an incremental step: from camper to CIT, from CIT to first-year staff, from first-year staff to trip head, and now to Urban Wilderness Program coordinator.”
This fall, Dunning is focused on several specific projects. With his brother, Luke, and fellow Kooch-i-ching staff men Dima Warner and Sam Moulton, he is building a fleet of 12 skin-on-frame canoes that will be used for programming in Cincinnati. With Sam, he is communicating with schools about post-Covid programming and planning college canoe trips for next summer. He is also working with his mom, Kari Dunning, a professor at UC, on research that will help the Urban Wilderness Program impact more inner-city students. Alice Peacock-Haller, an Ogichi staff woman (and Hugh’s wife), will also be joining the Urban Wilderness Program staff this year.
“It’s really pretty fun because we all know each other,” Dunning says of his colleagues. “It’s like getting to work with your best friends.”
At its core, the Urban Wilderness Program takes the most important skills, lessons and values taught at Kooch-i-ching and Ogichi and makes them accessible to those who are unable to attend the two camps. However, an Urban Wilderness Program scholarship fund has so far provided 14 full-tuition camp scholarships to program participants.
“Obviously it would be great if we could get every single kid up to camp,” Dunning says. “Unfortunately, that is just not a realistic goal.”
“I’m from Cincinnati. If I had never gone up to camp, I would have never had any of the outdoor experiences that really shaped me into the person I am today,” he says.
However, Dunning adds, “At the end of the day, it’s about giving kids that affinity for nature—giving them values they will carry with them later in life.”
This article was originally published in the Fall 2020 Tumpline.