The Trumbull Creek Educational Forest typically provides a peaceful respite, but last week saw the secluded patch of woods overflowing with the raucous energy of hundreds of fifth graders.

Over the course of five days, about 1,400 students from schools across the Flathead Valley attended the 36th annual Family Forestry Expo. The event is a collaboration of regional government agencies, local lumber mills and conservation nonprofits and features educational activities and interpretive programs on a variety of topics related to forest health and management. 

A few hundred residents also attended a Saturday event near Columbia Falls, which featured similar programming open to the public. 

At the fisheries station, a class of fifth grade students from West Valley School squealed as Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks biologist, Jim Deraleau, hosted a frozen whitefish into the air. 

“It’s disgusting,” cried one student as they tucked their nose into their hoodie. 

“It’s not disgusting,” argued Deraleau, good-naturedly. “It’s just slime.” 

“That’s gross. That is gross,” another student added with an overly dramatic gag. 

Fish weren’t the only hotly contested subject. At the wildlife station, a resident owl caused a stir when it coughed up a pellet packed with fur, bones and other undigestible bits of its latest meal. Another exhibition on responsible recreation taught students how to properly bury human waste, among other things. Students also cycled through stations focused on botany, fire ecology, riparian areas, timber management and more. 

“It’s all about connecting people with the forest here and the natural resources,” said Teresa Wenum, one of the event’s longtime organizers. 

Wenum officially retired from her job as the outdoor education coordinator for Flathead National Forest the week before Family Forestry Expo, but she still put herself on the schedule to work the event. 

“I can’t walk away from Expo,” she exclaimed. “It’s Expo! It’s fun!” 

Walking along the forest trail, Wenum recounted an early experience that ignited her own passion for the outdoors. When Wenum was in middle school, her family attended an interpretive program at Great Sand Dunes National Park. Decades later, she could no longer recall the topic of the program, but the sense of awe the words imbued in her remained as vivid as ever. 

“That just spoke to me,” she said. “Being in the outdoors, learning about the outdoors.” 

After high school, Wenum moved to the mountain town of Leadville. In between classes at Colorado Mountain College, she learned how to backpack, ski and orienteer mountains. She finished her degree in recreation resources management at Colorado State University and spent the next years roving the backcountry as a wilderness ranger.  

While spending time outdoors was a bonus, Wenum said her favorite part of the job was connecting with other people on the trail and “being able to share more about the place they’re at.” When Flathead National Forest posted a hiring notice for a seasonal wilderness educator, Wenum applied. 

Some of her earliest outdoor education lessons involved a sawhorse fitted with a saddle and a wooden block cut to resemble a horse’s head. She christened the fake horse Stella and lugged her from classroom to classroom to teach students about caring for stock in the backcountry.  

“She was my companion,” said Wenum. “She went to all kinds of things since stock is a big part of wilderness.” 

With Stella’s help, Wenum quickly worked her way into a full-time position as the outdoor education coordinator for Flathead National Forest. Along with regular classroom visits, she organized workshops for teachers and ran programs out of the Summit Nature Center. She partnered with Glacier Art Museum to start an artist-in-residence program in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, which is now entering its 20th year. 

In 2012, Wenum received three different awards recognizing her contributions to the field of outdoor education: the Sense of Wonder Award from the Montana Environmental Education Association, the Conservation Achievement award from Flathead Audubon and the Interpreter and Conservation Educator of the Year Award from the Forest Service Northern Region. 

Busy as she was, Wenum never missed a Family Forestry Expo. One year, she even brought her 4-month-old daughter to the event. It was an especially cold year, she recalled, so she bundled the baby in extra layers and propped her up in a hiking backpack while she taught a station on backcountry survival skills. 

Now that she’s retired, Wenum plans to step back from the logistical side of the event, but she said she will probably continue to volunteer from time to time. Beyond the occasional teaching gig, she said she plans to spend her retirement enjoying the public lands she has spent decades teaching others about. 

“Thirty years is a long time,” she said. “A lot of projects, a lot of connections, thousands of kids. It is such a gift to reflect back on that.”  

Hailey Smalley may be reached at 758-4433 or [email protected].