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| Toward a proposal for a national strategy for access to outdoor stays in residen |
| Posted on Tuesday, July 21 @ 00:02:45 PDT (11 reads) | |
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Abstract
background:
research consistently demonstrates that access to nature plays a significant role in supporting health and wellbeing, particularly among older adults and individuals experiencing illness. Research reviews show that treatment interventions in outdoor environments have positive effects on older adults’ health, quality of life, and physical capacity, that socialization and cognitive ability are promoted, and that stress and depression can be reduced. Despite this knowledge, there is currently no national strategy for access to outdoor environments and outdoor stays at residential care facilities for older adults in sweden.
purpose:
the purpose of this paper is to propose a national strategy, along with ideas for implementation, developed through a collaborative workshop process.
methods:
the study comprised three collaborative digital workshops, i.E., Participants worked with the researchers leading the process. The participants were purposefully sampled and included researchers and representatives from relevant authorities and organizations, as well as stakeholders, practitioners, and key players in residential care facilities for older adults. Five researchers oversaw the iterative process, which lasted for one and a half years. Workshop 1 established a shared foundation and generated initial inputs, which informed the development of a draft proposal. This draft was refined through feedback and discussions in workshop 2 and further elaborated in workshop 3 with a focus on implementation strategies. Thus, the research team synthesized the outcomes from all workshops through an iterative process, resulting in the final version of the national strategy proposal.
results:
the results present visions and proposals structured around four policy areas: 1. Outdoor stays; 2. Outdoor care and rehabilitation; 3. The outdoor environment; 4. Knowledge transfer. The results contain detailed descriptions for each of the policy areas, as well as proposals for how to realize the policy areas in a swedish context.
discussion:
we do not know of any country that has developed a similar national strategy, and therefore, in the final part of this paper, we discuss the generalizability of the strategy, as well as how it relates to person-centered care.
1 introduction
people worldwide are living longer than ever before in history, which calls for a new public health approach to population aging ([world health organization [who], 2025](#b77)). Extensive research shows that access to and contact with nature is of great importance for people’s health and wellbeing (; white et al., 2019; world health organization. Regional office for europe, 2016), not least in old age and for those experiencing frailty (; ; white et al., 2019). Despite this knowledge, there is a lack of established strategies to ensure access to and contact with nature for older adults in residential care facilities (rcfs) (; ; ). The present study forms part of the swedish research project out-fit (), and is one of several studies examining how outdoor environments in residential care facilities (rcfs), as a form of urban nature, can promote health and wellbeing among older adults and care staff in their professional practice. Within the out-fit project, outdoor environments are defined to include physical settings such as balconies, patios, conservatories, and gardens, as well as surrounding areas with natural elements, such as public squares, walkways, parks, and other green spaces. Further, outdoor stays refer to general outdoor exposure, without a predefined therapeutic or rehabilitative purpose. Such exposure may include recreational, restorative, or everyday interactions with outdoor or natural environments and is not necessarily structured, supervised, or goal-directed within a healthcare context. In contrast, outdoor care and rehabilitation refer to organized and purpose-driven care and rehabilitation activities in which outdoor settings are intentionally incorporated to support specific health-related or functional outcomes. These practices are typically characterized by therapeutic planning, professional guidance, and explicit rehabilitative objectives, where the outdoor environment could serve as an integrated component of the rehabilitation process rather than solely as the setting in which activities occur.
as part of the project framework, an international overview has been conducted to gain information about how different countries are addressing the issue of older adults’ access to outdoor environments and outdoor activities in rcfs (). The results indicate a variation in the level of awareness, initiatives, and approaches in a selection of european countries, which is confirmed in a study by . The absence of a strategic approach in sweden has, among other things, the consequence that even though care workers and older adults in rcfs see the value of outdoor environments and wish to use them, access is lacking both environmentally and organizationally (). This suggests that the implementation of nature-based approaches currently depends largely on local priorities, individual engagement, and available resources, resulting in unequal access between facilities and municipalities. The lack of national guidelines, long-term funding structures, and coordinated responsibilities may therefore constitute structural barriers to a more systematic and equitable integration of outdoor environments in rcf care practices. The present paper describes the development of a proposal for a swedish strategy and gathers ideas for how to realize the proposal. This introduction presents evidence that both motivates the need for such a strategy and constitutes the evidence base for the proposal. This evidence base is general in nature and not specific to the swedish rcf context.
firstly, the strategy proposal is based on evidence about health benefits from being in natural environments. According to white et al. (2019), spending at least 2 h a week in a natural environment is associated with self-rated good health and wellbeing for people in general. Particularly large health benefits from exposure to natural environments (e.G. Gardens and neighborhood greenness) have been demonstrated for vulnerable groups, such as older adults, persons experiencing stress, the sick, those socioeconomically disadvantaged, or persons going through some form of life crisis (; ; , ; weimann et al., 2015; white et al., 2019). The health effects are evident both through self-assessment and with objective measures (; white et al., 2019; zhang et al., 2017). Connectedness with nature as well as access to green areas seem to be crucial, since both aspects affect the number of outdoor visits per week as well as the number of minutes per week that people spend outside in green areas ().
secondly, the proposed strategy is informed by evidence linking physical activity to health benefits, as the positive impact of access to nature is partly mediated by increased opportunities for movement in varied outdoor environments (; weimann et al., 2017; ). The importance of physical activity for physical, mental, and cognitive health and wellbeing is well documented, e.G., By ; the , and wong et al. (2023). According to the [world health organization [who] (2025)](#b77), all adults, including older people, should engage in some form of heart-rate-increasing physical activity for 150–300 min per week. The international association of gerontology and geriatrics-global aging research network (iagg-garn) has developed concrete recommendations for rcfs, which include movement breaks two to three times a day and varied exercise training for 30–45 min at least twice a week ().
furthermore, natural environments afford neutral places for social interaction and restoration, both of which are important pathways linking nature contact to human health (). Research shows that rcf gardens, both in europe and specifically in sweden, are primarily used for socialization and relaxation (; ).
the strategy proposal is also founded on person-centered practice framework (originally termed person-centered). Today, healthcare facilities internationally are increasingly adopting person-centered care approaches (; ) that respond to the individual’s life story, resources, needs, preferences, and values in a holistic way (; ). For many people, contact with nature is an existential need (), and according to , interest in nature even increases with age. Studies by , ) show that both older adults and care workers in rcfs acknowledge the value of using outdoor environments as arenas for person-centered care and rehabilitation, recognizing their positive impact on health and wellbeing. In line with this, several research reviews show that care and rehabilitation interventions in outdoor environments have positive effects on the health, quality of life, and physical capacity of older adults, that socialization and cognitive abilities are promoted, and that stress and depression can decrease (; ; ; yun et al., 2023). Moreover, studies increasingly demonstrate good results from care and rehabilitation interventions in outdoor environments for older adults living with dementia, such as improved perception of mental health and identity () as well as improved mood and social interaction (). To align with the concept of person-centered care (), just as for interventions indoors, it is important that interventions are selected and led by staff, that they are specifically tailored to each person, and that the outdoor environment has a purposeful design and content.
in addition, contact with nature and outdoor activities have been shown to be significant in workplaces such as hospitals (; ). Research studies indicate that views of greenery can have a positive impact on work capacity, job satisfaction, and creativity (; plambech and konijnendijk van den bosch, 2015), and that opportunities for outdoor activities during breaks contribute to better stress recovery and reduce sick leave among care staff (). Nature-based activities in dementia care also have positive effects on staff retention ().
for the strategy to comprehensively utilize the health-promoting potential of contact with nature, it is also based on the principal model of four zones of contact with the outdoors (). The model points out four zones in the physical environment in which health-promoting contact with the outdoors can take place (see figure 1; ; ). Access to daylight and views through windows (zone 1) offer potential for health and wellbeing and can be significant for promoting outdoor activities on balconies or patios (zone 2), in the garden (zone 3), or in parks and natural areas in the surroundings (zone 4) (). Zone 0 consists of spaces in the building without contact with the outdoor environment, i.E., Windowless spaces. Reviews of the evidence concerning health-promoting contact with the outdoors in each of the four zones are presented in previous publications by and .
figure 1
since posture and mobility affect contact and interaction with the outdoors, the zone model also incorporates a range of physical positions, including lying, sitting, standing, and ambulating independently or with support. Thus, these body positions as well as variations in cognitive function need to be considered. This is particularly relevant in a rcf context, as older adults’ functional capacity and health status vary widely, with many residents experiencing significant physical and cognitive impairments that affect mobility and daily functioning, while others may have less severe limitations that still influence their care needs and opportunities for engagement. Such heterogeneity in functional and cognitive status is well documented among older adults living in care settings, in sweden and internationally (). Within the swedish welfare context, rcf constitute a needs-assessed form of municipally provided residential care. These facilities are intended for older adults with extensive care needs and offer 24-h access to care staff ().
overall, the research presented above emphasizes the need to establish strategies for access to and contact with nature for older adults in rcfs and demonstrates that a good interplay between indoor and outdoor environments, according to the zones in figure 1, is significant for older adults’ and care workers’ health and wellbeing in rcfs. As rcfs struggle with limitations in time and personnel resources (; ), it seems crucial to develop effective and health-promoting methods in these settings where the outdoor environment is integrated as a natural part of the daily environment of the older adults as well as in the work environment of the staff. There is therefore reason to conclude that in such improvement efforts, guidelines for physical and social activity can be combined with evidence of the health-promoting effects of the outdoor environment to create added value.
based on this research, the aim of this study is to develop a proposal for a national strategy for access to outdoor environments and outdoor stays in rcfs for older adults in sweden and to gather ideas on how the proposal can be implemented. The proposal itself is directed toward politicians and decision-makers and is intended to serve as a foundation for recommendations and guidelines for access to outdoor environments and outdoor activities for older adults living in rcfs in sweden. The strategy proposal, along with the working process that led to its development and the ideas for implementation, aims to serve as inspiration for countries that lack such strategies.
2 materials and methods
the research approach used to develop the strategy proposal for access to outdoor environments and outdoor stays in rcfs was grounded in an overarching qualitative methodology. It draws on research through designing () and participatory action research (par) () to enable an iterative and context-sensitive exploration of how physical environments support health and wellbeing, everyday practices, and care routines. These approaches are inherently compatible with collaborative workshop methods (see ; , for descriptions of these methods), which facilitate their participatory and iterative qualities. Further, the collaborative workshop method was chosen to, as described by , enhance meaning negotiation and to identify factors that are not obvious to either participants or researchers beforehand. Moreover, this method is particularly well suited to studies that aim to foster cooperation and co-creation among multiple stakeholders (), as was the case in this study.
given the ambition to develop a novel strategy at the national level, engaging a diverse range of stakeholders with varying perspectives and geographical conditions, a flexible mode of collaboration was required. An online format enables participants to engage in a shared space and cultivate a community of practice regardless of physical location (). The process was therefore conducted digitally.
2.1 participants
the participants were purposefully sampled to include a wide range of stakeholders relevant to developing a national strategy in the domain of rcfs for older adults. The multi-level model for building capacity for a national quality strategy (; ) was used to identify participants at all crucial levels, from the individual level to the national level (see figure 2). More than a hundred people were invited to each workshop several months in advance, and reminders were sent out two weeks, and again two or three days, before the workshops took place.
figure 2
representatives from each level described in figure 2 participated in each workshop (see table 1). In addition, many participants represented more than one, or even several levels. For example, most participants had either worked in rcfs and/or had family or friends living in rcfs. However, in table 1, each participant is only included once.
table 1
| level: | national level | regional/local level | institutional level | individual level |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| level description from original sources: | persons working with policy formulation, resourcing, infrastructure, and accountability to the public | persons working with the translation of national policy into the local context, macro-management, and monitoring | persons working with governance, operational management, and quality improvement | the level of encounter between patients and health professionals |
| participants representing each level at each workshop in the present study: | politicians, representatives from national authorities, researchers, and academics | employees at regional or municipal strategic units | employees with strategic work tasks related to one or more rcf | care workers with work tasks at one or more rcf, family and friends of older adults in rcfs |
| number of participants representing each level at workshop 1: | 23 | 7 | 6 | 6 |
| number of participants representing each level at workshop 2: | 11 | 5 | 3 | 5 |
| number of participants representing each level at workshop 3: | 8 | 3 | 2 | 5 |
participants in the three workshops, according to the multi-level model for building capacity for a national quality strategy, developed by and .
the purposive sampling approach ensured the inclusion of stakeholders with relevant expertise and experience, contributing to a diverse and contextually grounded material. Furthermore, the iterative and participatory nature of the workshop process, aligned with the research through designing approach (), strengthened the study by enabling continuous dialogue, reflection, and the integration of multiple perspectives throughout the research process.
2.2 collaborative workshop process
in a collaborative workshop process, researchers and participants work together, with the researchers leading the process (). In this study, a research team of five researchers oversaw the collaborative workshop process, which lasted for one and a half years, from september 2023 to february 2025, and consisted of three workshops. The interdisciplinary research team comprised experts from the disciplines of healthcare science, environmental psychology, architecture, and landscape architecture.
the combination of perspectives from different fields aimed to broaden the analytical lens and to reduce the risk of single-discipline bias in both the facilitation and interpretation of the work. Two researchers (i.E., Authors 1 and 2) planned, moderated, and documented the three workshops, and regular check-ins took place with the entire research team. The workshop process thus used a conceptual format with pre-designed phases in a series of workshops, aiming to generate progression over time (; ). The involvement of researchers with diverse disciplinary backgrounds further supported critical reflection throughout the process, including in the design, moderation, and documentation of the workshops, as well as in the subsequent analysis. The process was set up following the main steps illustrated in figure 3 and as described in the following sub-sections.
figure 3
2.2.1 workshop 1: creating a common basis for the strategy proposal
the intention of the first workshop was to create a common basis for the strategy work. Therefore, participants in the workshop representing academia (i.E., From environmental psychology, architecture, landscape architecture and healthcare research), authorities (the national board of health and welfare and the national board of housing and building), lived experience (the dementia association), practice (healthcare and rehabilitation professionals), law and politics (a legal expert and a member of the swedish parliament) gave presentations relating to the overall theme, outdoor environments and outdoor stays in rcfs for older adults and to the following five sub-themes:
sub-theme 1: outdoor stays in rcfs for older adults.
sub-theme 2: outdoor care and rehabilitation in rcfs for older adults.
sub-theme 3: the outdoor environment in rcfs for older adults.
sub-theme 4: knowledge transfer to care workers and managers in rcfs for older adults.
sub-theme 5: law and politics: the legal conditions and political processes.
during the workshop, the participants were asked to use the chat function for reflections on the overall theme of the workshop and on the five sub-themes that the interdisciplinary research group had developed for the workshop. The reflection prompts were:
overall theme: why and in what ways are outdoor environments and outdoor stays in rcfs important?
sub-theme 1: reflect on how to define outdoor stays, and on the possibility of arranging outdoor stays in rcfs for older adults.
sub-theme 2: reflect on how to define outdoor rehabilitation, and on the possibility of outdoor rehabilitation in rcfs for older adults.
sub-theme 3: reflect on and give suggestions concerning outdoor environments and access to outdoor environments in rcfs for older adults.
sub-theme 4: reflect on and give suggestions concerning knowledge transfer to care workers and managers in rcfs.
sub-theme 5: reflect on how to ensure access to outdoor environments, outdoor stays, and outdoor rehabilitation in rcfs.
the workshop outputs were documented through saved presentations, chat notes and written reflections by the research team, compiled immediately after the session. In addition, supplementary reflections were collected via email between workshops and included in the dataset. These materials formed the basis for a qualitative, descriptive thematic synthesis conducted by the researchers.
the material was first organized according to the predefined sub-themes (1–4) and subsequently discussed iteratively within the interdisciplinary research team. Through repeated comparative discussions across the documentation sources, preliminary interpretations were developed and refined into an initial draft proposal for a national strategy.
consensus was achieved through iterative group discussion and triangulation of interpretations within the research team rather than through formal voting procedures. Divergent interpretations were discussed until convergence was reached, and in cases where full agreement was not initially achieved, formulations were revised and re-evaluated collectively until consensus was obtained.
no formal qualitative coding software was used; however, the analysis followed a structured and systematic thematic approach, moving from documentation to interpretation and synthesis. This process also led to a refinement of the thematic structure, including the integration of the original overarching theme and sub-theme 5 into the other sub-themes, resulting in four consolidated policy areas.
the initial proposal included visions and suggestions for each policy area and was sent out to all participants for review before workshop 2.
2.2.2 workshop 2: developing the strategy proposal
the intention of the second workshop was to further develop the strategy proposal. Therefore, each of the four policy areas was presented and reflected upon by one expert (see table 2).
table 2
| policy area | outdoor stays in rcfs for older adults | outdoor care and rehabilitation in rcfs for older adults | the outdoor environment in rcfs for older adults | knowledge transfer to care workers and managers in rcfs for older adults |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| expert reflecting | a development secretary from a municipality in which a strategy for outdoor stays in rcfs has been developed | a dementia nurse from a municipality that works strategically to individually tailor walks for older adults with dementia | a planning leader in a municipality in which guidelines for governing key figures for garden areas in rcfs have been developed | a lecturer in healthcare research at a swedish university |
experts reflecting on each policy area in workshop 2.
after each of the four presentations, participants were divided into five groups, with five people in each group. Each group was assigned a breakout room and an online whiteboard. The vision and proposals for each policy area, as well as prepared templates to work in, were pre-posted on the whiteboards, and all groups were asked to comment on the content, wording, and relevance of all four policy areas in four different sessions.
based on the documentation from the second workshop, the research group iteratively refined the draft proposal through systematic comparison of participant input and the existing thematic structure, leading to further consolidation and revision of the proposed strategy areas. Throughout this process, interpretations and revisions were discussed iteratively within the research team until consensus was achieved. The final strategy proposal is presented in the results sections 3.1–3.4 and was sent out to all participants before workshop 3.
2.2.3 workshop 3: gathering ideas for implementation of the strategy proposal
the third workshop aimed at gathering ideas for the implementation of the strategy proposal. Therefore, relevant authorities were identified for each policy area, and representatives were asked to prepare presentations in which they reflected on the proposal from the perspective of the authority they represented, and considered what steps and measures would be needed for its realization (see table 3). After that, several presentations followed, with examples of strategic work in relation to outdoor stays, activities, and environments in rcfs.
table 3
| policy areas | outdoor stays in rcfs for older adults | outdoor care and rehabilitation in rcfs for older adults | the outdoor environment in rcfs for older adults | knowledge transfer to care workers and managers in rcfs for older adults |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| authority | the institute for human rights | the national board of health and welfare | the national board of housing, building, and planning | the national board of health and welfare |
overview of policy areas and authorities, with representatives presenting and reflecting on the proposal from the perspective of the authority they represented.
the last part of the workshop was devoted to group work. The moderating researchers divided the participants into four groups, with one group leader in each group. Each group was assigned to one of the policy areas 1–4. The groups were then given a template (see table 4) with the vision and proposal for their policy area and were asked to identify what was needed for implementation to take place and how it could be achieved.
table 4
| national strategy for access to outdoor environments and outdoor stays for older adults in residential care facilities in sweden vision: policy area: | 1 date: | |
|---|---|---|
| 2 name of the person taking notes during the group discussion: 3 (save a copy of the document and share during presentations in the main meeting room) | ||
| how can the proposal be implemented? | ||
| what actions need to be done? | When will this take place? | Who is expected to take the initiative? (Including: what role can i play?) |
template for group work to compile ideas for implementation of the strategy proposal.
the groups began working on their respective policy areas during the group work session and then presented their ideas and received feedback from the larger workshop group. After the workshop, each group had 2 months to complete the compilation of ideas in a document. All documents were sent to the research team before the deadline.
a qualitative content analysis was conducted in line with since this method of analysis offers a structured yet flexible way to analyze qualitative data tailored to the research goals. The method combines concept-driven and data-driven analysis through the eight steps described in table 5.
table 5
| 1. Define research question | 2. Select material | 3. Build coding frame | 4. Define coding units | 5. Test the coding frame | 6. Evaluate coding frame | 7. Conduct main analysis | 8. Interpret and report results |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| two research questions were defined: what is needed for implementation to take place? How can this be done? (According to the groups) | the texts produced by the groups at the end of the assignment period were selected | a concept-driven and data-driven coding frame was developed | the coding was tailored to the data and the goal of the study | the coding frame was tried out on parts of the data and then revised | the reliability and validity of the coding frame were carefully considered | the final version of the coding frame was applied to the entire data set | the findings were presented in the results and reflected upon during the discussion |
description of eight steps to analyze data from the group work, in line with schreier (2012).
authors 1 and 2 conducted the initial analysis, after which the results were reconsolidated and further refined through an iterative process of discussion and critical reflection within the interdisciplinary research team, ensuring both that participant input and diverse disciplinary perspectives were incorporated. The results in section 3.5 thus present themes of statements expressing what needs to be done for the strategy to be realized, and (if relevant) who should do it.
the final results reflect an iterative and collaborative process in which research-based knowledge and stakeholder contributions were systematically integrated through repeated cycles of discussion, comparison, and refinement. The outputs should be understood as collectively generated results from a structured co-creation process, rather than as empirically tested or validated findings. Accordingly, they represent a synthesized proposal informed by both scientific evidence and stakeholder perspectives.
