Soaring Spirits: A Colorful Kite-Flying Adventure

On October 9th, Josh and I led our very first trip of the quarter for the National Park Trust–in the form of a local outing, a kite-flying adventure at Zuanich Park! Our student participants met us at our university’s Outdoor Center, where we distributed blank white kites with long, colorful ribbon tails, and no shortage of markers to embellish them with. We sat outside to decorate so that we could enjoy a rare bluebird day with light wind and bright sunshine, while we conversed about school, our special interests, and hobbies.

Then, once our kites felt complete and colorful, we were ready to head to the kite-flying field. We loaded up in cars and headed to Zuanich Park. After a quick 10-minute drive, we made it to Bellingham Bay and were greeted with the sun reflecting off of small whitecaps on the water and a small breeze flowing through the grass. It was perfect kite-flying weather!

We unwrapped our kite lines and helped everybody’s kites launch into the air by holding someone’s kite while they walked backward until their kite was in the air. It was amazing to see people fly their artwork after working so hard on it! A couple of kites had an extra challenge staying in the air. Luckily, we were not the only kite flyers at the park; several people came over to ask about the National Park Trust and to help us with our kites. Thanks to them, knots were re-tied, more tails were added to account for the wind speed, and kites were launched successfully into the air. It was a grand success!

It was all of our participants’ first time going to Zuanich Park, and everybody said they would love to go back. We all agreed that there was a specific calmness that kite-flying brought to us, and it was incredibly grounding to do so during a busy school week. We expressed gratitude for spending time outside together and exchanging jokes and experiences of the school year so far as we watched our kites. Josh shared a spoken land acknowledgment, we thanked our newly-found kite-flying friends, and we headed back to the car for our return to campus. For many, this was their first small adventure into exploring Bellingham off-campus. We hope that this experience brought out our peers’ sense of curiosity, and a want to continue exploring and experiencing the land around us.