I was a Ranger in 1998 and returned to the program a few years later as a staff.  I worked at several camps, ending my tenure as a supervisor at the Sleeping Giant Ranger Camp in 2008.  This program prepared me for any eventuality that life could hand me, founded in me a strong work ethic, and ultimately gave me the leadership skills I have today to run a satellite operation for Science North in Thunder Bay.  What this program also did for me was give me a common experience that I can use to connect with other people.

This past Christmas I was traveling with my husband in Trinidad and Tobago.  While eating lunch one afternoon in the dining hall at the Asa Wright Nature Centre in Trinidad, I struck up a conversation with the other people sitting at our table.  There were many people at that table, from a bawdy French man who had taken a ship across the Atlantic to a quiet woman from Germany; there was also a mother/daughter duo from Ottawa.  As we chatted about our lives back home in Canada, and who had more snow, I found out that the daughter had been a Ranger at Sleeping Giant.  What had been a very formal lunch with polite chit-chat turned into a pleasant afternoon with a feeling of familiarity.  We spoke about how the program had changed us, and led us to be the successful and adventurous people we are today.  We also shared stories about our mutual love for Sleeping Giant and northwestern Ontario.  Two people from very different parts of the province had something in common that bonded them. 

The Ontario government feels that the value of this program is not worth the money they will save by cutting it.  They are WRONG.  In the case of the Ontario Ranger Program, the evidence of its worth is staggering.  From the thousands of former Rangers who have shown their disapproval by writing posts on the Friends of the Ontario Ranger Program facebook page, to the hundreds of people who came to our rally at Queen’s Park, we have created a community of people who feel that the government’s position on this is untenable. This community will continue to stand up for what we believe in - and what we believe is that the youth of Ontario deserve a future that the Ontario Ranger Program is part of!