2.3 ethics
ethical approval was not required for this study, as it did not involve the collection of personal or sensitive data. Participation in the online workshops was voluntary, and no personal data are reported in the results.
3 results
the results are presented in two parts. First, the visions and proposals for a national strategy based on a structure of four policy areas are presented. Then, ideas for how to implement the strategy proposal are presented in four themes.
3.1 policy area 1: outdoor stays at residential care facilities for older adults
vision: spending time outdoors is a natural part of everyday life in rcfs. Since many older adults cannot enter or exit buildings on their own or initiate outdoor activities themselves, providing daily outdoor time for residents who wish to participate is included in the care work. The care workers and older adults are well acquainted with the outdoor environment of their residence and the activities that are available there.
proposal: the government should initiate support for the implementation of outdoor stay strategies across all rcfs in sweden. The strategy should include the following principles regarding outdoor stays:
all older adults living in rcfs should be able to use each of the four zones as often as they wish, as independently as possible.
individual needs and preferences regarding outdoor activities should be essential considerations in the implementation plan.
knowledge about the importance of outdoor environments, outdoor stays, and outdoor care and rehabilitation should be linked to the rcf’s core values and included in ongoing work (team meetings, workshops, etc.), So that all care workers are involved and can contribute with their personal knowledge and experiences.
each rcf should establish a routine for scheduling and planning outdoor activities throughout the year.
everyone living at an rcf should be offered outdoor time for at least 2 h per week (either continuous or on different occasions), preferably in combination with meals, social activities, or physical activities.
3.2 policy area 2: outdoor care and rehabilitation at residential care facilities for older adults
vision: outdoor-based care and rehabilitation permeate the work and are carried out by all care workers. It is just as natural to utilize the outdoor environment as the indoor environment for activities and interventions in rcfs.
proposal: the government should initiate support for the implementation of outdoor stay strategies across all rcfs in sweden. The strategy should encompass the following principles regarding outdoor care and rehabilitation:
routines for outdoor care and rehabilitation should be developed and implemented.
care and rehabilitation interventions should be integrated into the outdoor environment, as well as indoor settings, when preferred by the older adult, throughout the year.
outdoor interventions should be considered in relation to each person’s current health condition, unique resources, needs, and wishes.
outdoor interventions should be developed and carried out in collaboration between the older adults themselves, their significant others, as well as all relevant professionals.
all planned outdoor interventions should be documented in the older adults’ existing plans, such as care, rehabilitation, support and/or implementation plans, which are regularly followed up.
3.3 policy area 3: the outdoor environment at residential care facilities for older adults
vision: the outdoor environment is a natural part of the living environment and daily life in rcfs. All zones (see figure 1) are represented and are sufficiently spacious to accommodate the variety of functions required by the older adults living there, their family and friends who visit, and the care workforce.
proposal a: the national board of housing, building, and planning should issue general guidelines on open space and property layouts for rcf plots to support a range of activities. This is in addition to the swedish planning and building act (2010:900 chapter 8, section 9) (swedish parliament, 2010), which already states that there should be sufficiently large open spaces suitable for outdoor use on plots intended for housing. It is proposed that the rcf-specific general guidelines should address the following bullet points:
zones 1–4 should be represented and available for everyone living at rcf, in line with the clarification of the upcoming points.
zones 1–3: the interaction between the zones should be considered so that zones 2 and 3 are clearly visible and accessible from the indoor environment used daily by the older adults and the care workers.
zones 2–3: there should be recreational areas available in both zones 2 and 3 for all residents, in all departments of the rcf. These areas should be sized for the number of people who may be present there at the same time. The sizing should also ensure that older adults in need of assistive devices and/or personal support have sufficient space to move around smoothly and enjoy a comfortable stay in the area.
zones 1–4: it should be possible to move between and stay in all zones as comfortably, safely, securely, and independently as possible, throughout the year, regardless of the weather and regardless of the need for assistance and aids.
zones 1–4: the environment should offer a range of opportunities for experiences of nature and the possibility for care, support, and rehabilitation in zones 1–4.
zones 1–4: when establishing and renovating rcfs, opportunities for experiences of nature in all four zones should be considered from the start of the project (i.E., Before procurement).
zone 4: special consideration should be given to enabling interaction with other target groups in the community and the possibility for shared use of public environments in the surroundings.
proposal b: the government takes the initiative to support the implementation of outdoor stay strategies across all rcfs in sweden. The strategy should include the following principles regarding the maintenance and management of the outdoor environment:
zones 1–3: each rcf should have a routine for managing and developing the outdoor environment as an arena for outdoor activities, including prevention, care, and rehabilitation interventions.
zones 1–3: the routine should be developed in collaboration between the property managers and the rcf operation.
3.4 policy area 4: knowledge transfer to care workers and managers in rcfs for older adults
vision: all individuals working in rcfs, including those responsible for managing and maintaining the environments, as well as managers and decision-makers, possess the knowledge and skills needed to recognize and utilize the outdoor environment as a resource for health and wellbeing. A person-centered approach permeates the entire operation, and outdoor activities are an integrated part of daily life, the work environment, and the living environment.
proposal:
the government should take the initiative to support the transfer of knowledge about the importance of health-promoting outdoor environments, outdoor activities, and outdoor-based care work in the national board of health and welfare’s knowledge guide aimed at care workers in care for older adults.
the government should take the initiative to support the transfer of basic educational components concerning the importance of health-promoting outdoor environments, outdoor activities, and outdoor-based care work in all upper secondary education programs, vocational training, and education at universities and colleges that train care workers intended to work in areas such as care for older adults.
3.5 ideas for implementation
the group work concerning the implementation of the strategy proposal resulted in four themes. The first theme, overall prerequisites for implementation, is general and relates to the entire strategy proposal. The following three themes are more specific and are entitled: collaboration between municipalities and civil society, knowledge dissemination, and education.
3.5.1 overall prerequisites for implementation
each of the four policy areas must be addressed through political processes. Relevant parliamentary committees for each strategy area should review and decide on their respective parts of the proposal. In addition, certain national authorities must be empowered by the government to take on specific responsibilities, as follows:
the national board of health and welfare must ensure that older adults living in rcfs are offered time outdoors daily, both in the form of recreation and relaxation and in the form of care and rehabilitation. Preferences for outdoor engagement should be systematically documented in existing plans.
the national board of housing, building, and planning must ensure the establishment of principles for usable open spaces related to the outdoor environment in rcfs for older adults.
furthermore, the government must ensure that municipalities are given ownership responsibility for:
ensuring access to zones 1–4 according to the zone model.
political anchoring of key figures for usable open spaces in the outdoor environment.
including the outdoor environment in the local functional program (i.E., Support in governance and specifying requirements).
3.5.2 collaboration between municipalities and civil society
collaboration between the municipality and civil society (e.G., Involving volunteers, family, and friends) needs to be strengthened to contribute to increased knowledge and volunteer activities. The municipalities should involve family organizations and encourage engagement and provide training for volunteers who wish and are able to facilitate outdoor activities in rcfs.
3.5.3 knowledge dissemination
there is a need for a freely accessible platform for the healthcare sector and the landscape sector where research and good examples from practice are presented, for example, via authorities’ websites. Furthermore, popular science reports are needed on preferred qualities in outdoor environments, on spending time outdoors, and on outdoor-based care and rehabilitation in rcfs. These reports should be aimed at decision-makers and politicians.
3.5.4 education
people engaged in the development of the present strategy proposal who are already working with secondary education, vocational education, and teaching at universities and colleges that train people who intend to work in areas such as care for older adults should raise the issue internally and with the ministry of education, and in their various professional associations. The professional associations should then, in turn, should raise the issue with politicians.
furthermore, the government should assign the national board of health and welfare and the national board of housing, building, and planning to develop training packages related to the national strategy. The training packages should be aimed at national, regional, and local decision-makers, politicians, and managers, as well as practitioners from both the healthcare and landscape sectors.
4 discussion
in this study, we developed a proposal for a national strategy to support access to outdoor stays in residential care facilities for older adults, drawing on evidence from research on health-promoting outdoor environments and collaboration with a range of stakeholders. While the language used in the strategy may at times appear directive, its content should be understood as collectively generated through a co-creation process. The strategy has not yet been empirically tested or evaluated in practice and should therefore be regarded as a practice-informed proposal grounded in stakeholder dialogue and existing evidence.
this discussion opens by presenting a rationale for the strategy and then outlines the potential consequences of a lack of guidelines. The discussion primarily highlights the parts of this study that can be anchored in international research on person-centered care, on nature and health, as well as on strategy development work, and thus aims to demonstrate the generalizability of the results in an international context.
4.1 a national strategy—a path toward health equity and sustainability
outdoor environments play a vital role in supporting the physical, psychological, and social wellbeing of older adults (; xu et al., 2022). In line with this, an increasing number of countries around the world are working with outdoor activities to promote the health and wellbeing of older people (; ; ). However, despite the growing evidence of benefits, outdoor access in rcfs is often limited, sporadic, and dependent on individual staff initiative or facility design. In the absence of national strategies, a policy vacuum has emerged around outdoor access in rcfs. This vacuum has resulted in inconsistent practices, where residents’ opportunities for outdoor engagement depend largely on individual care workers’ priorities, organizational factors, or physical infrastructure (; ), rather than on a shared standard of care. The inconsistency in care provision can mean a systemic neglect of nature as a determinant for wellbeing and ultimately, can exacerbate health inequities among older people living in rcfs.
although older adults wish to spend time outdoors (; ) and despite the fact that both residents and care workers in rcfs recognize the positive effect on health and wellbeing of spending time outdoors (; ,), many residents in need of assistance seldom get outside (). Reinforcing a care model focused on physical maintenance rather than holistic wellbeing means that the health-promoting potential of nature goes untapped. This can contribute to increased sedentary behavior (), perceived loneliness (), and mental distress (wang et al., 2024) among older adults in rcfs. Hence, national standards are crucial to prevent disparities among rcf residents and promote equitable and dignified aging, as well as high-quality of care for older adults. Moreover, the benefits of a national strategy extend beyond residents’ health. Care workers in rcfs often work under significant stress and time constraints (; ; väisänen et al., 2024). For them, structured outdoor work can provide restorative experiences that ease emotional strain and enhance the meaningfulness of care work, leading to improved staff wellbeing, reduced burnout, and increased job satisfaction. This, in turn, can lead to better staff retention (), which is crucial to maintain a high quality of care in rcfs. Thus, a national strategy for access to outdoor environments and stays in rcfs is proposed as a way to promote conditions that may support both residents’ and care workers’ health, contributing to social, biological, and economic sustainability. Integrating outdoor access into rcfs reflects an approach to care that is inclusive, rights-based, and oriented toward both individual and collective health and wellbeing ([world health organization [who], 2024](#b76)).
4.2 results with novel perspectives on person-centered care and contact with the outdoors
a strength of the strategy developed in this study is that its four policy areas comprehensively address the outdoor environment and outdoor activities as integrated aspects of everyday life in rcfs, and that it highlights the outdoor environment as a resource for the care and rehabilitation that the care workers provide. The significance of the outdoor environment and activities is multifaceted. On the one hand, it concerns health and wellbeing, while on the other hand, it concerns the possibility of person-centered care. Therefore, education for individuals who work or are being trained to work at or in connection with rcfs is a necessary part of the strategy.
this study clearly indicated that if care workers are to provide person-centered care, the outdoor environment must be an integral part of the care environment from the start. Therefore, to optimally promote opportunities for contact and relationships with the outdoor environment, the zone model of permeates the strategy throughout. The use of the zone model is particularly motivated by the target group of older adults in rcfs because they represent a group that particularly benefits from outdoor activities (, ; ; ), but also because they are very sensitive to the design of the environment (; ). Therefore, it is extremely important that the connection between indoors and outdoors is well thought out, so that older adults feel at home and understand how they can move between zones, making the entire environment a natural resource for them. When the outdoor environment in all zones is a natural part of the living environment and the care environment, truly person-centered care can be achieved. A well-considered interaction between the zones means, for example, that zones 2 and 3 are clearly visible from zone 1, i.E., In the environments where older adults spend most of their time indoors, which is confirmed by studies (e.G., ; Van den berg et al., 2020).
4.3 in collaboration toward a national strategy
although this study focuses on older adults in residential care facilities (rcfs) and adopts a person-centered approach, older adults themselves were not directly included in the digital workshops, primarily due to practical and ethical considerations related to digital accessibility, consent procedures, and the organizational context of the participating facilities. However, their perspectives were systematically incorporated through the participation of care staff and family members, who contributed insights grounded in their close, day-to-day knowledge of older adults’ preferences, needs, and lived experiences. In addition, the strategy development was informed by existing empirical studies and background literature, including research on older adults’ experiences of care and outdoor environments.
this highlights the importance of co-creation as a collaborative process in which research-based knowledge, practice-based expertise, and indirectly represented perspectives of older adults are jointly integrated. In this study, such co-creation involved close collaboration between researchers and practitioners, such as care workers and those involved in the planning and development of rcf operations and the physical environments of rcfs, enabling research evidence and experiential knowledge to be translated into a detailed and practically relevant strategy proposal. The study did not include a formal assessment of sample adequacy, information power, or saturation, nor a systematic analysis of representativeness across stakeholder groups, which can be considered a limitation. However, the purposive sampling approach ensured the inclusion of stakeholders with relevant expertise and experience, contributing to a diverse and contextually grounded material. Furthermore, the iterative and participatory nature of the workshop process strengthened the study by enabling continuous dialogue, reflection, and the integration of multiple perspectives throughout the research process.
therefore, although the number of participants decreased with the increasing demands of the work (see table 1), in our opinion, the outcome resulted in a well-supported proposal with a satisfactory level of concretization for a national strategy. This was made possible, partly thanks to the approach of starting the workshop series, with the creation of common ground in such a way that participants at all levels, as determined by the multi-level model of , were given a voice. Furthermore, just as experienced in a research project by , the iterative workshop process enabled articulation of a knowledge base and led to detailed and well-thought-out proposals and ideas. In addition, having two moderators working together in conducting the workshops, both with extensive experience of working with similar processes and contexts, was an advantage. To ensure equal participation and focus, they provided structured agendas with discussion prompts and prepared digital whiteboard templates. The digital format offered convenience by lowering thresholds for participation, such as traveling and scheduling constraints, and allowed individuals from different geographic locations and with different abilities to contribute. On the other hand, it may have hindered spontaneous dialog and the informal exchanges that often arise in physical meetings. To overcome technical barriers and problems with digital literacy, all participants were encouraged to e-mail additional thoughts and input in the intervals between the workshops.
possibly, a setup with a shorter period for conducting the workshop series, which extended over one and a half years, would have been beneficial for maintaining engagement and reducing the number of participant dropouts in this study, which is in line with the guidelines for workshop processes described by . However, in this study, the working conditions of the researchers made a shorter period for conducting all three workshops impossible. Another potential drawback of the study lies in the composition of the participant group. Even though cross-sectoral representation was sought, there was a risk that certain voices were underrepresented. For instance, patient associations, as well as pensioners’ and carers’ organizations, were invited to participate, since their voices are particularly important to shed light on the lived experience. However, only very few individuals from these groups attended. Low digital competence may hinder the ability or willingness to engage with a digital format. On the other hand, many groups appreciate the inclusiveness that online workshops offer. One way to increase impact and democratic anchoring would be to have a formal consultation on the strategy proposal with these groups. Other voices that we sought to collect were those of the public health agency of sweden and the swedish association of local authorities and regions. They were invited to take part in the workshop series but declined as there was no formal government mandate at the time. Their perspectives would have been valuable in lending additional weight and relevance to the proposal. Nevertheless, four other authorities (the national board of health and welfare, the swedish national board of housing, building, and planning, the swedish institute for human rights, and the swedish agency for participation) participated in the study and provided valuable contributions, which is a strength of the proposal.
4.4 the importance of government support
as noted above, a mandate from the country’s government would have enabled and supported legitimacy, impact, and cross-sector coordination in the implementation of the strategy. A clear government mandate for strategy development ensures political anchoring, resources, and a structured implementation, which is ultimately crucial for the success of the strategy (; ). Hence, it is a weakness that the strategy proposal was developed based on a research project and not at the request of the government. However, to obtain research funding today, a detailed plan for the implementation of the results is often required, and, in this case, it was such an incentive that led to the development of the strategy proposal. Nevertheless, political representatives from the swedish parliament have followed the workshop series with great interest and welcome the proposal as a basis for future decisions. Translating proposals into governmental or parliamentary decision-making typically involves extensive preparatory processes. The present study may offer a contribution to such a process by providing a co-created and evidence-informed strategy proposal grounded in stakeholder perspectives and existing knowledge. Thus, it is hoped that the national strategy proposed in this study may help inform and garner support from the swedish government for future policy development.
4.5 practical applicability of the strategy proposal
in sweden, implementation of the national strategy for outdoor access and outdoor stays could be linked to existing quality assurance and monitoring systems. At a national level, opportunities for outdoor access are already partly reflected in the national board of health and welfare’s (socialstyrelsen) annual user and rcf-unit surveys, which are answered by residents and unit managers. For instance, statistics from 2024 indicate considerable potential for improvement as 92% of the care providers lack routines for outdoor activities and 80% lack supportive conditions for movement to and within outdoor environments (). By recognizing outdoor access and outdoor stays as a quality dimension of residential care, such existing indicators could provide a basis for systematic municipal follow-up and contribute to ongoing quality improvement efforts. Where relevant, indicators could also inform supervisory processes conducted by the swedish health and social care inspectorate (ivo). In the absence of stronger national governance, responsibility for implementation will largely rest with local leadership in sweden’s 290 municipalities, making municipal prioritization and organizational commitment key factors for successful implementation.
4.6 study limitations
the study’s limitations have been discussed throughout the discussion section but are summarized here to provide a coherent overview.
the strategy proposal is informed by stakeholder dialogue and existing evidence and has not been empirically tested or evaluated in practice.
while cross-sectoral representation was pursued, certain groups, including rcf residents and organizations representing pensioners and carers, were underrepresented in the workshops, and some institutional actors could not participate due to a lack of formal government mandate at the time.
the absence of a clear government mandate represented a key limitation. As the strategy proposal was developed within a research project rather than initiated by the government, it lacked some of the political legitimacy, resources, and coordination needed for structured implementation, potentially limiting its future impact.
5 conclusion
while this proposal was developed within the specific context of sweden, its foundational principles and collaborative development approach offer potential applicability also in other national settings. The emphasis on cross-sectoral participation, digital co-creation, and person-centered values aligns with global trends in promoting healthy aging and combating ageism ([world health organization [who], 2024](#b76)). However, transferability requires careful consideration of contextual differences such as variations in healthcare systems, cultural norms, policies, and regulations. Even so, the proposal may serve as a conceptual point of departure for international adaptation and knowledge exchange, as the flexible and collaborative development approach allows for tailoring to diverse contexts. National adaptations should therefore involve local stakeholder engagement and be attentive to cultural and structural factors to support relevance and context-sensitive application.
statements
data availability statement
the raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.
ethics statement
ethical review and approval was not required for the study on human participants in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. Written informed consent from the patients/participants or patients/participants legal guardian/next of kin was not required to participate in this study in accordance with the national legislation and the institutional requirements.
author contributions
ab: conceptualization data curation, formal analysis, funding acquisition, methodology, validation, visualization, writing – original draft, writing – review & editing, investigation, resources, software, supervision. Hl: conceptualization data curation, formal analysis, methodology, project administration, validation, writing – original draft, writing – review & editing, funding acquisition, investigation, software, supervision, visualization. Ml: funding acquisition, methodology, validation, writing – review & editing, conceptualization, project administration, resources. Gl: funding acquisition, methodology, writing – review & editing, conceptualization, project administration, resources, validation. Sn: writing – review & editing, conceptualization, methodology, project administration, resources, validation. Hw: funding acquisition, methodology, project administration, validation, writing – review & editing, conceptualization, investigation, software, resources, supervision.
funding
the author(s) declared that financial support was received for this work and/or its publication. This research was supported by forte, 2021-00212, formas 2015-111 and slu’s environmental monitoring and assessment program, ‘built environment’.
acknowledgments
we would like to thank all the presenters and all the participants in the workshops for so generously sharing their thoughts and experiences with us.
conflict of interest
the author(s) declared that this work was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
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the author(s) declared that generative ai was not used in the creation of this manuscript.
