“There isn’t another place on earth where this could come together!”
Dr. Scott Olsson, Wyoming Catholic College’s Academic Dean, recently spent a week in the Wyoming backcountry and the glorious Wind River Mountains with students on one of our Fall Break trips. Unlike its sister-trips, however, this one was conducted entirely in Latin. Yes, you heard correctly; not a word of English (nor any other language) was spoken during the week-long adventure. Latin, only!
Upon his return to Lander, Dr. Olsson penned the following reflection on his and his students’ time in the (Latin) wilderness:
The trip was great. So much joy. These students can (and did!) sing for hours, glorious polyphony, from memory. Being surrounded by that, in the dark woods, under a starry night, is something I’ll never forget.
Being a Latin immersion trip, so much of the fun was in our exploring the language together. Students light up when they land a joke in Latin, when they hear or tell a great story, when they finally get a bit of grammar or some vocabulary that had been eluding them.
Our peak attempt was aborted due to awful weather, but it really just made the trip better; the student leaders needed to make real, consequential decisions (as is typical on these trips), sometimes with lengthy conversation and debate, which they did admirably, entirely in Latin. The students were amazing.
Really, there isn’t another place on earth where this could come together.