Ducks Unlimited Canada scholarship awarded to East Elgin student Makaela Gilbert

A team effort

Gilbert is quick to highlight the incredible support system at East Elgin. Her teacher Adam Bengen and other leaders at the school have created a space for students to learn and grow and challenge themselves while experiencing an incredible outdoor opportunity. The ELP at East Elgin includes trips to Algonquin Park, which are often a highlight for students.

“Everyone instantly kind of felt like family after the very long canoe for six hours and portaging and fishing and camping in the backcountry. Everybody was just so close after that first trip” Gilbert says. “I think it really opened my eyes to what the program was going to be.”

Gilbert’s leaders describe her as a driven, hardworking, kind, and respectful person who works alongside classmates to problem-solve and offer encouragement. Far from the student who wasn’t sure about her place in ELP, Gilbert’s character shines through as a team player within the class.

Rising to the challenge

A physically demanding program, ELP includes portages and snowshoeing over tough terrain. Remembering a particularly difficult canoe portage, Gilbert was at first convinced she wouldn’t be able to lift and carry the canoe as needed. Thinking back to that moment, she was in disbelief that the students would be completing the portage independently.

Despite her initial doubts, Gilbert now recounts lifting the canoe easily and the thrill of successfully completing the portage. “It’s really hard to carry a very heavy canoe on your shoulders up and down hills for two kilometres. I mean, I did it with some pauses.”

“It’s very heavy but getting through that and finally seeing the place that we’re staying at and being like ‘we made it,’ it was definitely very rewarding, but very, very challenging.”

“It’s just a lot of mental things to get over,” she explains, “but there’s always going to be support for you.”

Meaningful mentorship during MarshQuest

As a student mentor during East Elgin’s MarshQuest festival, Gilbert remembers working at the Marsh Monsters station sampling aquatic macroinvertebrates and watching students pour off buses to explore the wetland. “Hearing the kids for 40 minutes just being like, ‘Look what I found!’ ‘Look what I found!’ It’s really great,” she says.

She remembers finding critters, knowing what they were and what their purpose was, and understanding that having those things in the water means the water is healthy. Sharing with younger students turns out to be a wonderful way for high school students to learn, too.

Gilbert had long been curious about the ecozones near her home and through learning and sharing about the environment, she felt herself drawn to pursuing a deeper understanding about the natural world.

Following a passion for nature

Thinking back to a trip to Algonquin, Gilbert recalls the beauty of the fog and the sunset and the sunrise on the water and the moment she realized this was what she wanted to study after leaving high school.

“From that moment on is when I started really appreciating nature and understanding it is very important, and we have to pay attention to it,” she says.

Leaders in the ELP took notice of how Gilbert had grown throughout the program, including Adam Bengen, who describes Gilbert as a great student and a great person who will lift others up when they are down. For her support of her peers and personal growth in the program, Gilbert won ELP Leader of the Year honours, as well as the Duncan Sinclair Award of Determination and Perseverance.

On hearing that she was a recipient of the 2024 WCE scholarship, Gilbert’s family was quick to share the news. “My whole family knew within five minutes!”

“I was really proud of myself,” she says of winning the scholarship. It’s a testament of how far she has come in the program and how much she supported others in her class.

Gilbert is now studying ecosystem management at Fleming College where she hopes to continue helping the environment and learning more about restoration work.