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weimannh.Rylanderl.Albinm.Skärbäcke.Grahnp.ÖStergrenp. O.Et al. (2015). Effects of changing exposure to neighbourhood greenness on general and mental health: a longitudinal study.Health place3348–56. 10.1016/j.Healthplace.2015.02.003
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weimannh.Rylanderl.Van den boschm. A.Albinm.Skärbäcke.Grahnp.Et al. (2017). Perception of safety is a prerequisite for the association between neighbourhood green qualities and physical activity: results from a cross-sectional study in sweden.Health place45124–130. 10.1016/j.Healthplace.2017.03.011
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whitem. P.Alcocki.Grellierj.Wheelerb. W.Hartigt.Warbers. L.Et al. (2019). Spending at least 120 minutes a week in nature is associated with good health and wellbeing.Sci. Rep.9:7730. 10.1038/s41598-019-44097-3
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summary
keywords
collaborative workshop, long-term care, nursing home, older adults, outdoor environment, outdoor access, residential care facility, strategy proposal
citation
bengtsson a, landin h, liljegren m, lindahl g, nordin s and wijk h (2026) toward a proposal for a national strategy for access to outdoor stays in residential care facilities for older adults in sweden. Front. Psychol. 17:1651502. Doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1651502
received
21 june 2025
revised
23 june 2026
accepted
30 june 2026
published
21 july 2026
volume
17 - 2026
edited by
guangyu wang, university of british columbia, canada
reviewed by
yijun chen, cardiff university, united kingdom
maria sjölund, umeå university, sweden
haoyue yang, michigan state university, united states
updates
copyright
© 2026 bengtsson, landin, liljegren, lindahl, nordin and wijk.
this is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (cc by). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*correspondence: anna bengtsson, anna.Bengtsson@slu.Se
disclaimer
all claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher. |
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| How Nigerias classrooms remain targets for kidnappers |
| Posted on Tuesday, July 21 @ 00:02:45 PDT (9 reads) | |
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On 29 june 2026, suspected members of the boko haram/islamic state west africa province (iswap) group, a terrorist organisation responsible for widespread killings and kidnappings, mainly in northern nigeria, attacked a government school in lassa, askira/uba local government area of borno state.
this attack led to the kidnapping of 36 students sitting for the national examination council (neco) exam, one of nigeria’s secondary school leaving exams, alongside some teachers in the school.
during the attack, one teacher and a soldier were killed on the spot. Although the nigerian security forces have rescued some persons, others remain captive in the hands of the terrorist group.
these attacks happened while students were sitting for one of the most important secondary school leaving exams in nigeria. What should have been a stepping stone to a higher education degree was marred by violence, as students were whisked away into an unknown place in the name of terrorism.
this has raised questions about the vulnerability of students in conflict-prone environments. Despite years-long government commitment to addressing the problem, successive administrations have come and gone, yet consistent attacks on schools continue.
as nigeria continues to face a worsening security crisis, the classroom, which was expected to be a place where children learn and interact peacefully, is becoming a prime target for terrorist attacks and kidnapping.
according to a 2023 report by save the child initiative, an international non-governmental organization that champions children’s rights, more than 1,680 schoolchildren have been kidnapped in nigeria since the 2014 chibok abduction in borno state.
another report by global coalition to protect education from attack (gcpea) on school attacks across the globe found that between 2024 and 2025, over 700 students and education staff were kidnapped. This data ranked nigeria among the countries with the highest numbers of students and staff killed or injured in school attacks.
beyond the numbers, the reality remains that the classroom in nigeria is becoming a serious target for the kidnapping business. Classrooms that bring joy to the faces of children and parents are becoming places of uncertainty and fear, as parents live in fear when their children are in school.
however, the borno incident is not an isolated case. It is the latest in a broader pattern of school abductions that has persisted across nigeria over the years.
evolution of school attacks
the borno student attacks are among the most recent series of abductions in the country that have turned schools into recurring targets of armed groups.
the pattern began in 2014, when over 276 schoolgirls were kidnapped from government girls secondary school, chibok, in borno state by suspected boko haram terrorists. During the rescue mission, some of those girls have been released, others escaped, while many remain in captivity.
this incident marked the beginning of a wave of mass school abductions. Although this happened years back, the culture of such incidents is creeping deeper into the educational sector.
in 2018, four years after the chibok incident, 100 students were kidnapped from a government girls science and technical college in dapchi, yobe state, marking another significant incident in the history of nigeria. While most were later released, leah sharibu remains in captivity.
between 2020 and 2021, attacks on schools were intense as thousands of students were abducted from different schools in katsina, niger, zamfara, kaduna, and kebbi states.
although many victims regained their freedom, some were killed in captivity, while others spent months in captivity before being released.
meanwhile, many of the abducted female students have remained in captivity, where they have reportedly been forced into marriage and to bear children for members of the terrorist group.
while these attacks have largely occurred in northern nigeria over the past years, recent incidents indicate that this pattern is no longer confined to a particular region. The emergence of school kidnapping in the southwest region is a strong indication that the threat is silently spreading across other regions.
crisis creeping to the southwest
over the years, the south-west, one of nigeria’s six geopolitical zones, which includes major economic hubs like lagos has historically been considered peaceful and considered itself relatively isolated from such attacks.
however, that illusion was shattered on may 15, 2026, when suspected terrorists stormed three schools in oyo state in the southwestern region, kidnapping 46 persons, including students and teachers, marking the first mass school kidnapping in the southern part of the country.
while in captivity, one of the teachers was killed. Meanwhile, the remaining victims were released after spending 56 days in the kidnappers’ den.
the impact of this sad reality has invited fears among students and parents in different regions in the southwest.
as an intensifying security crisis rocks the country, other regions, including the north central region (benue, kogi, kwara, nasarawa, niger, plateau, and the federal capital territory, abuja) and the south west (ekiti, lagos, ogun, ondo, osun, oyo state), are becoming new geographic targets for kidnappers.
these armed groups are not targeting schools without reason. Weak security and remote locations of many schools have made them an easy target for attacks.
when victims become bargaining chips
one notable pattern in school abduction in nigeria is that rather than abducting a few persons, the terrorist operation usually involves dozens or even hundreds of school students, which is visible in the chibok, dapchi, kankara, jangebe, and the recent borno attack.
many schools that have experienced these attacks in large numbers are usually located in conflict-prone environments with lax security, which makes it easier for terrorists to abduct large numbers of students and teachers.
unlike other forms of individual kidnapping that happen in the country, school kidnapping usually involves a large number of students used as bait to target the government.
in most cases, kidnappers request huge ransoms from the government or the release of detained members in exchange for the abductee.
aside from financial gains, they use these attacks as a propaganda tool to gain publicity, projecting their power to instill fear in the hearts of vulnerable community members.
for instance, during the rescue operation of the now-released oyo students, they threatened to kill the victims if their commanders in nigerian custody were not released.
schools are not just the target of attack; they are employed as a communication flow to the government.
however, these continuous attacks have had a long-lasting negative impact on nigeria’s educational system.
economic and psychological toll
the impact of these consistent attacks on schools has left deep scars on both the students and the nigerian educational system. Beyond the trauma suffered by victims, this continued act has disrupted learning, increased the number of out-of-school children, and made many children fearful of returning to the classrooms.
according to a 2022 report by the partnership to engage, reform and learn (perl), a programme funded by the foreign, commonwealth and development office of the uk, more than 70 percent of girls feel unsafe while on their way to school in jigawa state.
another report by the united nations children’s fund (unicef) in 2024 shows that 10.2 million children of primary school age and another 8.1 million of junior secondary school age are out of school. The report further explained that attacks on schools in the country have highly contributed to this decline. Between 2022 and 2023, there were 29 documented attacks leading to the closure of 113 schools in borno, adamawa, and yobe states due to insecurity.
the report stated that this disruption to learning contributes to gaps in children’s knowledge and skills and may lead to the loss of approximately 3.4 billion usd in these children’s lifetime earnings, which further perpetuate cycles of poverty and inequality.
importantly, nigeria is already burdened by a large out-of-school population compounded by insecurity, increasing the risk of long-term exclusion from education. If not addressed promptly, the educational system of the country could result in long-term drastic collapse as classrooms become a terror zone for students.
aminu alhussaini, a conflict reporter based in sokoto, agrees that attacks on schools disrupt learning, increase school dropout rates, discourage qualified teachers from accepting postings in vulnerable areas, and create lasting psychological trauma for students and educators.
as attacks on schools continued, successive governments introduced several initiatives aimed at protecting schools and restoring public confidence. But how successful are their policies
have government policies succeeded
following the chibok school girls’ abduction in 2014, the safe schools initiative (ssi) was designed to address school attacks and ensure a safe space for school children across the country was launched at the world economic forum on africa under the administration of goodluck jonathan.
despite billions of naira invested in this project, attacks on school students across the country have multiplied. According to unicef, over 1,680 schoolchildren have been abducted in nigeria since the 2014 chibok schoolgirl kidnapping.
meanwhile, a 2024 report by unicef states that only 37 percent of schools surveyed had early warning systems capable of identifying threats such as school attacks, noting that schools still lack basic systems needed to prevent or respond to attacks.
during former president muhammadu buhari’s regime in 2019, he signed the safe schools declaration, signalling a global political commitment to protect students, teachers, and schools from attacks during armed conflict.
despite billions of naira allocated to fund school initiatives in nigeria to protect schools, students, and teachers, schools have continued to face repeated attacks, which are becoming a booming business for terrorists.
these, among other policies, have been introduced and approved by the government, but despite the budget to protect school students, nigeria continues to experience constant attacks on schools.
speaking with mohammed babangida, senior reporter, humangle media, a media platform in nigeria, he agrees that the safe school policies have truly failed, citing corruption and other bureaucratic issues with little to no security deployment or cctv installation in schools prone to attack.
“the number of security agents in schools is also insignificant. I’ve seen some schools located in volatile communities with two or three policemen,” he said.
however, following the recent incident of mass student abduction in oyo and borno states, the house of representatives on wednesday called for a comprehensive investigation into the country’s multi-billion naira security initiatives launched since 2014.
aminu alhussaini also argued that school safety initiatives have not succeeded over the years due to inconsistent implementation nationwide, limited resources, and broader insecurity.
has attacks continued despite government policies to address the issue, experts say stricter and more coordinated measures are needed to protect schools.
way forward
speaking on ways to protect schools, mr aminu suggests that the federal and state governments should strengthen intelligence gathering and increase security around schools identified as vulnerable in the country.
furthermore, he added that the government should improve school infrastructure with perimeter fencing, secure gates, alarm and communication systems, and establish rapid-response mechanisms.
in sokoto and other states, sustained cooperation among government, security agencies, school authorities, and community leaders will be essential to keeping schools safe and ensuring that children can learn without fear.
on the part of mr mohammed, the federal government must secure all areas where the terrorists use as hideouts. He further noted that social problems tied to terrorism should also be tackled as seriously as economic issues.
lastly, he encouraged both states and the federal government to stop paying ransom to terrorists or swapping students with arrested prisoners.
“i know that this will be difficult because this is a democratic dispensation. We’re also emotional, as no one would have their wife, children, parents, or relatives abducted and refuse to pay ransom for the person to be released. But the huge ransom money given to terrorists not only emboldens them, but they also use the money to acquire more weapons.”
conclusion
more than a decade after the chibok tragedy, attacks on schools have continued to expose deep gaps in the nigerian educational system. Unless school safety measures are effectively implemented and stronger protection is provided to vulnerable communities, nigeria’s classrooms may continue to be places of fear rather than learning. |
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| Landon Sims, Coming Off Third ACL Tear, Fully Cleared |
| Posted on Monday, July 20 @ 00:01:10 PDT (14 reads) | |
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Landon sims, coming off third acl tear, ‘fully cleared’
las vegas, nev., -- Wait, is that ... Landon sims?
the sophomore quarterback, a bulky, black brace draped around his surgically repaired left knee, was on the field inside war memorial stadium last spring, throwing darts down the seam, a wide smile glued to his face.
who could blame him?
the junior college transfer was less than six months removed from going under the knife after a third acl tear. Head coach jay sawvel referred to his injury last october as a gut punch to the entire roster. His playcaller at the time, jovon bouknight, simply called it a tremendous loss.
thats an understatement.
without the 6-foot-3, 217-pound alabama native, wyomings offense managed just one offensive touchdown over the final 15 quarters of the season as the cowboys limped to a 4-8 record, missing out on the postseason for a second straight year under sawvel.
it wasnt a question of when sims would return to the field, but if that was even a possibility.
you cant get rid of me that easy, sims, in his southern twang, said back in april.
he followed that up by saying he was coming back to be elite. He said he wouldnt lose a step.
turns out, his words were prophetic.
hes cleared. Fully cleared, sawvel said last thursday at mountain west media days in las vegas. He will have no limitation in fall camp, which is a credit to him.
sims, who rushed for nearly 100 yards and a touchdown on just 15 attempts and completed 6-of-8 passes in mop-up duty for then starter kaden anderson, isnt just back on the practice field, sawvel said he is eclipsing his speed numbers from this time a year ago.
sims said back in april the first knee injury forced him to become a more well-rounded quarterback at east central community college in mississippi, especially in the passing department. His second season-ending setback caused him to become a student of the game, breaking down film and picking up tendencies.
along with tyler hughes, the cowboys presumed starter under center, sawvel said those words arent hollow.
theyre always in the building, he added. Theyre always spending extra time, theyre always with the receivers, theyre always working on their craft. Thats going to be great for mason drube. Thats going to be great for taylor hasselbeck. Thats going to be great for new quarterbacks that weve got coming in the future.
wyoming last fall again featured one of the worst passing attacks in the nation, averaging just 183 yards through the air per game. Only nevada and air force were worse. The latter runs the option. Both beat the cowboys in 2025.
sawvel said the current quarterback room is in a really good place, adding some of that comfort level comes from the fact his staff recruited the entire unit.
thats been a problem for us the last couple years, he said, referring to evan svoboda and anderson, two holdovers from craig bohls tenure in laramie. Thats been part of the reason we are where we were at.
the cowboys averaged just 16 points an outing last season. Thats 129th in the country out of 134 programs. And even that final number is inflated thanks to a pair of defensive scores and a punt return for a touchdown.
anderson is now the signal caller at tarleton state. Jay johnson, who was the teams offensive coordinator the previous two seasons, was ousted with five games to go in the 2025 campaign. He is now an assistant quarterbacks coach at oregon. Bouknight has shifted back to his original duties as the wide receivers coach. Christian taylor was hired in early december after a two-year stint on the staff with the nfls buffalo bills.
whats sawvels expectation on this offense?
scoring points, he said, bluntly.
sims returning to full strength can only help that cause, he added.
there needs to be a relentlessness to it, he said of this new-look offense. Theres a constant to where every time that we play, we want it to be when the team comes off the field from playing us that theyre like, we dont want to play these guys again.
... Were going to operate in a way different space, so im excited about that piece.
sims always planned to be in that mix.
never. Not once, sims said in april, referring to waving the white flag on what seems to be a snake-bitten career. I love this game. Ive been playing it since i was in the first grade. My fathers a coach. Ive been around it my whole life.
wyoming will open fall camp aug. 5, one month ahead of the season opener at colorado state.
more uw football news via 7220sports:
* lets get it: bruley carrying on fathers legacy in laramie
* biggest what if recruits in recent wyoming football history
* brooklyn cheek eyeing starting gig in uw secondary
* drakes love affair with football rekindled through adversity
* richardson has coming-out party in pokes spring game
* cowboy offense finds end zone five times in spring game victory
* pokes latest downfield threat may have been on roster all along
* wyoming teammates on johnathan bush: hes our psycho
* josh allen to tyler hughes: wyoming football one step away
* new uw president on athletics: we will compete
* landon sims: you cant get rid of me that easy
* sawvel believes this could be his best defense at wyoming
* lofty expectations ahead for desman hearns
* wyomings staff expecting inside dominance from jayden williams
* pj jackson looks an awful lot like a former uw receiver
* are the cowboys really flirting with adding an option attack?
press pass: roaming the war
gallery credit: dj johnson/ 7220sports.Com
-press pass: roaming the war |
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| Phillies Discussion (7/20/2026) |
| Posted on Monday, July 20 @ 00:01:10 PDT (17 reads) | |
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Here’s a new phillies discussion.
the phillies’ recent schedule pitted them against 4 of the 8 worst teams in the mlb – detroit (.465), kansas city (.400), cincinnati (.459), and the mets (.420). They went an unsatisfying 6-6 against those teams.
the phillies came out of the break and started nola, luzardo, and rangel. I guess they are saving wheeler and sanchez for the dodgers series. I think they would have been better off starting them against the teams the phillies have an actual chance of beating. Of course, one run is not likely to win you many games.
important dates
- july 12-13, 2026: mlb first-year player draft, philadelphia pa (phillies drop 10 slots)
- july 28, 2026, 5:00 p.M. Et: deadline to sign 2026 draft picks
- deadline applies to players drafted out of 4-year colleges and hs
- august 3, 2026: mlb trade deadline at 6:00 p.M. Et
- august 13, 2026: field of dreams game, thursday game from phillies at twins series
- december 1, 2026 (11:59 p.M. Et): mlb collective bargaining agreement expires.
note: these dates will be used unless/until notified differently. (Note that there are many more dates to add from spring training through the end of the 2026 season and calendar year. I will add when i have accurate dates for them.)
transactions
july 2026
07/19/2026 – reading activated rhp gage wood
07/19/2026 – clearwater activated of tjayy walton from the 7-day il
07/18/2026 – lehigh valley placed rhp jackson rutledge on the temporarily inactive list
07/18/2026 – fcl phillies released ss jose familia
07/17/2026 – phillies signed fa cf wuilfredo antunez to an milb contract
07/17/2026 – lehigh valley activated rhp brian keller from the development list
07/17/2026 – reading activated rhp wen-hui pan
07/17/2026 – c guillermo rosario assigned to jersey shore from clearwater
07/17/2026 – cf wuilfredo antunez assigned to jersey shore
07/17/2026 – rhp giussepe velasquez assigned to clearwater from jersey shore
07/16/2026 – phillies placed rhp brad keller on the 15-day il retroactive to 7/13, right elbow ucl tear
07/16/2026 – phillies recalled rhp seth johnson from lehigh valley
07/16/2026 – c lou albrecht assigned to lehigh valley from jersey shore
07/16/2026 – rhp enmanuel leon assigned to dsl phillies
07/14/2026 – reading placed rhp gabriel barbosa on the 7-day il
07/14/2026 – phillies signed free agent rhp enmanuel leon to an milb contract
07/13/2026 – jersey shore activated lhp juan amarante from the 7-day il
07/13/2026 – c cesar mujica assigned to fcl phillies from clearwater
07/11/2026 – phillies sent rhp jean cabrera outright to reading
07/10/2026 – fcl phillies released lhp raymon rosario
07/10/2026 – lehigh valley released lf dylan carlson.
