Trudging through thick brush in mid October with a 60-pound canoe on your back for the fifth time in a day after paddling for hours may not sound like your idea of fun, but it was an essential part of the Pursuits experience.

Nothing in my previous experience can compare to the sense of accomplishment after spending a week trekking through Killarney Provincial Park, fighting the elements and our own limitations, literally carrying everything we needed to survive on our backs.

At night, we had to put our carefully rationed food in a canoe and anchor it in the middle of a lake to protect it - and us -  from bears. After bear-proofing, we would sit around a campfire as I told my epic ghost story, which lasted three days and was more funny than scary. By the end of the week, my group had bonded and we came back to class with countless inside jokes, none of which our classmates could begin to understand.

With their upcoming fundraiser on May 8th, I wanted to take this opportunity to share my experience as a Pursuits student and touch on the value of the program.

The course provides a unique learning opportunity, teaching lessons in leadership, fitness and nutrition while encouraging students to "go beyond themselves" by stepping outside of their comfort zone.

Our class was not a tight-knit group of friends going into the program, but rather had to learn each other's personalities and limits very quickly in order to work as a cohesive team, a necessity when you're in the bush.

This was a challenge, but one we rose to gladly. I left Pursuits with 27 strong friends; many of whom were kids I'd never spent any time with before the course.

The dedication of teachers Mike Page and Rich Fletcher to the program is also remarkable. We were very lucky to have two teachers so committed to enriching the lives of their students, constantly presenting us with new academic and physical challenges and providing us with the means to overcome them. It would be very difficult to find a better team than Page and Fletcher to teach a class like this.

The Pursuits slogan is just three words: "Adventure, Leadership, Challenge," and no more are needed. Those three aspects push students to strive to be their best. 

Even now, months after my time in Pursuits came to an end, I continue to find myself reiterating the various "quotes of the day" from the semester or unintentionally seeking out challenge; it's just the lasting effects of one of my greatest high school experiences.