Internships - Northern Forest Canoe Trail

Internships

Internships

2008 Stewardship Internship

Thanks to generous funding from the Quimby Family Foundation and the Horizon Foundation, NFCT is seeking five interns for summer 2008: 3 Stewardship Interns, 1 Program Intern, and 1 Youth Program Intern.

Stewardship Interns will complete trail work along the Northern Forest Canoe Trail, living in a tent, working at times alone and at times with other interns, staff, and volunteers.

The Program Intern will assist NFCT staff with the wide variety of activities that happen in the busy Waitsfield, Vermont office.

The Youth Program Intern will help coordinate and lead NFCT's new Northern Forest Youth Program in Maine.

The internship application process is closed for 2008; check back next winter for 2009 opportunities.

2007 Stewardship Internship

The Vital Statistics:

2 interns, 6 weeks of work

144 signs installed marking portages, access areas, and campsites

500 miles of NFCT maintained, improved, and inventoried (4,000 miles driven)

Highlights:

"Pancakes at night in the rain after working 12 hours on a portage trail and talking to through paddlers."
"Floatplane trips! Meeting through paddlers! Installing killer signs with good posts! Carpentry! Meeting neat people and paddling at sunset."

Great Success

NFCT's first Stewardship Internship was a great success, thanks to our intrepid first interns, Noah Pollock and Jamie McMillan. After a week of training, they headed out on their own. For five weeks, they installed signs, cleared overgrown portages, paddled to remote campsites to do maintenance work, provided logistical and leadership support to volunteer work trips, and got lost at least a couple of times. From all accounts, they had a pretty good time doing it.

We are pleased with their accomplishments and grateful to the Quimby Family Foundation for supporting not only this pilot year of the internship, but extending funding to expand the program in 2008. Jamie and Noah are the first alumni in what we hope will be a rapidly-growing network of waterway stewards who understand the powerful connections between healthy waterways and healthy communities.