07/10/2026 – lehigh valley activated 3b carter kieboom from the 7-day il
07/10/2026 – reading placed rhp wen-hui pan on the temporarily inactive list
07/09/2026 – phillies placed lhp tanner banks on the 15-day il, left forearm strain
07/09/2026 – phillies recalled rhp chase shugart from lehigh valley
07/09/2026 – reading activated rhp luke russo from the development list
07/09/2026 – reading placed rhp gage wood on the temporarily inactive list
07/09/2026 – fcl phillies activated ss jonathan alcantara from the 7-day il
07/08/2026 – lehigh valley transferred rhp brian keller to the development list
07/08/2026 – phillies activated rhp brad keller from the 15-day il
07/08/2026 – phillies placed rhp lou trivino iii on the 15-day il retroactive to 7/7, right thoracic muscle spasm
07/08/2026 – phillies optioned rhp seth johnson to lehigh valley
07/08/2026 – phillies recalled rhp alan rangel from lehigh valley
07/08/2026 – lehigh valley activated rhp grant holman from the 7-day il
07/08/2026 – lehigh valley activated rhp jackson rutledge from the 7-day il
07/07/2026 – phillies optioned lhp kyle backhus to lehigh valley
07/07/2026 – phillies recalled rhp max lazar from lehigh valley
07/07/2026 – lehigh valley activated ss liover peguero from the 7-day il
07/07/2026 – jersey shore sent lhp juan amarante on a rehab assignment to clearwater
07/07/2026 – c cesar mujica assigned to clearwater from fcl phillies
07/07/2026 – c guillermo rosario assigned to clearwater from fcl phillies
07/07/2026 – c gabriel azocar assigned to fcl phillies from clearwater
07/07/2026 – c gabriel flores assigned to fcl phillies from jersey shore
07/06/2026 – phillies signed fa rhp hua ho to an milb contract
07/06/2026 – rhp evan gates assigned to reading from lehigh valley
07/06/2026 – c lou albrecht assigned to jersey shore from lehigh valley
07/05/2026 – phillies designated rhp jean cabrera for assignment
07/05/2026 – phillies signed fa of bryan de la cruz
07/05/2026 – phillies optioned of bryan de la cruz to lehigh valley
07/05/2026 – lehigh valley released c rené pinto
07/05/2026 – c gabriel azocar assigned to clearwater from fcl phillies
07/04/2026 – phillies traded rhp ryan degges to cleveland for cash
07/04/2026 – phillies recalled lhp tanner banks from lehigh valley
07/04/2026 – phillies signed fa c payton henry to an milb contract
07/04/2026 – c payton henry assigned to lehigh valley
07/04/2026 – lehigh valley activated rhp andrew bechtold from the 7-day il
07/04/2026 – lehigh valley released of bryan de la cruz
07/04/2026 – lehigh valley placed 3b carter kieboom on the 7-day il retroactive to 7/2
07/04/2026 – reading activated lhp adam seminaris from the 7-day il |
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| MSB Weekly Magazine - 2026-07-20 |
| Posted on Monday, July 20 @ 00:01:10 PDT (15 reads) | |
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Maryland sports blog weekly
capitals announce 2026-27 regular season schedule: season opens on the road against carolina, home opener vs. Penguins
washington capitals 2026-27 nhl regular season schedule released: road opener at carolina hurricanes, home opener against pittsburgh penguins arlington, va. – The washington capitals have officially announced their 2026-27 nhl regular season schedule, opening…
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orioles complete sweep of astros, win seventh straight behind brandon young’s dominant start
houston — the baltimore orioles are playing their best baseball of the 2026 season. Behind another outstanding performance from brandon young, timely hitting throughout the lineup, and a towering home run from…
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shorebirds rally from four down to take the finale against kannapolis
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shorebirds score season-high 14 runs in first game out of the all-star break
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delmarva drops game 2 to ridgeyaks
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orioles lock up their ace: kyle bradish signs five-year, $90 million extension
the baltimore orioles made one of the biggest statements of the 2026 season on saturday, agreeing to a five-year, $90 million contract extension with ace right-hander kyle bradish. The deal keeps one…
orioles sign first-round pick eric booth jr. To near slot deal
the baltimore orioles have officially secured the signature of their top selection from the 2026 mlb draft, agreeing to terms with first-round pick eric booth jr., The no. 7 overall selection. The…
brian’s take: the week that was
brians take recaps 18 msb opinion takes published during the week. These are the key conclusions from msbs reporting, analysis and game coverage.
orioles complete sweep of astros, win seventh straight behind brandon young’s dominant start
a week ago, the orioles were searching for answers. Today, they leave houston with a seven-game winning streak and a three-game road sweep over an astros team that entered the series fighting to stay in the american league west race. The biggest story continues to be brandon young. Every outing strengthens the argument that baltimore has found a legitimate front-of-the-rotation starter. His consistency has stabilized the pitching staff, and the offense is beginning to provide enough support to capitalize on those performances. Equally encouraging is the continued production from young players like coby mayo and jackson holliday. Veterans such as gunnar henderson, taylor ward, pete alonso, and leody taveras are contributing in key situations, giving…
orioles shuffle roster before series finale as sam huff joins club, ryan helsley’s injury raises concern
the sam huff promotion and cam sanders option are typical roster management moves that major league clubs make throughout a long season. Ryan helsleys transfer to the 60-day injured list is different. Whenever an elite reliever is sidelined with recurring elbow discomfort, it is difficult not to worry about what comes next. Hopefully, the move is precautionary and helsley can return later this season. Until the orioles release more information, however, this has the potential to become one of the clubs biggest injury stories of the second half. Todays game recap will likely make these moves even more important, as huff was forced into action after basallos injury while baltimore completed its sweep of the…
orioles win sixth straight, outlast astros 4-2 in 11-inning thriller
these are the types of games playoff contenders win. The orioles did not overpower houston offensively. They battled through missed opportunities, survived a bases-loaded jam with no outs in extra innings, and made every winning play when the game was on the line. Rogers continues to look like one of the clubs most dependable starters, the bullpen has settled into defined roles, and new additions like cam sanders are already making a significant impact. Perhaps the biggest takeaway is the confidence this team is playing with. Six straight wins, including back-to-back victories on the road against the astros, shows this club is finding its identity at exactly the right time. Championship-caliber teams win close games…
orioles lock up their ace: kyle bradish signs five-year, $90 million extension
this is exactly the move orioles fans have been waiting to see. Too often, small-market clubs develop stars only to watch them leave once free agency arrives. Baltimore has changed that narrative by investing in one of the best pitchers it has developed in decades. Kyle bradish has earned every dollar of this extension. He has overcome injuries, developed into a true no. 1 starter, and become the heartbeat of the orioles rotation. If the orioles want to become perennial world series contenders, this is the blueprint: draft well, develop talent, and reward your stars. Saturdays announcement is not just about keeping an ace. It is about building a championship culture that orioles fans have…
orioles sign first-round pick eric booth jr. To near slot deal
signing eric booth jr. Quickly is excellent news for the orioles. The organization drafted arguably the most athletic position player available at no. 7 and wasted little time getting him into the system. Booth fits the modern style of baseball: speed, defense, athleticism, and projectable offensive upside. While orioles fans naturally want immediate help at the major league level, championships are sustained through player development. Booth now becomes one of the crown jewels of baltimores next wave of prospects. The orioles have built playoff-caliber clubs by drafting and developing talent like adley rutschman, gunnar henderson, jackson holliday, and enrique bradfield jr. Eric booth jr. Now has the opportunity to become the next name on that…
orioles rally past astros 3-2 as taylor ward’s late home run extends baltimore’s winning streak to five
the orioles are finally beginning to resemble the team many expected to see entering the season. Earlier this year, baltimore repeatedly found ways to lose games exactly like this one. Friday night was different. The orioles did not have many offensive opportunities, but they stayed within striking distance, trusted their bullpen and capitalized when the biggest moment arrived. Taylor wards home run will receive the headlines, and deservedly so. His two-run blast completely changed the game and demonstrated why baltimore wanted his bat in the middle of its lineup. Ward gives the orioles another hitter capable of changing a game with one swing, something this offense desperately needed. Just as important was the performance of…
orioles add pitching depth, acquire right-hander cam sanders from pirates
this isnt the splashy trade orioles fans have been anticipating, but its exactly the type of move successful organizations make. Baltimore gave up only cash considerations for a pitcher with premium velocity and remaining upside. If sanders develops into a reliable bullpen piece, itll be another outstanding value acquisition by mike elias and the orioles front office. The more important storyline is akins injury. Losing another experienced reliever reinforces baltimores need to add pitching before the deadline. Sanders may not be the final answer, but he represents another worthwhile lottery ticket for one of baseballs best player development organizations.
orioles head into all-star break on high note with 8-2 win, first four-game winning streak of 2026 marred by blaze alexander injury
the orioles couldnt have scripted a better finish to the first half—until alexander was hit. Winning four consecutive games may not erase the frustrations of the first three months, but it gives this club something it hasnt had much of in 2026: belief. The offense is beginning to click, shane baz continues to show front-of-the-rotation potential, samuel basallo is developing into one of baseballs brightest young stars, and leody taveras has been a tremendous addition. Now the challenge is carrying that momentum into the second half while hoping alexanders absence is measured in weeks rather than months. If baltimore is going to make a surprise run at an american league wild card spot, the first-half…
kyle hamilton voted nfl’s no. 1 safety by league insiders for second straight year
hamilton deserves the recognition there should not be much controversy surrounding kyle hamiltons place at the top of the nfl safety rankings. Hamilton has become one of the most complete defensive backs in football, and his versatility separates him from nearly every other player at his position. There may be safeties who produce more interceptions. Others may spend more time playing a traditional deep-safety role. Hamiltons value comes from his ability to do almost everything baltimore asks of him. The most impressive statistic may be the difference in opposing quarterback qbr with hamilton on and off the field. A jump from 49 to 90 when hamilton leaves the field demonstrates just how significant his presence…
msb opinion: lamar jackson at no. 69? The nfl top 100 got it completely wrong
if i were starting an nfl franchise today, there is exactly one quarterback i would unquestionably draft ahead of lamar jackson: patrick mahomes. Thats it. After mahomes, jackson belongs squarely in every conversation with josh allen, joe burrow, and every other elite quarterback in football. Two mvp awards. Three first-team all-pro selections. The greatest rushing quarterback the nfl has ever seen. A player who forces defensive coordinators to tear up their game plans every sunday. Those credentials dont belong to the 69th-best player in football. They belong to one of the five best players in the nfl. The nfl top 100 has produced some questionable rankings over the years, but this one may age as…
hershey bears reload their depth: morrison, mccallum, and beck bring experience and upside to chocolate town
these arent blockbuster signings, but they are exactly the type of moves championship ahl organizations make. Cam morrison brings proven professional scoring experience and could become one of hersheys better secondary offensive threats if his success in norway translates back to north america. Landon mccallum is a developmental piece whose best hockey may still be ahead of him, while noah beck could quietly become one of the bears most important additions thanks to his puck-moving ability from the back end. The bears have built a dynasty by finding overlooked talent, developing it, and putting players in positions to succeed. Morrison, mccallum, and beck all fit that mold, and dont be surprised if one—or even all…
msb: capitals lock up first-round pick oliver suvanto, continuing their youth movement
this signing may not grab headlines like washingtons additions of jordan kyrou or alex tuch, but it could become one of the organizations most important moves of the summer. Centers with suvantos size, maturity and two-way ability are difficult to find. The capitals believe they landed one of the safest prospects in the entire draft, and signing him quickly allows the organization to begin implementing its long-term development plan. Washingtons prospect pipeline suddenly looks much healthier than it did a year ago. With suvanto joining recent first-round selections and a front office focused on adding size and hockey iq, the capitals appear committed to building another contender rather than beginning a lengthy rebuild. If suvanto…
capitals double down on development, extend echl partnership with south carolina stingrays
this is one of those organizational moves that wont generate national headlines, but it could have a significant impact on the capitals future. Successful nhl franchises are built through strong development systems, and washington has one of the leagues best. Keeping south carolina in the fold provides stability for prospects, coaches, and the entire organization while maintaining a winning culture from the echl all the way to the nhl. With the capitals looking to remain contenders while developing their next wave of talent, extending the partnership with the stingrays is another smart move by brian maclellan and the front office. Its a behind-the-scenes decision that should continue paying dividends for years to come.
msb: capitals swap prospects with sabres, acquire tyler kopff in exchange for zac funk
this isnt a blockbuster, but these are the types of transactions successful organizations make. Washington traded from a position of organizational strength at wing to acquire a player whose physical profile better matches the identity chris patrick appears to be building. The capitals have consistently added larger, harder-to-play-against forwards this offseason, and kopff fits that blueprint. Funk deserved credit for his professionalism and production with south carolina, but the path to nhl minutes in washington appeared increasingly crowded. Buffalo may provide the fresh opportunity he needs. From washingtons perspective, the risk is minimal. If kopff develops into an nhl depth forward, the capitals will have quietly won another under-the-radar personnel move. If not, they essentially…
four mountaineers earn nabc honors court recognition as mount st. Mary’s continues tradition of academic excellence
maryland sports blog has always believed the best stories are not limited to the scoreboard. The recognition of xavier lipscomb, john miller iv, patrick haigh, and mason so reminds fans that college athletics are about much more than wins and losses. These four mountaineers have demonstrated outstanding discipline by succeeding in the classroom while competing at one of the highest levels of college basketball. The additional nabc team academic excellence award makes the accomplishment even more impressive. It shows that academic success is embedded throughout the mount st. Marys mens basketball program. As the mountaineers prepare for another season, these honors provide another reason for fans to be proud. Championships create memories, but academic excellence…
coppin state women’s golf announces inaugural 2026-27 schedule
coppin state is not easing its new women’s golf program into competition. The eagles will play nine tournaments in six states and encounter several experienced programs during their inaugural season. That schedule should provide ruff with a strong evaluation of where the program stands and what coppin state must improve as it builds for the future. Wins and tournament finishes will always matter, but coppin state’s first year should not be evaluated solely through the final standings. Establishing a competitive culture, developing the roster and successfully completing a demanding division i schedule will represent meaningful progress. Years from now, future coppin state golfers will chase championships, records and postseason opportunities. The 2026-27 team will always…
loyola women’s track & field 2025-26 season recap: school records and championship performances highlight strong year
loyola university maryland may not possess the roster depth of army, navy, or boston university, but the greyhounds demonstrated significant progress throughout 2025-26. The most important development in the 2025-26 campaign was not simply the seventh-place outdoor finish, but the context of how those team points were earned. Young athletes stepped into starring roles, school records were broken, relay squads made history, and multiple individuals achieved their season-best results at the patriot league championships. These are essential building blocks for a developing division i track and field program. Blakeslees emergence offers loyola an exciting young talent to build around, while lowthers record-setting steeplechase performance elevates the teams distance credentials. The 4×100 relays historic podium finish…
wizards close summer league with 91-83 win over hawks
the final score was important, but development was the real victory. Washington entered summer league hoping to see growth from its young core while evaluating the players who could eventually fill out the roster around them. Mission accomplished. Beekmans playmaking, livingstons scoring, and camdens shooting were excellent reminders that the wizards have more depth than many expected. More importantly, dybantsa, johnson, and riley all showed flashes throughout the week that should have wizards fans excited about the future. The rebuild is still in its early stages, but for the first time in several years, there is a clear direction in washington. A 3-2 finish in las vegas will not guarantee regular-season success, but it provided…
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i cannot tell you how excited i am to become the next head coach of umbc mens lacrosse. I have always followed the program from afar, and the opportunity to lead such a proud program is a tremendous honor.
this week in maryland sports
baltimore orioles
orioles complete sweep of astros, win seventh straight behind brandon young’s dominant start
houston — the baltimore orioles are playing their best baseball of the 2026 season. Behind another outstanding performance from brandon young, timely hitting throughout the lineup, and a towering home run from coby mayo, the orioles defeated the houston astros 5-2 on sunday afternoon at daikin park to complete a three-game sweep. Baltimore has now won a season-high seven consecutive games and heads into the next series with plenty of…
orioles shuffle roster before series finale as sam huff joins club, ryan helsley’s injury raises concern
the baltimore orioles made three roster moves before sunday’s series finale against the houston astros, moves that immediately impacted the game while also creating new questions about the health of one of the club’s veteran relievers. Baltimore selected the contract of catcher sam huff from triple-a norfolk, optioned right-handed pitcher cam sanders back to the tides, and transferred right-handed reliever ryan helsley to the 60-day injured list because of right…
shorebirds rally from four down to take the finale against kannapolis
bowie baysox rally from four runs down to clinch series finale against kannapolis cannon ballers bowie baysox rally from four runs down to clinch series finale against kannapolis cannon ballers the bowie baysox rallied from a four-run deficit to win the series finale against the kannapolis cannon ballers on june 9, 2024, demonstrating resilience and offensive power that could set the tone for the remainder of their 2024 eastern league…
shorebirds score season-high 14 runs in first game out of the all-star break
bowie baysox score season-high 14 runs in first game out of the all-star break bowie baysox score season-high 14 runs in first game out of the all-star break the bowie baysox, the double-a affiliate of the baltimore orioles, erupted offensively in their first game following the minor league baseball all-star break, posting a season-high 14 runs in a dominant showing. This offensive explosion marked a significant point in their 2024…
delmarva drops game 2 to ridgeyaks
delmarva shorebirds drop game 2 to fredericksburg nationals in competitive matchup delmarva shorebirds drop game 2 to fredericksburg nationals in competitive matchup the delmarva shorebirds, the low-a affiliate of the baltimore orioles, dropped game 2 against the fredericksburg nationals on thursday in a hard-fought matchup. The shorebirds could not overcome the nationals’ pitching dominance and ended the contest on the losing side, signaling the need to adjust ahead of their…
orioles win sixth straight, outlast astros 4-2 in 11-inning thriller
the baltimore orioles continue to play their best baseball of the season. Baltimore extended its winning streak to six games saturday night with a gritty 4-2 victory over the houston astros in 11 innings at daikin park. It was another complete team effort as the orioles relied on outstanding pitching, timely defense, and late-inning execution to earn another road win against a quality opponent. The victory also secured the series…
orioles lock up their ace: kyle bradish signs five-year, $90 million extension
the baltimore orioles made one of the biggest statements of the 2026 season on saturday, agreeing to a five-year, $90 million contract extension with ace right-hander kyle bradish. The deal keeps one of baseball’s premier starting pitchers in baltimore through the 2031 season and buys out three of his potential free-agent years. For a franchise that has spent years building through the draft, player development, and smart trades, this move…
orioles sign first-round pick eric booth jr. To near slot deal
the baltimore orioles have officially secured the signature of their top selection from the 2026 mlb draft, agreeing to terms with first-round pick eric booth jr., The no. 7 overall selection. The deal is reportedly worth $7,324,700, just $2,500 below the assigned slot value, allowing baltimore to sign one of the nation’s premier high school prospects while maintaining maximum flexibility for the remainder of its draft class. For orioles fans,…
orioles rally past astros 3-2 as taylor ward’s late home run extends baltimore’s winning streak to five
the baltimore orioles opened the second half of the season with another dramatic victory, defeating the houston astros 3-2 on friday night at daikin park. Trailing entering the eighth inning, baltimore rallied behind taylor ward’s go-ahead two-run home run to extend its winning streak to five games. For much of the evening, the orioles had difficulty generating offense against houston starter peter lambert, who struck out 10 batters over six…
orioles recall cam sanders, adding another bullpen arm for second half push
the baltimore orioles continued reshaping their bullpen friday by recalling right-handed pitcher cam sanders from triple-a norfolk ahead of the opening game of their series against the houston astros. Sanders, who will wear no. 73, is the latest addition to an orioles pitching staff searching for consistency as the club begins the second half of the season. The move comes just days after baltimore acquired sanders from the pittsburgh pirates…
orioles open second half with three-game road series against astros
the baltimore orioles return from the all-star break on friday night as they begin the second half of the 2026 season with a three-game series against the houston astros at daikin park. Baltimore enters the series at 46-51, while houston sits at 47-51, putting two clubs with nearly identical records against each other in an important weekend series. For the orioles, the trip to houston represents an opportunity to build…
keegan akin undergoes tommy john surgery, leaving orioles without veteran left-hander for the remainder of 2026
the baltimore orioles received another difficult injury update during the all-star break as veteran left-handed reliever keegan akin underwent successful tommy john surgery on wednesday in arlington, texas. The procedure was performed by renowned orthopedic surgeon dr. Keith meister, one of baseball’s leading elbow specialists. The surgery officially ends akin’s 2026 season and likely sidelines him for the majority, if not all, of the 2027 campaign. It is another significant…
orioles recall christian encarnacion-strand after blaze alexander injury creates infield void
the baltimore orioles made a necessary roster move on thursday, recalling infielder/first baseman christian encarnacion-strand from triple-a norfolk after placing versatile infielder blaze alexander on the 10-day injured list with a fractured left hand. The move is retroactive to july 13 and comes after alexander suffered the injury when he was hit by a pitch during sunday’s victory over the kansas city royals. Alexander’s injury is a difficult blow for…
baltimore orioles 2027 schedule breakdown: month-by-month
the orioles will face a balanced schedule in 2027, but each month presents its own challenges. From an opening day trip to tampa bay to a september finish against the yankees, baltimore will be tested throughout the season. March / april – fast start is critical the orioles begin the season with a road trip to tampa bay before returning home for opening day. Key series include: what to watch:…
midseason review: a deeper look at how the orioles reached 46-51
a deeper look at how the orioles reached 46-51 baltimore’s four-game winning streak entering the all-star break created a more optimistic feeling around the club, but it should not obscure the inconsistency that defined the first 97 games. The orioles reached the break at 46-51, five games below .500 and in fourth place in the american league east. Baltimore remained only two games outside the final wild card position, which…
orioles add pitching depth, acquire right-hander cam sanders from pirates
absolutely. Here’s the article with embedded hyperlinks that will work well in wordpress. The baltimore orioles continued to reshape their pitching depth monday, acquiring right-handed pitcher cam sanders from the pittsburgh pirates in exchange for cash considerations. To make room on the 40-man roster, baltimore transferred left-handed reliever keegan akin from the 15-day injured list to the 60-day injured list with left elbow discomfort. Shortly after the trade, the orioles…
orioles head into all-star break on high note with 8-2 win, first four-game winning streak of 2026 marred by blaze alexander injury
the baltimore orioles finally have some momentum. Baltimore closed out the first half of the 2026 season with an emphatic 8-2 victory over the kansas city royals on sunday afternoon at camden yards, completing a three-game sweep and carrying their first four-game winning streak of the season into the all-star break. It was exactly the kind of stretch the orioles had been searching for all year. Unfortunately, the celebration was…
baltimore ravens
ravens add veteran center ethan pocic to bolster offensive line competition
the baltimore ravens have added another experienced option to the middle of their offensive line, agreeing to a one-year contract with veteran center ethan pocic as the team continues to reshape its interior line heading into training camp. The signing was first reported by espn’s adam schefter and later confirmed by the athletic’s jeff zrebiec. The move gives baltimore a proven nfl starter at a position that has been one…
kyle hamilton voted nfl’s no. 1 safety by league insiders for second straight year
baltimore ravens safety kyle hamilton has established himself as more than one of the best young defensive players in football. According to the people inside the nfl, hamilton is the best player at his position. Hamilton was voted the no. 1 safety in the nfl for the second consecutive year in espn’s annual survey of league executives, coaches and scouts. It marks the third straight year that the ravens star…
kyle hamilton deserved better: why the ravens’ all-pro safety was underrated at no. 63 in the nfl top 100
the nfl top 100 players list — voted on by the players themselves — reliably generates debate every offseason. While intended to honor the league’s elite, certain placements consistently leave fans shaking their heads. Baltimore ravens safety kyle hamilton checking in at no. 63 on the 2026 list is one of those head-scratching rankings. Coming shortly after lamar jackson’s lower-than-expected placement, another cornerstone of the ravens roster appears to have…
msb feature: roquan smith earns no. 65 spot on nfl top 100 — but how is he ranked ahead of lamar jackson?
