As an extra bonus for our language students today we had a fresh dump of snow here at the ESL Wilderness Ranch and we went out to look for new animal tracks. We were lucky and found some fresh Pine Martin prints that led us to a tree where the little guy was sitting on a branch looking at us.

As part of our reading and comprehension skills, the students read articles on all the wildlife in the area so actually being able to see a Pine Martin quite close was really the highlight of the day.

Winter on the ESL Wilderness Ranch gives our language students the opportunity to try different activities. With snow covering the ground, the horses have no grass to eat so we have to bring in hay for them. The students learn a whole new set of English vocabulary by giving each other directions and instructions during the unloading of the hay from the delivery truck. When they came here to study English, few of our students expected to be driving a Backhoe! Rolling out the hay for the horses is another fun activity which will be covered in my next blog....

An easy time for the horses on the ESL Ranch

The winter months are not the busiest for the ESL school. Our language students are enjoying all the activities they can in the snow. It is also a quiet time for our mountain Cayuse horses and they can relax in the sun. Our language students are learning a different vocabulary than they would in the summer. Student v teacher snowball fights are common these days.

ESL Students go ice fishing

ESL Wilderness Ranch students go Ice fishing as part of their winter activity program. Most of these students from Europe have never even been fishing let alone Ice fishing. Everyone had a lot of fun drilling holes in the ice then dropping their lines into the water below. It was also a good opportunity to practice their language training and fluency by practicing the new vocabulary that they have learnt. Several of them even managed to catch a fish!

Gold mine, now Ice cave

The ESL Wilderness Ranch is located in the south Chilcotin mountain range and it was from this area that many pioneers set out in search of gold. Very close to the ranch is an old gold mine and during the winter months this old mine is turned into an Ice cave complete with stalactites and stalagmites. Our students love to visit this cave to take photographs but with not much hope of tripping over a gold nugget!