Northern Michigan University professor Scott Jordan spent NMU spring break week leading a Wilderness First Responder certification course for nine students and a faculty member from Montreat College in North Carolina. The visiting professor deliberately chose NMU to gain hands-on experience in a snowy and cold environment. Marquette delivered, with about 30 inches of fresh snow shortly before the group's arrival.
Jordan said this marked the first time NMU has delivered the internationally recognized certification program to an off-campus entity, and in a condensed time frame.
“We have offered it through our regular curriculum for a long time because it's typically required for jobs in the outdoor recreation and leadership management field,” said Jordan, who teaches in the School of Health and Human Performance. “The training totals about 90 hours. It's typically held over a semester, but we completed it with this group in nine days, so it was a more intensive format. We worked with NMU Continuing Education on this and may do similar courses in the future.”
Jordan said students learned treatment and evacuation protocols through a combination of classroom lectures in the mornings and outdoor simulated scenarios on and off campus in the afternoons.
“They learned how to manage critical situations to keep people alive, take care of injuries such as cuts and broken bones, and decide whether and when evacuation from the backcountry is required,” he said. “The issues they confronted were divided into categories. These included major trauma from falling and crashing into things; environmental factors such as heat and lightning; and medical issues such as diabetes and asthma.”
Ryan Zwart, assistant professor of outdoor recreation studies at Montreat, is a Michigan native who vacationed frequently in the Upper Peninsula. He went to graduate school with NMU assistant professor Ryan Hines, who made the introduction to Jordan, helped to plan the visit, and facilitated free-time recreational opportunities such as cross-country skiing and ice climbing while the group was in town.
Zwart said Wilderness First Responder (WFR) or Wilderness First Aid training is mandatory for students in his program. Montreat, like NMU, typically offers them over a semester.
“But the immersion semester I'm teaching right now, with the same students for all 15 credits, allows us to do more of these longer trips for intensive training,” Zwart said. “We took advantage of that to come to NMU because we don't always get the best snowfall in North Carolina.
“I really liked this intensive nine-day Wilderness First Responder format. Students seem more focused and engaged, and it really promotes teamwork. Overall, we were happy with the course. Scott does a great job with the certification instruction.”
Both Zwart and Hines took the course themselves to become WFR recertified. The Montreat delegation was also equipped with gear to go cross-country skiing at Blueberry Ridge in the evening during the training program, and ice climbing near Munising afterward before returning to North Carolina. Three NMU students guided the ice climbing activity.
“I'm a Florida native who's never seen that much snow, so it was cool to experience that and the winter sports in Marquette,” said Montreat student Rosie Marshall. “There was definitely a learning curve for me, but I really enjoyed it and meeting the NMU students. The course itself was great. Having lectures in the morning and applying what we learned to hands-on experience with hypothetical situations in the afternoon made us feel more confident and capable. We also had labs where we learned how to do injections, clean up a wound or wrap a splint.”
For more information on NMU's outdoor recreation and leadership management bachelor's degree program, visit nmu.edu/hhp/OutdoorRecreation.