by brian hradsky the nfl’s annual top 100 players countdown continued wednesday, and baltimore ravens linebacker roquan smith checked in at no. 65 after another outstanding season. The ranking, voted on by current nfl players, is another testament to smith’s consistency and leadership as the centerpiece of baltimore’s defense. While smith absolutely deserves recognition as one of the league’s elite linebackers, his placement has already sparked debate among ravens fans…
msb opinion: lamar jackson at no. 69? The nfl top 100 got it completely wrong
when the nfl released players 70-61 on its annual nfl top 100 players of 2026 countdown, one name immediately stood out—and not in a good way. Lamar jackson came in at no. 69. Nice number. Terrible ranking. The two-time nfl mvp, arguably the most electrifying player in football, somehow dropped nearly 70 spots from last year’s list after battling injuries during the 2025 season. While jackson admittedly didn’t have his…
washington capitals and hershey bears
capitals announce 2026-27 regular season schedule: season opens on the road against carolina, home opener vs. Penguins
washington capitals 2026-27 nhl regular season schedule released: road opener at carolina hurricanes, home opener against pittsburgh penguins arlington, va. – The washington capitals have officially announced their 2026-27 nhl regular season schedule, opening the campaign on the road against the defending stanley cup champion carolina hurricanes. The 82-game schedule includes multiple lengthy homestands, significant road trips, and several high-profile matchups at capital one arena in downtown washington, d.C. The…
hershey bears reload their depth: morrison, mccallum, and beck bring experience and upside to chocolate town
by brian hradsky the hershey bears continued reshaping their roster for the 2026-27 american hockey league season on tuesday by signing forwards cam morrison and landon mccallum along with defenseman noah beck to ahl contracts. The moves, announced by vice president of hockey operations bryan helmer, provide the three-time defending calder cup champions with experienced depth after an offseason that saw several key veterans depart in free agency. While none…
msb: capitals lock up first-round pick oliver suvanto, continuing their youth movement
the washington capitals have officially taken the next step in the development of one of the organization’s most exciting young prospects, signing 2026 first-round pick oliver suvanto to a three-year, entry-level contract. The move comes less than three weeks after washington selected the 17-year-old finnish center with the 18th overall pick in the 2026 nhl draft, making him the franchise’s first finnish first-round selection since miika elomo in 1995 and…
capitals double down on development, extend echl partnership with south carolina stingrays
the washington capitals are keeping a key piece of their player development pipeline intact. The organization announced it has signed a multi-year extension of its echl affiliation agreement with the south carolina stingrays, ensuring one of the nhl’s longest-running and most successful developmental partnerships will continue into the future. The agreement keeps the capitals, the ahl’s hershey bears, and the stingrays working together as a three-tier system that has consistently…
msb: capitals swap prospects with sabres, acquire tyler kopff in exchange for zac funk
the washington capitals made another depth move on monday, continuing what has been an active offseason under general manager chris patrick. Washington acquired forward tyler kopff from the buffalo sabres in exchange for forward zac funk in what is best described as a hockey trade between two organizations swapping young prospects who may benefit from a change of scenery. This isn’t a move that will grab national headlines, but it…
maryland college sports
four mountaineers earn nabc honors court recognition as mount st. Mary’s continues tradition of academic excellence
emmitsburg, md. — Championships and postseason appearances often define a basketball program, but the most successful teams also pride themselves on developing leaders away from the court. Mount st. Mary’s men’s basketball demonstrated that commitment once again as xavier lipscomb, john miller iv, patrick haigh, and mason so were named to the 2025-26 national association of basketball coaches (nabc) honors court. The recognition honors student-athletes who have excelled academically while…
coppin state women’s golf announces inaugural 2026-27 schedule
coppin state university will make history during the 2026-27 academic year as the eagles begin the inaugural season of their ncaa division i women’s golf program. Head men’s and women’s golf coach elam ruff unveiled a nine-tournament schedule that will take coppin state to six states during its first year of competition. The eagles will play four fall tournaments before returning for five events during the spring portion of the…
bowie state picked ninth in ciaa football preseason poll; three bulldogs earn preseason all-ciaa honors
bowie state university football picked ninth in ciaa preseason poll; three bulldogs earn preseason all-ciaa honors bowie state university football picked ninth in ciaa preseason poll; three bulldogs earn preseason all-ciaa honors durham, n.C. – The bowie state university football team was selected to finish ninth in the central intercollegiate athletic association (ciaa) preseason predicted order of finish, the conference announced on wednesday during the 2026 ciaa football media day…
defending mac commonwealth champions, womens volleyball announces 2026 schedule
stevenson university womens volleyball announces 2026 schedule to defend mac commonwealth championship stevenson university womens volleyball announces 2026 schedule to defend mac commonwealth championship owings mills, md. — The stevenson university women’s volleyball team, fresh from capturing its eighth middle atlantic conference (mac) commonwealth championship and appearing in the ncaa tournament, has unveiled its 2026 season schedule. The stevenson mustangs aim to build on their recent success as they prepare…
loyola women’s track & field 2025-26 season recap: school records and championship performances highlight strong year
loyola university maryland women’s track & field 2025-26 season recap: school records and championship performances highlight strong year the loyola university maryland women’s track and field program produced a 2025-26 season defined by individual breakthroughs, new school records, and impressive performances at the patriot league championship. Competing throughout both indoor and outdoor seasons, the greyhounds developed a young roster while producing some of the best results in program history. The…
frostburgs states university tennis earns ita all-academic honors
frostburg state university bobcats women’s tennis earns ita all-academic honors the frostburg state university bobcats women’s tennis team has earned significant academic recognition for the 2025-26 season, as announced by the intercollegiate tennis association (ita). The bobcats were named to the prestigious ita all-academic team, reflecting the squad’s collective academic excellence. Additionally, several frostburg state players received individual honors as ita scholar athletes, signifying their achievements as top scholar-athletes among…
sgsn alumni excelling in local media
salisbury university sea gull sports network alumni excelling in local media salisbury university sea gull sports network alumni excelling in local media on the evening of february 11, 2026, salisbury university hosted a high-profile basketball doubleheader against longtime rival christopher newport university inside the maggs physical activities center. The event drew significant attention from local sports fans, with more than 1,200 unique viewers tuning into the sea gull sports network…
umbc hires james purpura as new head men’s lacrosse coach
the university of maryland, baltimore county has found the next leader of one of its flagship athletic programs. Umbc director of athletics, physical education and recreation tiffany d. Tucker announced tuesday that james purpura has been named the new head coach of the retrievers men’s lacrosse program. Purpura arrives in catonsville after serving as offensive coordinator and recruiting coordinator at ohio state and brings nearly two decades of coaching experience…
jonathan gonzalez perez earns selection to hbcu swingman classic
jonathan gonzalez perez of university of maryland eastern shore hawks selected for hbcu swingman classic jonathan gonzalez perez of university of maryland eastern shore hawks selected for hbcu swingman classic jonathan gonzalez perez, an emerging talent from the university of maryland eastern shore hawks baseball program, has earned selection to the highly regarded hbcu swingman classic. This invitation highlights his impressive performance and growing reputation within the collegiate baseball community,…
ntca recognizes university of maryland eastern shore bowling with second highest team gpa in ncaa
university of maryland eastern shore hawks bowling team earns second-highest team gpa in ncaa, ntca honors academic excellence university of maryland eastern shore hawks bowling team earns second-highest team gpa in ncaa, ntca honors academic excellence the university of maryland eastern shore hawks women’s bowling team has earned national recognition for its outstanding academic performance in the 2025-26 academic year. The national tenpin coaches association (ntca) announced that umes secured…
washington wizards
wizards close summer league with 91-83 win over hawks
the washington wizards wrapped up their 2026 nba summer league schedule on a winning note saturday night, defeating the atlanta hawks 91-83 in las vegas. The victory gave washington a 3-2 summer league record, providing another encouraging step for one of the nba’s youngest rebuilding teams. Although several of the wizards’ top prospects, including aj dybantsa, tre johnson, and will riley, were held out for the finale, washington still showcased…
wizards drop second straight, fall 108-94 to clippers in nba summer league
the washington wizards dropped their second consecutive nba summer league game wednesday night, falling 108-94 to the los angeles clippers in las vegas. After opening summer league with back-to-back victories, washington has now slipped to 2-2 following losses to the chicago bulls and clippers. Playing without no. 1 overall pick aj dybantsa, the wizards battled through a competitive first half before the clippers took control after halftime. Washington matched los…
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washington nationals
nats send three to all-star game, draft some hot prospects
the washington nationals hit the all-star break a game below .500, thanks to a typically shaky bullpen at home against the new york yankees. Three late-inning comebacks by new york gave them a sweep of the series, but that disappointment doesn’t change the fact that washington’s first-half record is far better than most “experts” predicted in march. James wood, cj abrams and foster griffin represented the nationals in the…
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| Twins Draft Class Has One Pitching Detail Fans Will Want To See |
| Posted on Monday, July 20 @ 00:01:10 PDT (15 reads) | |
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The minnesota twins’ 2026 draft class is starting to take shape, and the organization is moving quickly to get its 21 selections signed. The group is headlined by georgia tech catcher vahn lackey, the no. 3 overall pick and the highest catcher drafted by the twins since joe mauer in 2001.
there’s also a clear pattern in how minnesota built this class. Of the nearly two dozen players selected earlier this month, only 6’5? Pitcher ethan wachsmann came straight out of high school. The twins leaned older, and that approach helped them manage their bonus pool because those players have less, if any, college eligibility left and are more likely to sign even if the slot money isn’t perfect.
i recently spoke with three of minnesota’s pitching picks from the draft: brett renfrow, wachsmann and tommy lapour. Each brings a different path, but all three are already talking like guys ready to get to work.
brett renfrow was the twins’ first competitive balance pick, going no. 74 overall out of virginia tech. Minnesota had already used its first two picks on catchers before turning to the mound, and renfrow gives them a right-hander who showed real consistency in college.
he posted a 4.64 era over 73 2/3 innings in his final season, but he also delivered a career-best 10.8 strikeouts per nine innings. His fastball has reached 97 mph, and at virginia tech he liked to attack hitters with it up in the zone.
renfrow described himself this way: “it was a lot of fun getting to know the twins organization and growing a relationship with them. We had many great conversations and definitely felt good going to the draft! After talking with them i knew they were a quality organization and they made me feel really good.
i’m an extremely competitive pitcher that loves to attack the zone and use a five pitch mix that keeps hitters off balance. Being a friday night starter since my freshman year has taught that consistency, discipline, and maturity in your preparation is the key of being successful.”
his college track record suggests a pretty steady arm. He was durable across three seasons and produced similar numbers from the moment he arrived on campus through the end of his career. If minnesota can sharpen the command, he has the look of a mid-rotation starter down the line.
i also checked in with tanner schobel, the former virginia tech infielder now at triple-a st. Paul, and he had good things to say about his fellow hokie. Schobel called renfrow a “great dude” and said his fastball has “good life.”
minnesota then went back to the right-handed pitching well at no. 79 overall and made its lone high school selection of the draft, taking ethan wachsmann. A wake forest commit, wachsmann is the one player in this class the twins are essentially paying to bypass college baseball.
he said the twins were on him for a while before draft day. “The draft process started with them coming to multiple of my games throughout the spring.
then having zoom meetings along with a meeting at the combine. I honestly didn’t have much of an expectation going into the draft of a team that would take me.”
wachsmann already brings serious velocity. He said, “as a pitcher i bring a heater up to 100 mph and room for more improvement, along with three separate breaking pitches that i believe can be improved upon greatly.
i’ve hit triple digits multiple times now and still think there’s room for more. I hope to develop my command of off-speed pitches most at the next level.”
he’s a project, but a loud one. Wachsmann comes from the same colorado high school as kevin gausman, and his fastball is already the calling card.
his curveball is his best off-speed pitch right now, though when the heater is touching triple digits in high school, everything in the mix plays. The next step is obvious: better control, better feel, and a deeper understanding of pitching instead of just overpowering hitters.
the twins closed out this run with tcu right-hander tommy lapour at no. 107 overall. Lapour, who also spent a season at wichita state, brings a wrestling background to the table, putting him in the same mold as louie varland and luke keaschall before him. He credited head coach kirk saarloos for helping him settle in at tcu, and after his debut season there he posted a 3.09 era.
lapour’s 2026 season was shortened by elbow soreness, and he talked about that experience during our conversation. He can reach 101 mph and pitches with the kind of bulldog edge that fits the twins’ recent crop of power arms. He also said he’s looking forward to working with minnesota’s pitching coaches, pointing to their development track record.
and yes, he’s already thinking about life in minnesota beyond baseball. Lapour said he has friends in the area, but he’s never caught a muskie or walleye and wants to check that off his list on the road to the majors.
in other news...
cubs fans cant believe what live tv caught at wrigley
a routine afternoon at wrigley field turned into the kind of broadcast moment that can hijack a game thread in seconds, as a cubs fan in the crowd drew immediate attention during minnesotas visit to chicago. The scene played out against a backdrop of actual baseball, with ryan jeffers providing the big swing for the twins and bailey ober handling his business on the mound.
what made the moment travel so quickly was the way it was caught on live tv, turning one fans wardrobe choice into a social-media talking point almost instantly. Screenshots began circulating online and the reactions came fast, with disbelief and jokes piling up while the game itself kept moving along in the background. [Read more ????]
two twins are running out of time in wild card push
with the twins still within striking distance of a wild card spot, every roster decision is starting to carry a little more weight, and that has put tristan gray and austin martin in a precarious place. Gray has not given the club much at either end of the game compared with ryan kreidler, while martins bat has cooled badly after a strong start, leaving minnesota to weigh production against the need to keep squeezing value out of the final stretch.
kaelen culpepper is part of that equation, too, once he gets past a second glute injury stint on the injured list and is ready to be recalled. If that timeline lines up the way the twins hope, the club could soon have to decide whether gray or martin is the odd man out, with a trip to triple-a st. Paul very much on the table depending on how the next few days unfold. [Read more ????]
twins rotation anxiety just took a brutal turn
the twins rotation picture took another hit this week, with the club confirming that mick abel and david festa are both dealing with injuries that have thinned out the group available to derek shelton. Festa has been out since spring training because of a right shoulder and tricep issue, while abels path has been interrupted by a right elbow injury that led to surgery on june 1.
for a team trying to stay in the playoff mix, the timing is rough and the need is obvious. Minnesota already has little margin for error on the mound, and the latest setback only sharpens the question of whether the front office has to shop for starting pitching help before the trade deadline. [Read more ????] |
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| Shop Until You Drop At This Massive Massachusetts Flea Market With Hundreds Of M |
| Posted on Monday, July 20 @ 00:01:10 PDT (22 reads) | |
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If shopping were an olympic sport, the grafton flea market in grafton, massachusetts would be the training facility where champions are made.
this sprawling marketplace covers more than thirteen acres and hosts hundreds of merchants selling everything from genuine antiques to items that are technically just old, and your job is to tell the difference while having the time of your life.
welcome to treasure-hunting paradise where 13.5 acres of possibilities await your discovery and your wallet’s demise. Photo credit: yesenia sbtr the phrase “shop until you drop” gets thrown around casually, but this place takes it literally.
you will walk miles through vendor rows, carry increasingly heavy bags of purchases, and eventually need to sit down and question your life choices while eating something fried.
it’s glorious.
operating seasonally when new england weather cooperates, typically from spring through fall, the market gives you months to perfect your treasure-hunting skills and empty your wallet in the most satisfying way possible.
this isn’t a quick in-and-out shopping trip where you grab what you need and leave.
this is a commitment, a marathon rather than a sprint, and you need to prepare accordingly.
comfortable shoes are non-negotiable unless you enjoy foot pain, which would be weird but we’re not judging.
white tents shelter treasures while shoppers hunt through bins like archaeologists on the world’s most affordable dig site. Photo credit: stanley strycharz the hundreds of merchants here create an ecosystem of commerce that’s fascinating to observe and even more fun to participate in.
each vendor brings their own specialty, personality, and approach to selling, making every booth a unique experience.
some merchants are professional dealers who travel the flea market circuit, bringing high-quality antiques and collectibles with the expertise to back up their pricing.
others are enthusiastic amateurs, clearing out estates or turning their collecting hobby into a side business, often with more flexible pricing and interesting stories about their items.
the furniture selection is extensive enough that you could furnish an entire house here if you had a truck and enough determination.
dining tables that have hosted decades of family meals, bedroom sets from eras when furniture was built to last, quirky accent pieces that add character to any room, and enough chairs to seat a small army.
colorful vintage lamps clustered together like a rainbow convention, each one ready to illuminate your questionable decorating choices. Photo credit: gabriel diaz watching people try to figure out logistics of getting large furniture home is entertainment in itself, with creative problem-solving and occasional physics-defying attempts at fitting things into vehicles.
vintage clothing fills multiple vendor spaces, offering fashion from decades past at prices that make retail stores look ridiculous.
leather jackets with actual character and patina, denim that’s been properly broken in, dresses from when people dressed up for everything including grocery shopping, and accessories that complete any outfit.
you can build an entire wardrobe here for what you’d spend on a few items at the mall, and you’ll look infinitely more interesting.
the jewelry selection ranges from fun costume pieces to serious vintage and antique items with genuine value.
brooches, necklaces, rings, earrings, and bracelets representing decades of fashion and craftsmanship.
clothing racks overflow with second chances at fashion, where yesterday’s wardrobe becomes today’s vintage statement piece for pennies. Photo credit: charles marc (the good man) some pieces are clearly just fun accessories, while others are investment-quality items that happen to be beautiful enough to wear.
learning to spot the difference is part of the education you’ll receive here.
tools attract a devoted following of people who appreciate quality implements that were built to last.
vintage hand tools with wooden handles worn smooth by years of use, power tools from when manufacturers cared about durability, and specialized equipment for tasks you didn’t know existed.
the tool section is where you’ll overhear the most interesting conversations, with people debating the merits of different brands and eras with the passion usually reserved for sports or politics.
books are everywhere, because apparently everyone in massachusetts has been cleaning out their shelves and bringing the results here.
earring displays tower like jewelry skyscrapers, offering enough sparkle to accessorize every outfit until the next ice age. Photo credit: yesenia sbtr first editions for serious collectors, vintage paperbacks with cover art that’s often better than the actual content, reference books about every topic imaginable, and enough cookbooks to keep you trying new recipes until you’re old and gray.
there are also magazines, old newspapers, postcards, and other paper items that document history in ways that digital archives never quite capture.
vinyl records have experienced such a resurgence that multiple vendors specialize in them, offering everything from rare jazz pressings to classic rock albums.
the ritual of flipping through record bins is meditative and addictive, with the possibility of finding something amazing keeping you going through box after box.
even if you don’t own a turntable yet, you might start collecting anyway because those album covers are legitimate art.
home décor items fill booth after booth with everything needed to make a house feel like a home.
shoes arranged on blankets like a footwear buffet, from practical sneakers to fancy loafers that have stories to tell. Photo credit: yesenia sbtr lamps in styles ranging from elegant to entertainingly bizarre, mirrors that add light and dimension to rooms, wall art representing various levels of artistic merit, and decorative objects that serve no purpose except sparking joy.
