Expeditioning in Norway, Sweden, & Finland

 

I'm  Barry Howard, age: old.  I   have  been involved in outdoor  work,  by passion since 1968, and commercially since 1972.  That is I have been earning  a living since  that latter  year by being  out instructing  a wide variety of clients in the finer arts and science of living, moving, working, and surviving in the outdoors. I pre-date virtually every one of the current UK practitioners in outdoor learning. And I am still enjoying finding out more and more that I didn't know yesterday

I am a full-time outdoor educator running many individual projects, and, long ago trained with the late Peter Bradley in wilderness and survival skills - back in the 1960's. By 1974 I was involved in polar exploration as a member of one of the last dog sledge expeditions in polar history to cross the Greenland ice-cap, at one point as a sledge commander. This was a catalyst in my research of pro-and-palaeo glacial margins which took me all over Europe.

I followed my mentor into teaching and graduated in the '70's from Eaton Hall College of Education, part of the University of Nottingham's School of Education, and won Scholarships to study and then do research at the Universities of Bucharešti and Cluj in Romania. Between 1976 and 1981, I led or was a member of seven remote area expeditions per year in Arctic Norway, Iceland, and Greenland. In 1979 I spent four months solo backpacking / mountaineering and wilderness exploring in Finnmark, though not following necessarily the plan I'd originally set. Civilian courses and expedition experience includes leading almost 200 overland and/or backpacking and/or high level mountain expeditions throughout the UK and the whole of high-latitude Scandinavia including many remote area/wilderness courses in northern Finnmark. I spent 8 seasons instructing todays equivalent up to and including JSMEL across the UK and in Troms, Norway.

I am Mountain Leader qualified (Plas y Brenin), Winter Mountain Leader trained (Glenmore Lodge) and a former teacher with 31 award-winning years of classroom and management experience, 10 years of which was spent as a Head of Geography teaching up to 'A' level; I have been an expedition trainer and former Regional External Verifier for 'Sports Leaders UK' - over ten years - for  their NVQ Level 2 Award in Basic Expedition Leadership, continuing now to instruct over 2500 youth and adults per year in wilderness skills, leading expeditions to Iceland, Sweden, and Norway, and winter mountaineering, when I can get time, in the Lifjell district of Norway.

I was  proposed by the British Sports Trust to Ofsted as a 'National Example of Good Practice in Outdoor Education', and have been praised and commended in four successive inspections by Ofsted for management of innovative and comprehensive programmes in Outdoor Education and  'Excellence' in educational visits management. In addition I was the UK's first 'Outdoor Education Champion' as awarded by the then National Association for Outdoor Education....for 'productive delivery in the field of outdoor education'.

Proposed by David Cox and being elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1974, this was followed up in 2006 as a 'Chartered Geographer' for contributions to geographical fieldwork and outdoor education. I am an Associate Fellow in Meteorology at the Royal Met Soc., and a former tutor in Ocean Yacht Masters met for the Board of Trade.  In 2002 I was awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship for research into educational visits, expedition, and outdoor education safety in Norway, Sweden and Finland - in that year  undertaking a 10,000 kms solo, overland, expedition to the North Cape whilst en route around Scandinavia, subsequently being awarded the Trust's Silver Medallion. This website charts the genesis and execution of that expedition.

I run my own company 'Hunter Outdoor Training' and manage 'The Asheldham Centre'. This 'jewel-in-the-crown' 26-bed Centre is located in remote east Essex in a totally re-furbished 1000 year-old Grade II Listed medieval church - a unique and quite outstanding residential provision. I am very proud to be associated with such a special place. Only if/when you visit - and stay - will you realise how special. Don't take my word for it - be my guests and come and a have a look round.

A major work since 2007 has been as Project Manager of the new 'Merrylands Centre of Excellence for Outdoor Education' in a school in Essex, UK, developing a competition-standard orienteering course and coaching, an outdoor  'living laboratory' for environmental education, and on-timetable wilderness and survival skills. This is, arguably, the first and only school in Britain where every subject on the timetable has a compulsory outdoor education component.This Centre of Excellence Project is the Youth Sports Trust benchmark Case Study in the UK for Key Stage 2 Outdoor Education  Cascading this project and its components across other schools in, initially Essex, in less than three years 4,900 youth have undertaken the project in 33 schools, with almost 29,000 pupil-hours of activity. It has recently been highly commended by the Department for Education's National Strategies team.

I work as a mountain guide across the UK, a wilderness/survival instructor and also as an environmental education consultant in this country and Scandinavia.

You can contact me at huntertraining@hotmail.com

B.J.Howard MA  B.Ed [Hons.] C.Geog. [Econ]  ML  FRGS.  Assoc.F.R.Met.S.  Churchill Fellow