the line between tasteful and tacky is subjective anyway, and if that ceramic rooster makes you happy, who cares what anyone else thinks?
kitchen items range from practical everyday tools to specialized gadgets that do one very specific thing.
vintage appliances that still work perfectly, mixing bowls in cheerful colors, serving platters for entertaining, and utensils for every possible cooking task.
you’ll find items your grandmother used and modern conveniences being resold, often at the same booth, creating interesting juxtapositions of culinary history.
glassware and pottery require careful examination, with fragile items demanding gentle handling and good lighting to spot any damage.
vendors line the open-air market under blue skies, creating the perfect sunday morning treasure-hunting conditions for bargain enthusiasts. Photo credit: ang depression glass in various patterns, vintage pyrex that’s somehow become collectible and expensive, ceramic pieces from elegant to whimsical, and drinking glasses with logos from businesses that closed decades ago.
collectors get very serious about condition and rarity, while casual shoppers just look for pretty things that aren’t chipped.
sports memorabilia attracts fans and collectors, with items representing teams, players, and eras of athletic achievement.
baseball cards in protective sleeves, signed items with varying levels of authentication, vintage pennants and banners, and equipment that may or may not have been used in actual games but looks cool regardless.
toys and games trigger nostalgia so powerful it’s almost painful, reminding you of simpler times when entertainment didn’t require electricity or internet connections.
action figures from franchises that defined childhoods, board games with pieces that are miraculously complete, dolls that are either adorable or creepy depending on your perspective, and electronic toys that seemed high-tech at the time and now seem charmingly primitive.
stacks of dvds bring back memories of blockbuster nights, now available for less than your morning coffee habit. Photo credit: elaine christensen collectibles span every category imaginable, from vintage advertising signs to old lunch boxes to figurines that were mass-produced but are now somehow valuable.
the collectibles market is mysterious and ever-changing, with items that were worthless last year suddenly becoming hot commodities because of some trend or cultural moment.
staying on top of what’s valuable requires dedication, but sometimes the joy is just in finding something that speaks to you regardless of market value.
the outdoor setting means you’re shopping in nature, which sounds more romantic than it sometimes is.
beautiful days make the experience magical, with perfect weather and sunshine creating ideal conditions for treasure hunting.
less beautiful days test your commitment and separate casual shoppers from true believers who won’t let a little weather stop them.
plush toys and crystal glassware share table space in delightful chaos, proving that stuffed animals and fine china can coexist. Photo credit: fred braddock braddock dressing appropriately for conditions is important, as is bringing water and snacks because you’ll be out here for hours.
the market layout is generally logical, with vendors arranged in rows that you can systematically work through if you’re organized or randomly explore if you prefer spontaneity.
some shoppers have detailed strategies, covering every aisle methodically to ensure nothing is missed.
others wander freely, trusting serendipity to guide them to whatever they’re meant to find.
both approaches work, and you’ll probably develop your own system based on your personality and shopping style.
bringing a wagon or cart is smart planning, not a sign that you have a shopping problem.
handbags lined up like leather soldiers, each one ready to carry your essentials with more style than function. Photo credit: jim r. It’s just being realistic about the fact that you’ll probably buy more than you can comfortably carry, and there’s no shame in being prepared.
some people bring folding hand trucks, which is next-level planning that deserves respect.
the vendor community is part of what makes this market special, with merchants who are often as interesting as their merchandise.
many vendors return season after season, developing regular customers and becoming familiar faces.
these relationships add depth to the shopping experience, transforming it from simple commerce into something more personal and meaningful.
keychains and trinkets displayed on flowered tablecloths, because even your car keys deserve a personality upgrade for cheap. Photo credit: jeymarie snow new vendors bring fresh inventory and perspectives, keeping the market from becoming stale or predictable.
you never know what you’ll find because the inventory is constantly changing based on what vendors acquire and what sells.
negotiation is part of the culture here, though it should be done respectfully and reasonably.
vendors need to make money, but there’s often some flexibility in pricing, especially if you’re buying multiple items or shopping late in the day.
the key is being friendly and fair, not trying to insult someone by offering ridiculously low amounts.
tables overflow with random treasures from action figures to electronics, creating a beautiful mess of potential discoveries everywhere. Photo credit: yesenia sbtr cash gives you more negotiating power and ensures you won’t miss out on something because of payment method issues, though many vendors now accept digital payments.
setting a budget before you arrive is wise, though sticking to it is another matter entirely when you’re surrounded by amazing finds.
the early bird approach has advantages, with the most dedicated shoppers arriving right when gates open to get first pick of everything.
if you’re hunting for specific items or categories that sell quickly, early arrival is strategic.
but shopping later in the afternoon has its own benefits, with smaller crowds and vendors who might be more motivated to make deals rather than pack everything back up.
purple amethyst geodes split open to reveal nature’s sparkly secrets, making your rock collection suddenly seem very inadequate indeed. Photo credit: james maloney food vendors provide necessary sustenance for your shopping marathon, offering coffee to fuel your morning and lunch options when you realize you’ve been shopping for hours.
taking breaks to eat and rest isn’t weakness, it’s strategy, giving you time to review your purchases and plan your next moves.
plus, making decisions on an empty stomach is never a good idea, whether you’re shopping or doing anything else important.
the market attracts an interesting mix of people, from serious collectors on specific missions to casual browsers just enjoying the atmosphere.
everyone’s welcome and everyone has equal access to the merchandise, which is part of the democratic appeal of flea markets in general.
a vendor’s setup showcasing everything from teacups to candles, proving one person’s attic cleanout is another’s shopping paradise. Photo credit: kristina thorne you might be shopping next to an antique dealer looking for inventory or a college student furnishing their first apartment, and you both have the same chance of finding something amazing.
families make this a regular activity, teaching kids about value, negotiation, and the satisfaction of finding treasures rather than just buying new things.
it’s quality time that doesn’t involve screens, which is increasingly rare and valuable.
couples either bond over shared treasure hunting or discover fundamental incompatibilities about shopping styles, making this an interesting relationship test.
the seasonal schedule creates anticipation and makes each visit feel special rather than routine.
pants draped over racks like fabric flags, offering affordable wardrobe solutions for those who appreciate pre-loved denim options. Photo credit: charles marc (the good man) you can’t take it for granted when it’s only available part of the year, so you appreciate it more when it’s here.
as the season progresses, the market takes on different characteristics based on weather, inventory changes, and the approaching end of the season.
the market has become a destination that draws visitors from throughout the region and beyond, with people planning trips specifically to experience this massive marketplace.
it’s worth traveling for, offering scale and variety that smaller local flea markets simply cannot match.
before you embark on your shopping marathon, check the grafton flea market’s website for current hours, special events, and any important updates about the season.
use this map to navigate to this massive marketplace where hundreds of merchants are ready to help you shop until you literally cannot shop anymore.
where: upton st, grafton, ma 01519
your car will be full, your wallet will be lighter, and your arms will be tired, but those treasures you found will make it all worthwhile when you get them home and figure out where everything’s going to fit. |
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| Big Timber by Bertrand W. Sinclair |
| Posted on Monday, July 20 @ 00:01:10 PDT (15 reads) | |
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Produced by audrey longhurst and the online distributed proofreading team.
[illustration: she, too, had seen monohan seated on the after deck. Frontispiece.]
big timber
a story of the northwest
by bertrand w. Sinclair
with frontispiece
by douglas duer
1916
contents
chapter
i. Green fields and pastures new
ii. Mr. Abbey arrives
iii. Halfway point
iv. A foretaste of things to come
v. The toll of big timber
vi. The dignity (?) Of toil
vii. Some neighborly assistance
viii. Durance vile
ix. Jack fyfe’s camp
x. One way out
xi. The plunge
xii. And so they were married
xiii. In which events mark time
xiv. A close call and a new acquaintance xv. A resurrection
xvi. The crisis
xvii. In which there is a further clash xviii. The opening gun
xix. Free as the wind
xx. Echoes
xxi. An unexpected meeting
xxii. The fire behind the smoke
xxiii. A ride by night
xxiv. “Out of the night that covers me”
chapter i
green fields and pastures new
the imperial limited lurched with a swing around the last hairpin curve of the yale canyon. Ahead opened out a timbered valley,–narrow on its floor, flanked with bold mountains, but nevertheless a valley,–down which the rails lay straight and shining on an easy grade. The river that for a hundred miles had boiled and snarled parallel to the tracks, roaring through the granite sluice that cuts the cascade range, took a wider channel and a leisurely flow. The mad haste had fallen from it as haste falls from one who, with time to spare, sees his destination near at hand; and the turgid fraser had time to spare, for now it was but threescore miles to tidewater. So the great river moved placidly–as an old man moves when all the headlong urge of youth is spent and his race near run.
on the river side of the first coach behind the diner, estella benton nursed her round chin in the palm of one hand, leaning her elbow on the window sill. It was a relief to look over a widening valley instead of a bare-walled gorge all scarred with slides, to see wooded heights lift green in place of barren cliffs, to watch banks of fern massed against the right of way where for a day and a night parched sagebrush, brown tumble-weed, and such scant growth as flourished in the arid uplands of interior british columbia had streamed in barren monotony, hot and dry and still.
she was near the finish of her journey. Pensively she considered the end of the road. How would it be there? What manner of folk and country? Between her past mode of life and the new that she was hurrying toward lay the vast gulf of distance, of custom, of class even. It was bound to be crude, to be full of inconveniences and uncouthness. Her brother’s letters had partly prepared her for that. Involuntarily she shrank from it, had been shrinking from it by fits and starts all the way, as flowers that thrive best in shady nooks shrink from hot sun and rude winds. Not that estella benton was particularly flower-like. On the contrary she was a healthy, vigorous-bodied young woman, scarcely to be described as beautiful, yet undeniably attractive. Obviously a daughter of the well-to-do, one of that american type which flourishes in families to which american politicians unctuously refer as the backbone of the nation. Outwardly, gazing riverward through the dusty pane, she bore herself with utmost serenity. Inwardly she was full of misgivings.
four days of lonely travel across a continent, hearing the drumming clack of car wheels and rail joint ninety-six hours on end, acutely conscious that every hour of the ninety-six put its due quota of miles between the known and the unknown, may be either an adventure, a bore, or a calamity, depending altogether upon the individual point of view, upon conditioning circumstances and previous experience.
estella benton’s experience along such lines was chiefly a blank and the conditioning circumstances of her present journey were somber enough to breed thought that verged upon the melancholy. Save for a natural buoyancy of spirit she might have wept her way across north america. She had no tried standard by which to measure life’s values for she had lived her twenty-two years wholly shielded from the human maelstrom, fed, clothed, taught, an untried product of home and schools. Her head was full of university lore, things she had read, a smattering of the arts and philosophy, liberal portions of academic knowledge, all tagged and sorted like parcels on a shelf to be reached when called for. Buried under these externalities the ego of her lay unaroused, an incalculable quantity.
all of which is merely by way of stating that miss estella benton was a young woman who had grown up quite complacently in that station of life in which–to quote the philistines–it had pleased god to place her, and that chance had somehow, to her astonished dismay, contrived to thrust a spoke in the smooth-rolling wheels of destiny. Or was it destiny? She had begun to think about that, to wonder if a lot that she had taken for granted as an ordered state of things was not, after all, wholly dependent upon chance. She had danced and sung and played lightheartedly accepting a certain standard of living, a certain position in a certain set, a pleasantly ordered home life, as her birthright, a natural heritage. She had dwelt upon her ultimate destiny in her secret thoughts as foreshadowed by that of other girls she knew. The prince would come, to put it in a nutshell. He would woo gracefully. They would wed. They would be delightfully happy. Except for the matter of being married, things would move along the same pleasant channels.
just so. But a broken steering knuckle on a heavy touring car set things in a different light–many things. She learned then that death is no respecter of persons, that a big income may be lived to its limit with nothing left when the brain force which commanded it ceases to function. Her father produced perhaps fifteen to twenty thousand dollars a year in his brokerage business, and he had saved nothing. Thus at one stroke she was put on an equal footing with the stenographer in her father’s office. Scarcely equal either, for the stenographer earned her bread and was technically equipped for the task, whereas estella benton had no training whatsoever, except in social usage. She did not yet fully realize just what had overtaken her. Things had happened so swiftly, to ruthlessly, that she still verged upon the incredulous. Habit clung fast. But she had begun to think, to try and establish some working relation between herself and things as she found them. She had discovered already that certain theories of human relations are not soundly established in fact.
she turned at last in her seat. The limited’s whistle had shrilled for a stop. At the next stop–she wondered what lay in store for her just beyond the next stop. While she dwelt mentally upon this, her hands were gathering up some few odds and ends of her belongings on the berth.
across the aisle a large, smooth-faced young man watched her with covert admiration. When she had settled back with bag and suitcase locked and strapped on the opposite seat and was hatted and gloved, he leaned over and addressed her genially.
“getting off at hopyard? Happen to be going out to roaring springs?”
miss benton’s gray eyes rested impersonally on the top of his head, traveled slowly down over the trim front of his blue serge to the polished tan oxfords on his feet, and there was not in eyes or on countenance the slightest sign that she saw or heard him. The large young man flushed a vivid red.
miss benton was partly amused, partly provoked. The large young man had been her vis-a-vis at dinner the day before and at breakfast that morning. He had evinced a yearning for conversation each time, but it had been diplomatically confined to salt and other condiments, the weather and the scenery. Miss benton had no objection to young men in general, quite the contrary. But she did not consider it quite the thing to countenance every amiable stranger.
within a few minutes the porter came for her things, and the blast of the limited’s whistle warned her that it was time to leave the train. Ten minutes later the limited was a vanishing object down an aisle slashed through a forest of great trees, and miss estella benton stood on the plank platform of hopyard station. Northward stretched a flat, unlovely vista of fire-blackened stumps. Southward, along track and siding, ranged a single row of buildings, a grocery store, a shanty with a huge sign proclaiming that it was a bank, dwelling, hotel and blacksmith shop whence arose the clang of hammered iron. A dirt road ran between town and station, with hitching posts at which farmers’ nags stood dispiritedly in harness.
to the westerner such spots are common enough; he sees them not as fixtures, but as places in a stage of transformation. By every side track and telegraph station on every transcontinental line they spring up, centers of productive activity, growing into orderly towns and finally attaining the dignity of cities. To her, fresh from trim farmsteads and rural communities that began setting their houses in order when washington wintered at valley forge, hopyard stood forth sordid and unkempt. And as happens to many a one in like case, a wave of sickening loneliness engulfed her, and she eyed the speeding limited as one eyes a departing friend.
“how could one live in a place like this?” She asked herself.
but she had neither slave of the lamp at her beck, nor any magic carpet to transport her elsewhere. At any rate, she reflected, hopyard was not her abiding-place. She hoped that her destination would prove more inviting.
beside the platform were ranged two touring cars. Three or four of those who had alighted entered these. Their baggage was piled over the hoods, buckled on the running boards. The driver of one car approached her. “Hot springs?” He inquired tersely.
she affirmed this, and he took her baggage, likewise her trunk check when she asked how that article would be transported to the lake. She had some idea of route and means, from her brother’s written instruction, but she thought he might have been there to meet her. At least he would be at the springs.
so she was whirled along a country road, jolted in the tonneau between a fat man from calgary and a rheumatic dame on her way to take hot sulphur baths at st. Allwoods. She passed seedy farmhouses, primitive in construction, and big barns with moss plentifully clinging on roof and gable. The stretch of charred stumps was left far behind, but in every field of grain and vegetable and root great butts of fir and cedar rose amid the crops. Her first definitely agreeable impression of this land, which so far as she knew must be her home, was of those huge and numerous stumps contending with crops for possession of the fields. Agreeable, because it came to her forcibly that it must be a sturdy breed of men and women, possessed of brawn and fortitude and high courage, who made their homes here. Back in her country, once beyond suburban areas, the farms lay like the squares of a chess board, trim and orderly, tamely subdued to agriculture. Here, at first hand, she saw how man attacked the forest and conquered it. But the conquest was incomplete, for everywhere stood those stubborn roots, six and eight and ten feet across, contending with man for its primal heritage, the soil, perishing slowly as perish the proud remnants of a conquered race.
then the cleared land came to a stop against heavy timber. The car whipped a curve and drove into what the fat man from calgary facetiously remarked upon as the tall uncut. Miss benton sighted up these noble columns to where a breeze droned in the tops, two hundred feet above. Through a gap in the timber she saw mountains, peaks that stood bold as the rockies, capped with snow. For two days she had been groping for a word to define, to sum up the feeling which had grown upon her, had been growing upon her steadily, as the amazing scroll of that four-day journey unrolled. She found it now, a simple word, one of the simplest in our mother tongue–bigness. Bigness in its most ample sense,–that was the dominant note. Immensities of distance, vastness of rolling plain, sheer bulk of mountain, rivers that one crossed, and after a day’s journey crossed again, still far from source or confluence. And now this unending sweep of colossal trees!
at first she had been overpowered with a sense of insignificance utterly foreign to her previous experience. But now she discovered with an agreeable sensation of surprise she could vibrate to such a keynote. And while she communed with this pleasant discovery the car sped down a straight stretch and around a corner and stopped short to unload sacks of mail at a weather-beaten yellow edifice, its windows displaying indiscriminately indian baskets, groceries, and hardware. Northward opened a broad scope of lake level, girt about with tremendous peaks whose lower slopes were banked with thick forest.
somewhere distant along that lake shore was to be her home. As the car rolled over the four hundred yards between store and white-and-green st. Allwoods, she wondered if charlie would be there to meet her. She was weary of seeing strange faces, of being directed, of being hustled about.
but he was not there, and she recalled that he never had been notable for punctuality. Five years is a long time. She expected to find him changed–for the better, in certain directions. He had promised to be there; but, in this respect, time evidently had wrought no appreciable transformation.
she registered, was assigned a room, and ate luncheon to the melancholy accompaniment of a three-man orchestra struggling vainly with bach in an alcove off the dining room. After that she began to make inquiries. Neither clerk nor manager knew aught of charlie benton. They were both in their first season there. They advised her to ask the storekeeper.
“macdougal will know,” they were agreed. “He knows everybody around here, and everything that goes on.”
the storekeeper, a genial, round-bodied scotchman, had the information she desired.
“charlie benton?” Said he. “No, he’ll be at his camp up the lake. He was in three or four days back. I mind now, he said he’d be down thursday; that’s to-day. But he isn’t here yet, or his boat’d be by the wharf yonder.”
“are there any passenger boats that call there?” She asked.
macdougal shook his head.
“not reg’lar. There’s a gas boat goes t’ the head of the lake now an’ then. She’s away now. Ye might hire a launch. Jack fyfe’s camp tender’s about to get under way. But ye wouldna care to go on her, i’m thinkin’. She’ll be loaded wi’ lumberjacks–every man drunk as a lord, most like. Maybe benton’ll be in before night.”
she went back to the hotel. But st. Allwoods, in its dual capacity of health-and-pleasure resort, was a gilded shell, making a brave outward show, but capitalizing chiefly lake, mountains, and hot, mineral springs. Her room was a bare, cheerless place. She did not want to sit and ponder. Too much real grief hovered in the immediate background of her life. It is not always sufficient to be young and alive. To sit still and think–that way lay tears and despondency. So she went out and walked down the road and out upon the wharf which jutted two hundred yards into the lake.
it stood deserted save for a lone fisherman on the outer end, and an elderly couple that preceded her. Halfway out she passed a slip beside which lay moored a heavily built, fifty-foot boat, scarred with usage, a squat and powerful craft. Lakeward stretched a smooth, unrippled surface. Overhead patches of white cloud drifted lazily. Where the shadows from these lay, the lake spread gray and lifeless. Where the afternoon sun rested, it touched the water with gleams of gold and pale, delicate green. A white-winged yacht lay offshore, her sails in slack folds. A lump of an island lifted two miles beyond, all cliffs and little, wooded hills. And the mountains surrounding in a giant ring seemed to shut the place away from all the world. For sheer wild, rugged beauty, roaring lake surpassed any spot she had ever seen. Its quiet majesty, its air of unbroken peace soothed and comforted her, sick with hurry and swift-footed events.
she stood for a time at the outer wharf end, mildly interested when the fisherman drew up a two-pound trout, wondering a little at her own subtle changes of mood. Her surrounding played upon her like a virtuoso on his violin. And this was something that she did not recall as a trait in her own character. She had never inclined to the volatile–perhaps because until the motor accident snuffed out her father’s life she had never dealt in anything but superficial emotions.
after a time she retraced her steps. Nearing the halfway slip, she saw that a wagon from which goods were being unloaded blocked the way. A dozen men were stringing in from the road, bearing bundles and bags and rolls of blankets. They were big, burly men, carrying themselves with a reckless swing, with trousers cut off midway between knee and ankle so that they reached just below the upper of their high-topped, heavy, laced boots. Two or three were singing. All appeared unduly happy, talking loudly, with deep laughter. One threw down his burden and executed a brief clog. Splinters flew where the sharp calks bit into the wharf planking, and his companions applauded.
it dawned upon stella benton that these might be jack fyfe’s drunken loggers, and she withdrew until the way should be clear, vitally interested because her brother was a logging man, and wondering if these were the human tools he used in his business, if these were the sort of men with whom he associated. They were a rough lot–and some were very drunk. With the manifestations of liquor she had but the most shadowy acquaintance. But she would have been little less than a fool not to comprehend this.
then they began filing down the gangway to the boat’s deck. One slipped, and came near falling into the water, whereat his fellows howled gleefully. Precariously they negotiated the slanting passage. All but one: he sat him down at the slip-head on his bundle and began a quavering chant. The teamster imperturbably finished his unloading, two men meanwhile piling the goods aboard.
the wagon backed out, and the way was clear, save for the logger sitting on his blankets, wailing his lugubrious song. From below his fellows urged him to come along. A bell clanged in the pilot house. The exhaust of a gas engine began to sputter through the boat’s side. From her after deck a man hailed the logger sharply, and when his call was unheeded, he ran lightly up the slip. A short, squarely-built man he was, light on his feet as a dancing master.
he spoke now with authority, impatiently.
“hurry aboard, mike; we’re waiting.”
the logger rose, waved his hand airily, and turned as if to retreat down the wharf. The other caught him by the arm and spun him face to the slip.
“come on, slater,” he said evenly. “I have no time to fool around.”
the logger drew back his fist. He was a fairly big man. But if he had in mind to deal a blow, it failed, for the other ducked and caught him with both arms around the middle. He lifted the logger clear of the wharf, hoisted him to the level of his breast, and heaved him down the slip as one would throw a sack of bran.
the man’s body bounced on the incline, rolled, slid, tumbled, till at length he brought up against the boat’s guard, and all that saved him a ducking was the prompt extension of several stout arms, which clutched and hauled him to the flush after deck. He sat on his haunches, blinking. Then he laughed. So did the man at the top of the slip and the lumberjacks clustered on the boat. Homeric laughter, as at some surpassing jest. But the roar of him who had taken that inglorious descent rose loudest of all, an explosive, “har–har–har!”
he clambered unsteadily to his feet, his mouth expanded in an amiable grin.
“hey, jack,” he shouted. “Maybe y’ c’n throw m’ blankets down too, while y’r at it.”
the man at the slip-head caught up the roll, poised it high, and cast it from him with a quick twist of his body. The woolen missile flew like a well-put shot and caught its owner fair in the breast, tumbling him backwards on the deck–and the homeric laughter rose in double strength. Then the boat began to swing, and the man ran down and leaped the widening space as she drew away from her mooring.
stella benton watched the craft gather way, a trifle shocked, her breath coming a little faster. The most deadly blows she had ever seen struck were delivered in a more subtle, less virile mode, a curl of the lip, an inflection of the voice. These were a different order of beings. This, she sensed was man in a more primitive aspect, man with the conventional bark stripped clean off him. And she scarcely knew whether to be amused or frightened when she reflected that among such her life would presently lie. Charlie had written that she would find things and people a trifle rougher than she was used to. She could well believe that. But–they were picturesque ruffians.
her interested gaze followed the camp tender as it swung around the wharf-end, and so her roaming eyes were led to another craft drawing near. This might be her brother’s vessel. She went back to the outer landing to see.
two men manned this boat. As she ranged alongside the piles, one stood forward, and the other aft with lines to make fast. She cast a look at each. They were prototypes of the rude crew but now departed, brown-faced, flannel-shirted, shod with calked boots, unshaven for days, typical men of the woods. But as she turned to go, the man forward and almost directly below her looked her full in the face.
“stell!”
she leaned over the rail.
“charlie benton–for heaven’s sake.”
they stared at each other.
“well,” he laughed at last. “If it were not for your mouth and eyes, stell, i wouldn’t have known you. Why, you’re all grown up.”
he clambered to the wharf level and kissed her. The rough stubble of his beard pricked her tender skin and she drew back.
“my word, charlie, you certainly ought to shave,” she observed with sisterly frankness. “I didn’t know you until you spoke. I’m awfully glad to see you, but you do need _some one_ to look after you.”
benton laughed tolerantly.
“perhaps. But, my dear girl, a fellow doesn’t get anywhere on his appearance in this country. When a fellow’s bucking big timber, he shucks off a lot of things he used to think were quite essential. By jove, you’re a picture, stell. If i hadn’t been expecting to see you, i wouldn’t have known you.”
“i doubt if i should have known you either,” she returned drily.
chapter ii
mr. Abbey arrives
stella accompanied her brother to the store, where he gave an order for sundry goods. Then they went to the hotel to see if her trunks had arrived. Within a few yards of the fence which enclosed the grounds of st. Allwoods a man hailed benton, and drew him a few steps aside. Stella walked slowly on, and presently her brother joined her.
the baggage wagon had brought the trunks, and when she had paid her bill, they were delivered at the outer wharf-end, where also arrived at about the same time a miscellaneous assortment of supplies from the store and a japanese with her two handbags. So far as miss estella benton could see, she was about to embark on the last stage of her journey.
“how soon will you start?” She inquired, when the last of the stuff was stowed aboard the little steamer.
“twenty minutes or so,” benton answered. “Say,” he went on casually, “have you got any money, stell? I owe a fellow thirty dollars, and i left the bank roll and my check book at camp.”
miss benton drew the purse from her hand bag and gave it to him. He pocketed it and went off down the wharf, with the brief assurance that he would be gone only a minute or so.
the minute, however, lengthened to nearly an hour, and sam davis had his blow-off valve hissing, and stella benton was casting impatient glances shoreward before charlie strolled leisurely back.
“you needn’t fire up quite so strong, sam,” he called down. “We won’t start for a couple of hours yet.”
“sufferin’ moses!” Davis poked his fiery thatch out from the engine room. “I might ‘a’ known better’n to sweat over firin’ up. You generally manage to make about three false starts to one get-away.”
benton laughed good-naturedly and turned away.
“do you usually allow your men to address you in that impertinent way?” Miss benton desired to know.
charlie looked blank for a second. Then he smiled, and linking his arm affectionately in hers, drew her off along the wharf, chuckling to himself.
“my dear girl,” said he, “you’d better not let sam davis or any of sam’s kind hear you pass remarks like that. Sam would say exactly what he thought about such matters to his boss, or king george, or to the first lady of the land, regardless. Sabe? We’re what you’ll call primitive out here, yet. You want to forget that master and man business, the servant proposition, and proper respect, and all that rot. Outside the english colonies in one or two big towns, that attitude doesn’t go in b.C. People in this neck of the woods stand pretty much on the same class footing, and you’ll get in bad and get me in bad if you don’t remember that. I’ve got ten loggers working for me in the woods. Whether they’re impertinent or profane cuts no figure so long as they handle the job properly. They’re men, you understand, not servants. None of them would hesitate to tell me what he thinks about me or anything i do. If i don’t like it, i can fight him or fire him. They won’t stand for the sort of airs you’re accustomed to. They have the utmost respect for a woman, but a man is merely a two-legged male human like themselves, whether he wears mackinaws or broadcloth, has a barrel of money of none at all. This will seem odd to you at first, but you’ll get used to it. You’ll find things rather different out here.”
“i suppose so,” she agreed. “But it sounds queer. For instance, if one of papa’s clerks or the chauffeur had spoken like that, he’d have been discharged on the spot.”
“the logger’s a different breed,” benton observed drily. “Or perhaps only the same breed manifesting under different conditions. He isn’t servile. He doesn’t have to be.”
“why the delay, though?” She reverted to the point. “I thought you were all ready to go.”
“i am,” charlie enlightened. “But while i was at the store just now, paul abbey ‘phoned from vancouver to know if there was an up-lake boat in. His people are big lumber guns here, and it will accommodate him and won’t hurt me to wait a couple of hours and drop him off at their camp. I’ve got more or less business dealings with them, and it doesn’t hurt to be neighborly. He’d have to hire a gas-boat otherwise. Besides, paul’s a pretty good head.”
this, of course, being strictly her brother’s business, stella forbore comment. She was weary of travel, tired with the tension of eternally being shunted across distances, anxious to experience once more that sense of restful finality which comes with a journey’s end. But, in a measure her movements were no longer dependent upon her own volition.
they walked slowly along the broad roadway which bordered the lake until they came to a branchy maple, and here they seated themselves on the grassy turf in the shadow of the tree.
“tell me about yourself,” she said. “How do you like it here, and how are you getting on? Your letters home were always chiefly remarkable for their brevity.”
“there isn’t a great lot to tell,” benton responded. “I’m just beginning to get on my feet. A raw, untried youngster has a lot to learn and unlearn when he hits this tall timber. I’ve been out here five years, and i’m just beginning to realize what i’m equal to and what i’m not. I’m crawling over a hump now that would have been a lot easier if the governor hadn’t come to grief the way he did. He was going to put in some money this fall. But i think i’ll make it, anyway, though it will keep me digging and figuring. I have a contract for delivery of a million feet in september and another contract that i could take if i could see my way clear to finance the thing. I could clean up thirty thousand dollars net in two years if i had more cash to work on. As it is, i have to go slow, or i’d go broke. I’m holding two limits by the skin of my teeth. But i’ve got one good one practically for an annual pittance. If i make delivery on my contract according to schedule it’s plain sailing. That about sizes up my prospects, sis.”
“you speak a language i don’t understand,” she smiled. “What does a million feet mean? And what’s a limit?”
“a limit is one square mile–six hundred and forty acres more or less–of merchantable timber land,” he explained. “We speak of timber as scaling so many board feet. A board foot is one inch thick by twelve inches square. Sound fir timber is worth around seven dollars per thousand board feet in the log, got out of the woods, and boomed in the water ready to tow to the mills. The first limit i got–from the government–will scale around ten million feet. The other two are nearly as good. But i got them from timber speculators, and it’s costing me pretty high. They’re a good spec if i can hang on to them, though.”
“it sounds big,” she commented.
“it _is_ big,” charlie declared, “if i could go at it right. I’ve been trying ever since i got wise to this timber business to make the governor see what a chance there is in it. He was just getting properly impressed with the possibilities when the speed bug got him. He could have trimmed a little here and there at home and put the money to work. Ten thousand dollars would have done the trick, given me a working outfit along with what i’ve got that would have put us both on easy street. However, the poor old chap didn’t get around to it. I suppose, like lots of other business men, when he stopped, everything ran down. According to lander’s figures, there won’t be a thing left when all accounts are squared.”
“don’t talk about it, charlie,” she begged. “It’s too near, and i was through it all.”
“i would have been there too,” benton said. “But, as i told you, i was out of reach of your wire, and by the time i got it, it was all over. I couldn’t have done any good, anyway. There’s no use mourning. One way and another we’ve all got to come to it some day.”
stella looked out over the placid, shimmering surface of roaring lake for a minute. Her grief was dimming with time and distance, and she had all her own young life before her. She found herself drifting from painful memories of her father’s sudden death to a consideration of things present and personal. She found herself wondering critically if this strange, rude land would work as many changes in her as were patent in this bronzed and burly brother.
he had left home a slim, cocksure youngster, who had proved more than a handful for his family before he was half through college, which educational finishing process had come to an abrupt stop before it was complete. He had been a problem that her father and mother had discussed in guarded tones. Sending him west had been a hopeful experiment, and in the west that abounding spirit which manifested itself in one continual round of minor escapades appeared to have found a natural outlet. She recalled that latterly their father had taken to speaking of charlie in accents of pride. He was developing the one ambition that benton senior could thoroughly understand and properly appreciate, the desire to get on, to grasp opportunities, to achieve material success, to make money.
just as her father, on the few occasions when he talked business before her, spoke in a big way of big things as the desirable ultimate, so now charlie spoke, with plans and outlook to match his speech. In her father’s point of view, and in charlie’s now, a man’s personal life did not seem to matter in comparison with getting on and making money. And it was with that personal side of existence that stella benton was now chiefly concerned. She had never been required to adjust herself to an existence that was wholly taken up with getting on to the complete exclusion of everything else. Her work had been to play. She could scarce conceive of any one entirely excluding pleasure and diversion from his or her life. She wondered if charlie had done so. And if not, what ameliorating circumstances, what social outlet, might be found to offset, for her, continued existence in this isolated region of towering woods. So far as her first impressions went, roaring lake appeared to be mostly frequented by lumberjacks addicted to rude speech and strong drink.
“are there many people living around this lake?” She inquired. “It is surely a beautiful spot. If we had this at home, there would be a summer cottage on every hundred yards of shore.”
“be a long time before we get to that stage here,” benton returned. “And scenery in b.C. Is a drug on the market; we’ve got europe backed off the map for tourist attractions, if they only knew it. No, about the only summer home in this locality is the abbey place at cottonwood point. They come up here every summer for two or three months. Otherwise i don’t know of any lilies of the field, barring the hotel people, and they, being purely transient, don’t count. There’s the abbey-monohan outfit with two big logging camps, my outfit, jack fyfe’s, some hand loggers on the east shore, and the r.A.T. At the head of the lake. That’s the population–and roaring lake is forty-two miles long and eight wide.”
“are there any nice girls around?” She asked.
benton grinned widely.
“girls?” Said he. “Not so you could notice. Outside the springs and the hatchery over the way, there isn’t a white woman on the lake except lefty howe’s wife,–lefty’s jack fyfe’s foreman,–and she’s fat and past forty. I told you it was a god-forsaken hole as far as society is concerned, stell.”
“i know,” she said thoughtfully. “But one can scarcely realize such a–such a social blankness, until one actually experiences it. Anyway, i don’t know but i’ll appreciate utter quiet for awhile. But what do you do with yourself when you’re not working?”
“there’s seldom any such time,” he answered. “I tell you, stella, i’ve got a big job on my hands. I’ve got a definite mark to shoot at, and i’m going to make a bull’s-eye in spite of hell and high water. I have no time to play, and there’s no place to play if i had. I don’t intend to muddle along making a pittance like a hand logger. I want a stake; and then it’ll be time to make a splurge in a country where a man can get a run for his money.”
“if that’s the case,” she observed, “i’m likely to be a handicap to you, am i not?”
“lord, no,” he smiled. “I’ll put you to work too, when you get rested up from your trip. You stick with me, sis, and you’ll wear diamonds.”
she laughed with him at this, and leaving the shady maple they walked up to the hotel, where benton proposed that they get a canoe and paddle to where roaring river flowed out of the lake half a mile westward, to kill the time that must elapse before the three-thirty train.
the st. Allwoods’ car was rolling out to hopyard when they came back. By the time benton had turned the canoe over to the boathouse man and reached the wharf, the horn of the returning machine sounded down the road. They waited. The car came to a stop at the abutting wharf. The driver handed two suitcases off the burdened hood of his machine. From out the tonneau clambered a large, smooth-faced young man. He wore an expansive smile in addition to a blue serge suit, white panama, and polished tan oxfords, and he bestowed a hearty greeting upon charlie benton. But his smile suffered eclipse, and a faint flush rose in his round cheeks, when his eyes fell upon benton’s sister.
chapter iii
halfway point
miss benton’s cool, impersonal manner seemed rather to heighten the young man’s embarrassment. Benton, apparently observing nothing amiss, introduced them in an offhand fashion.
“mr. Abbey–my sister.”
mr. Abbey bowed and murmured something that passed for acknowledgment. The three turned up the wharf toward where sam davis had once more got up steam. As they walked, mr. Abbey’s habitual assurance returned, and he directed part of his genial flow of conversation to miss benton. To stella’s inner amusement, however, he did not make any reference to their having been fellow travelers for a day and a half.
presently they were embarked and under way. Charlie fixed a seat for her on the after deck, and went forward to steer, whither he was straightway joined by paul abbey. Miss benton was as well pleased to be alone. She was not sure she should approve of young men who made such crude efforts to scrape acquaintance with women on trains. She was accustomed to a certain amount of formality in such matters. It might perhaps be laid to the “breezy western manner” of which she had heard, except that paul abbey did not impress her as a westerner. He seemed more like a type of young man she had encountered frequently in her own circle. At any rate, she was relieved when he did not remain beside her to emit polite commonplaces. She was quite satisfied to sit by herself and look over the panorama of woods and lake–and wonder more than a little what destiny had in store for her along those silent shores.
the springs fell far behind, became a few white spots against the background of dusky green. Except for the ripples spread by their wake, the water laid oily smooth. Now, a little past four in the afternoon, she began to sense by comparison the great bulk of the western mountains,–locally, the chehalis range,–for the sun was dipping behind the ragged peaks already, and deep shadows stole out from the shore to port. Beneath her feet the screw throbbed, pulsing like an overdriven heart, and sam davis poked his sweaty face now and then through a window to catch a breath of cool air denied him in the small inferno where he stoked the fire box.
the _chickamin_ cleared echo island, and a greater sweep of lake opened out. Here the afternoon wind sprang up, shooting gustily through a gap between the springs and hopyard and ruffling the lake out of its noonday siesta. Ripples, chop, and a growing swell followed each other with that marvellous rapidity common to large bodies of fresh water. It broke the monotony of steady cleaving through dead calm. Stella was a good sailor, and she rather enjoyed it when the _chickamin_ began to lift and yaw off before the following seas that ran up under her fantail stern.
after about an hour’s run, with the south wind beginning to whip the crests of the short seas into white foam, the boat bore in to a landing behind a low point. Here abbey disembarked, after taking the trouble to come aft and shake hands with polite farewell. Standing on the float, hat in hand, he bowed his sleek blond head to stella.
“i hope you’ll like roaring lake, miss benton,” he said, as benton jingled the go-ahead bell. “I tried to persuade charlie to stop over awhile, so you could meet my mother and sister, but he’s in too big a hurry. Hope to have the pleasure of meeting you again soon.”
miss benton parried courteously, a little at a loss to fathom this bland friendliness, and presently the widening space cut off their talk. As the boat drew offshore, she saw two women in white come down toward the float, meet abbey, and turn back. And a little farther out through an opening in the woods, she saw a white and green bungalow, low and rambling, wide-verandahed, set on a hillock three hundred yards back from shore. There was an encircling area of smooth lawn, a place restfully inviting.
watching that, seeing a figure or two moving about, she was smitten with a recurrence of that poignant loneliness which had assailed her fitfully in the last four days. And while the _chickamin_ was still plowing the inshore waters on an even keel, she walked the guard rail alongside and joined her brother in the pilot house.
“isn’t that a pretty place back there in the woods?” She remarked.
“abbey’s summer camp; spells money to me, that’s all,” charlie grumbled. “It’s a toy for their women,–up-to-date cottage, gardeners, tennis courts, afternoon tea on the lawn for the guests, and all that. But the abbey-monohan bunch has the money to do what they want to do. They’ve made it in timber, as i expect to make mine. You didn’t particularly want to stay over and get acquainted, did you?”
“i? Of course not,” she responded.
“personally, i don’t want to mix into their social game,” charlie drawled. “Or at least, i don’t propose to make any tentative advances. The women put on lots of side, they say. If they want to hunt us up and cultivate you, all right. But i’ve got too much to do to butt into society. Anyway, i didn’t want to run up against any critical females looking like i do right now.”
stella smiled.
“under certain circumstances, appearances do count then, in this country,” she remarked. “Has your mr. Abbey got a young and be-yutiful sister?”
“he has, but that’s got nothing to do with it,” charlie retorted. “Paul’s all right himself. But their gait isn’t mine–not yet. Here, you take the wheel a minute. I want to smoke. I don’t suppose you ever helmed a forty-footer, but you’ll never learn younger.”
she took the wheel and charlie stood by, directing her. In twenty minutes they were out where the run of the sea from the south had a fair sweep. The wind was whistling now. All the roughened surface was spotted with whitecaps. The _chickamin_ would hang on the crest of a wave and shoot forward like a racer, her wheel humming, and again the roller would run out from under her, and she would labor heavily in the trough.
it began to grow insufferably hot in the pilot house. The wind drove with them, pressing the heat from the boiler and fire box into the forward portion of the boat, where stella stood at the wheel. There were puffs of smoke when davis opened the fire box to ply it with fuel. All the sour smells that rose from an unclean bilge eddied about them. The heat and the smell and the surging motion began to nauseate stella.
“i must get outside where i can breathe,” she gasped, at length. “It’s suffocating. I don’t see how you stand it.”
“it does get stuffy in here when we run with the wind,” benton admitted. “Cuts off our ventilation. I’m used to it. Crawl out the window and sit on the forward deck. Don’t try to get aft. You might slip off, the way she’s lurching.”
curled in the hollow of a faked-down hawser with the clean air fanning her, stella recovered herself. The giddiness left her. She pitied sam davis back in that stinking hole beside the fire box. But she supposed he, like her brother, was “used to it.” Apparently one could get used to anything, if she could judge by the amazing change in charlie.
far ahead loomed a ridge running down to the lake shore and cutting off in a bold promontory. That was halfway point, charlie had told her, and under its shadow lay his camp. Without any previous knowledge of camps, she was approaching this one with less eager anticipation than when she began her long journey. She began to fear that it might be totally unlike anything she had been able to imagine, disagreeably so. Charlie, she decided, had grown hard and coarsened in the evolution of his ambition to get on, to make his pile. She was but four years younger than he, and she had always thought of herself as being older and wiser and steadier. She had conceived the idea that her presence would have a good influence on him, that they would pull together–now that there were but the two of them. But four hours in his company had dispelled that illusion. She had the wit to perceive that charlie benton had emerged from the chrysalis stage, that he had the will and the ability to mold his life after his elected fashion, and that her coming was a relatively unimportant incident.
in due course the _chickamin_ bore in under halfway point, opened out a sheltered bight where the watery commotion outside raised but a faint ripple, and drew in alongside a float.
the girl swept lake shore, bay, and sloping forest with a quickening eye. Here was no trim-painted cottage and velvet lawn. In the waters beside and lining the beach floated innumerable logs, confined by boomsticks, hundreds of trunks of fir, forty and sixty feet long, four and six feet across the butt, timber enough, when it had passed through the sawmills, to build four such towns as hopyard. Just back from the shore, amid stumps and littered branches, rose the roofs of divers buildings. One was long and low. Hard by it stood another of like type but of lesser dimension. Two or three mere shanties lifted level with great stumps,–crude, unpainted buildings. Smoke issued from the pipe of the larger, and a white-aproned man stood in the doorway.
somewhere in the screen of woods a whistle shrilled. Benton looked at his watch.
“we made good time, in spite of the little roll,” said he. “That’s the donkey blowing quitting time–six o’clock. Well, come on up to the shack, sis. Sam, you get a wheelbarrow and run those trunks up after supper, will you?”
away in the banked timber beyond the maples and alder which stella now saw masked the bank of a small stream flowing by the cabins, a faint call rose, long-drawn:
“tim-ber-r-r-r!”
they moved along a path beaten through fern and clawing blackberry vine toward the camp, benton carrying the two grips. A loud, sharp crack split the stillness; then a mild swishing sound arose. Hard on the heels of that followed a rending, tearing crash, a thud that sent tremors through the solid earth under their feet. The girl started.
“falling gang dropped a big fir,” charlie laughed. “You’ll get used to that. You’ll hear it a good many times a day here.”
“good heavens, it sounded like the end of the world,” she said.
“well, you can’t fell a stick of timber two hundred feet high and six or eight feet through without making a pretty considerable noise,” her brother remarked complacently. “I like that sound myself. Every big tree that goes down means a bunch of money.”
he led the way past the mess-house, from the doorway of which the aproned cook eyed her with frank curiosity, hailing his employer with nonchalant air, a cigarette resting in one corner of his mouth. Benton opened the door of the second building. Stella followed him in.
it had the saving grace of cleanliness–according to logging-camp standards. But the bareness of it appalled her. There was a rusty box heater, littered with cigar and cigarette stubs, a desk fabricated of undressed boards, a homemade chair or two, sundry boxes standing about. The sole concession to comfort was a rug of cheap axminster covering half the floor. The walls were decorated chiefly with miscellaneous clothing suspended from nails, a few maps and blue prints tacked up askew. Straight across from the entering door another stood ajar, and she could see further vistas of bare board wall, small, dusty window-panes, and a bed whereon gray blankets were tumbled as they fell when a waking sleeper cast them aside.
benton crossed the room and threw open another door.
“here’s a nook i fixed up for you, stella,” he said briskly. “It isn’t very fancy, but it’s the best i could do just now.”
she followed him in silently. He set her two bags on the floor and turned to go. Then some impulse moved him to turn back, and he put both hands on her shoulders and kissed her gently.
“you’re home, anyway,” he said. “That’s something, if it isn’t what you’re used to. Try to overlook the crudities. We’ll have supper as soon as you feel like it.”
he went out, closing the door behind him.
miss estella benton stood in the middle of the room fighting against a swift heart-sinking, a terrible depression that strove to master her.
“good lord in heaven,” she muttered at last. “What a place to be marooned in. It’s–it’s simply impossible.”
her gaze roved about the room. A square box, neither more nor less, fourteen by fourteen feet of bare board wall, unpainted and unpapered. There was an iron bed, a willow rocker, and a rude closet for clothes in one corner. A duplicate of the department-store bargain rug in the other room lay on the floor. On an upturned box stood an enamel pitcher and a tin washbasin. That was all.
she sat down on the bed and viewed it forlornly. A wave of sickening rebellion against everything swept over her. To herself she seemed as irrevocably alone as if she had been lost in the depths of the dark timber that rose on every hand. And sitting there she heard at length the voices of men. Looking out through a window curtained with cheesecloth she saw her brother’s logging gang swing past, stout woodsmen all, big men, tall men, short-bodied men with thick necks and shoulders, sunburned, all grimy with the sweat of their labors, carrying themselves with a free and reckless swing, the doubles in type of that roistering crew she had seen embark on jack fyfe’s boat.
in so far as she had taken note of those who labored with their hands in the region of her birth, she had seen few like these. The chauffeur, the footman, the street cleaner, the factory workers–they were all different. They lacked something,–perhaps nothing in the way of physical excellence; but these men betrayed in every movement a subtle difference that she could not define. Her nearest approximation and the first attempt she made at analysis was that they looked like pirates. They were bold men and strong; that was written in their faces and the swing of them as they walked. And they served the very excellent purpose of taking her mind off herself for the time being.
she watched them cluster by a bench before the cookhouse, dabble their faces and hands in washbasins, scrub themselves promiscuously on towels, sometimes one at each end of a single piece of cloth, hauling it back and forth in rude play.
all about that cookhouse dooryard spread a confusion of empty tin cans, gaudily labeled, containers of corn and peas and tomatoes. Dishwater and refuse, chips, scraps, all the refuse of the camp was scattered there in unlovely array.
but that made no more than a passing impression upon her. She was thinking, as she removed her hat and gloves, of what queer angles come now and then to the human mind. She wondered why she should be sufficiently interested in her brother’s hired men to drive off a compelling attack of the blues in consideration of them as men. Nevertheless, she found herself unable to view them as she had viewed, say, the clerks in her father’s office.
she began to brush her hair and to wonder what sort of food would be served for supper.
chapter iv
a foretaste of things to come
half an hour later she sat down with her brother at one end of a table that was but a long bench covered with oilcloth. Chairs there were none. A narrow movable bench on each side of the fixed table furnished seating capacity for twenty men, provided none objected to an occasional nudging from his neighbor’s elbow. The dishes, different from any she had ever eaten from, were of enormously thick porcelain, dead white, variously chipped and cracked with fine seams. But the food, if plain, was of excellent quality, tastily cooked. She discovered herself with an appetite wholly independent of silver and cut glass and linen. The tin spoons and steel knives and forks harrowed her aesthetic sense without impairing her ability to satisfy hunger.
they had the dining room to themselves. Through a single shiplap partition rose a rumble of masculine talk, where the logging crew loafed in their bunkhouse. The cook served them without any ceremony, putting everything on the table at once,–soup, meat, vegetables, a bread pudding for dessert, coffee in a tall tin pot. Benton introduced him to his sister. He withdrew hastily to the kitchen, and they saw no more of him.
“charlie,” the girl said plaintively, when the man had closed the door behind him, “i don’t quite fathom your social customs out here. Is one supposed to know everybody that one encounters?”
“just about,” he grinned. “Loggers, siwashes, and the natives in general. Can’t very well help it, sis. There’s so few people in this neck of the woods that nobody can afford to be exclusive,–at least, nobody who lives here any length of time. You can’t tell when you may have to call on your neighbor or the fellow working for you in a matter of life and death almost. A man couldn’t possibly maintain the same attitude toward a bunch of loggers working under him that would be considered proper back where we came from. Take me, for instance, and my case is no different from any man operating on a moderate scale out here. I’d get the reputation of being swell-headed, and they’d put me in the hole at every turn. They wouldn’t care what they did or how it was done. Ten to one i couldn’t keep a capable working crew three weeks on end. On the other hand, take a bunch of loggers on a pay roll working for a man that meets them on an equal footing–why, they’ll go to hell and back again for him. They’re as loyal as soldiers to the flag. They’re a mighty self-sufficient, independent lot, these lumberjacks, and that goes for most everybody knocking about in this country,–loggers, prospectors, miners, settlers, and all. If you’re what they term ‘all right,’ you can do anything, and they’ll back you up. If you go to putting on airs and trying to assert yourself as a superior being, they’ll go out of their way to hand you packages of trouble.”
“i see,” she observed thoughtfully. “One’s compelled by circumstances to practice democracy.”
“something like that,” he responded carelessly and went on eating his supper.
“don’t you think we could make this place a lot more homelike, charlie?” She ventured, when they were back in their own quarters. “I suppose it suits a man who only uses it as a place to sleep, but it’s bare as a barn.”
“it takes money to make a place cosy,” benton returned. “And i haven’t had it to spend on knickknacks.”
“fiddlesticks!” She laughed. “A comfortable chair or two and curtains and pictures aren’t knickknacks, as you call them. The cost wouldn’t amount to anything.”
benton stuffed the bowl of a pipe and lighted it before he essayed reply.
“look here, stella,” he said earnestly. “This joint probably strikes you as about the limit, seeing that you’ve been used to pretty soft surroundings and getting pretty nearly anything you wanted whenever you expressed a wish for it. Things that you’ve grown into the way of considering necessities _are_ luxuries. And they’re out of the question for us at present. I got a pretty hard seasoning the first two years i was in this country, and when i set up this camp it was merely a place to live. I never thought anything about it as being comfortable or otherwise until you elected to come. I’m not in a position to go in for trimmings. Rough as this camp is, it will have to go as it stands this summer. I’m up against it for ready money. I’ve got none due until i make delivery of those logs in september, and i have to have that million feet in the water in order to make delivery. Every one of these men but the cook and the donkey engineer are working for me with their wages deferred until then. There are certain expenses that must be met with cash–and i’ve got all my funds figured down to nickels. If i get by on this contract, i’ll have a few hundred to squander on house things. Until then, it’s the simple life for us. You can camp for three or four months, can’t you, without finding it completely unbearable?”
“why, of course,” she protested. “I wasn’t complaining about the way things are. I merely voiced the idea that it would be nice to fix up a little cosier, make these rooms look a little homelike. I didn’t know you were practically compelled to live like this as a matter of economy.”
“well, in a sense, i am,” he replied. “And then again, making a place away out here homelike never struck me as being anything but an inconsequential detail. I’m not trying to make a home here. I’m after a bundle of money. A while ago, if you had been here and suggested it, you could have spent five or six hundred, and i wouldn’t have missed it. But this contract came my way, and gave me a chance to clean up three thousand dollars clear profit in four months. I grabbed it, and i find it’s some undertaking. I’m dealing with a hard business outfit, hard as nails. I might get the banks or some capitalist to finance me, because my timber holdings are worth money. But i’m shy of that. I’ve noticed that when a logger starts working on borrowed capital, he generally goes broke. The financiers generally devise some way to hook him. I prefer to sail as close to the wind as i can on what little i’ve got. I can get this timber out–but it wouldn’t look nice, now, would it, for me to be buying furniture when i’m standing these boys off for their wages till september?”
“i should have been a man,” miss estella benton pensively remarked. “Then i could put on overalls and make myself useful, instead of being a drone. There doesn’t seem to be anything here i can do. I could keep house–only you haven’t any house to keep, therefore no need of a housekeeper. Why, who’s that?”
her ear had caught a low, throaty laugh, a woman’s laugh, outside. She looked inquiringly at her brother. His expression remained absent, as of one concentrated upon his own problems. She repeated the question.
“that? Oh, katy john, i suppose, or her mother,” he answered. “Siwash bunch camping around the point. The girl does some washing for us now and then. I suppose she’s after matt for some bread or something.”
stella looked out. At the cookhouse door stood a short, plump-bodied girl, dark-skinned and black-haired. Otherwise she conformed to none of miss benton’s preconceived ideas of the aboriginal inhabitant. If she had been pinned down, she would probably have admitted that she expected to behold an indian maiden garbed in beaded buckskin and brass ornaments. Instead, katy john wore a white sailor blouse, a brown pleated skirt, tan shoes, and a bow of baby blue ribbon in her hair.
“why, she talks good english,” miss benton exclaimed, as fragments of the girl’s speech floated over to her.
“sure. As good as anybody,” charlie drawled. “Why not?”
“well–er–i suppose my notion of indians is rather vague,” stella admitted. “Are they all civilized and educated?”
“most of ’em,” benton replied. “The younger generation anyhow. Say, stell, can you cook?”
“a little,” stella rejoined guardedly. “That indian girl’s really pretty, isn’t she?”
“they nearly all are when they’re young,” he observed. “But they are old and tubby by the time they’re thirty.”
katy john’s teeth shone white between her parted lips at some sally from the cook. She stood by the door, swinging a straw hat in one hand. Presently matt handed her a parcel done up in newspaper, and she walked away with a nod to some of the loggers sitting with their backs against the bunkhouse wall.
“why were you asking if i could cook?” Stella inquired, when the girl vanished in the brush.
“why, your wail about being a man and putting on overalls and digging in reminded me that if you liked you may have a chance to get on your apron and show us what you can do,” he laughed. “Matt’s about due to go on a tear. He’s been on the water-wagon now about his limit. The first man that comes along with a bottle of whisky, matt will get it and quit and head for town. I was wondering if you and katy john could keep the gang from starving to death if that happened. The last time i had to get in and cook for two weeks myself. And i can’t run a logging crew from the cook shanty very well.”
“i daresay i could manage,” stella returned dubiously. “This seems to be a terrible place for drinking. Is it the accepted thing to get drunk at all times and in public?”
“it’s about the only excitement there is,” benton smiled tolerantly. “I guess there is no more drinking out here than any other part of this north american continent. Only a man here gets drunk openly and riotously without any effort to hide it, and without it being considered anything but a natural lapse. That’s one thing you’ll have to get used to out here, stell–i mean, that what vices men have are all on the surface. We don’t get drunk secretly at the club and sneak home in a taxi. Oh, well, we’ll cross the bridge when we come to it. Matt may not break out for weeks.”
he yawned openly.
“sleepy?” Stella inquired.
“i get up every morning between four and five,” he replied. “And i can go to sleep any time after supper.”
“i think i’ll take a walk along the beach,” she said abruptly.
“all right. Don’t hike into the woods and get lost, though.”
she circled the segment of bay, climbed a low, rocky point, and found herself a seat on a fallen tree. Outside the lake heaved uneasily, still dotted with whitecaps whipped up by the southerly gale. At her feet surge after surge hammered the gravelly shore. Far through the woods behind her the wind whistled and hummed among swaying tops of giant fir and cedar. There was a heady freshness in that rollicking wind, an odor resinous and pungent mingled with that elusive smell of green growing stuff along the shore. Beginning where she sat, tree trunks rose in immense brown pillars, running back in great forest naves, shadowy always, floored with green moss laid in a rich, soft carpet for the wood-sprites’ feet. Far beyond the long gradual lower slope lifted a range of saw-backed mountains, the sanctuary of wild goat and bear, and across the rolling lake lifted other mountains sheer from the water’s edge, peaks rising above timber-line in majestic contour, their pinnacle crests grazing the clouds that scudded before the south wind.
beauty? Yes. A wild, imposing grandeur that stirred some responsive chord in her. If only one could live amid such surrounding with a contented mind, she thought, the wilderness would have compensations of its own. She had an uneasy feeling that isolation from everything that had played an important part in her life might be the least depressing factor in this new existence. She could not view the rough and ready standards of the woods with much equanimity–not as she had that day seen them set forth. These things were bound to be a part of her daily life, and all the brief span of her years had gone to forming habits of speech and thought and manner diametrically opposed to what she had so far encountered.
she nursed her chin in her hand and pondered this. She could not see how it was to be avoided. She was there, and perforce she must stay there. She had no friends to go elsewhere, or training in the harsh business of gaining a livelihood if she did go. For the first time she began dully to resent the manner of her upbringing. Once she had desired to enter hospital training, had been properly enthusiastic for a period of months over a career in this field of mercy. Then, as now, marriage, while accepted as the ultimate state, was only to be considered through a haze of idealism and romanticism. She cherished certain ideals of a possible lover and husband, but always with a false sense of shame. The really serious business of a woman’s life was the one thing to which she made no attempt to apply practical consideration. But her parents had had positive ideas on that subject, even if they were not openly expressed. Her yearnings after a useful “career” were skilfully discouraged,–by her mother because that worthy lady thought it was “scarcely the thing, stella dear, and so unnecessary”; by her father because, as he bluntly put it, it would only be a waste of time and money, since the chances were she would get married before she was half through training, and anyway a girl’s place was at home till she did get married. That was his only reference to the subject of her ultimate disposition that she could recall, but it was plain enough as far as it went.
it was too late to mourn over lost opportunities now, but she did wish there was some one thing she could do and do well, some service of value that would guarantee self-support. If she could only pound a typewriter or keep a set of books, or even make a passable attempt at sewing, she would have felt vastly more at ease in this rude logging camp, knowing that she could leave it if she desired.
so far as she could see things, she looked at them with measurable clearness, without any vain illusions concerning her ability to march triumphant over unknown fields of endeavor. Along practical lines she had everything to learn. Culture furnishes an excellent pair of wings wherewith to soar in skies of abstraction, but is a poor vehicle to carry one over rough roads. She might have remained in philadelphia, a guest among friends. Pride forbade that. Incidentally, such an arrangement would have enabled her to stalk a husband, a moneyed husband, which did not occur to her at all. There remained only to join charlie. If his fortunes mended, well and good. Perhaps she could even help in minor ways.
but it was all so radically different–brother and all–from what she had pictured that she was filled with dismay and not a little foreboding of the future. Sufficient, however, unto the day was the evil thereof, she told herself at last, and tried to make that assurance work a change of heart. She was very lonely and depressed and full of a futile wish that she were a man.
over across the bay some one was playing an accordeon, and to its strains a stout-lunged lumberjack was roaring out a song, with all his fellows joining strong in the chorus:
“oh, the saginaw kid was a cook in a camp, way up on the ocon-to-o-o. And the cook in a camp in them old days had a damn hard row to hoe-i-oh! Had a damn hard row to hoe.”
there was a fine, rollicking air to it. The careless note in their voices, the jovial lilt of their song, made her envious. They at least had their destiny, limited as it might be and cast along rude ways, largely under their own control.
her wandering gaze at length came to rest on a tent top showing in the brush northward from the camp. She saw two canoes drawn up on the beach above the lash of the waves, two small figures playing on the gravel, and sundry dogs prowling alongshore. Smoke went eddying away in the wind. The siwash camp where katy john hailed from, miss benton supposed.
she had an impulse to skirt the bay and view the indian camp at closer range, a notion born of curiosity. She debated this casually, and just as she was about to rise, her movement was arrested by a faint crackle in the woods behind. She looked away through the deepening shadow among the trees and saw nothing at first. But the sound was repeated at odd intervals. She sat still. Thoughts of forest animals slipped into her mind, without making her afraid. At last she caught sight of a man striding through the timber, soundlessly on the thick moss, coming almost straight toward her.
he was scarcely fifty yards away. Across his shoulders he bore a reddish-gray burden, and in his right hand was a gun. She did not move. Bowed slightly under the weight, the man passed within twenty feet of her, so close that she could see the sweat-beads glisten on that side of his face, and saw also that the load he carried was the carcass of a deer.
gaining the beach and laying the animal across a boulder, he straightened himself up and drew a long breath. Then he wiped the sweat off his face. She recognized him as the man who had thrown the logger down the slip that day at noon,–presumably jack fyfe. A sturdily built man about thirty, of saxon fairness, with a tinge of red in his hair and a liberal display of freckles across nose and cheek bones. He was no beauty, she decided, albeit he displayed a frank and pleasing countenance. That he was a remarkably strong and active man she had seen for herself, and if the firm round of his jaw counted for anything, an individual of considerable determination besides. Miss benton conceived herself to be possessed of considerable skill at character analysis.
he put away his handkerchief, took up his rifle, settled his hat, and strode off toward the camp. Her attention now diverted from the siwashes, she watched him, saw him go to her brother’s quarters, stand in the door a minute, then go back to the beach accompanied by charlie.
in a minute or so he came rowing across in a skiff, threw his deer aboard, and pulled away north along the shore.
she watched him lift and fall among the waves until he turned a point, rowing with strong, even strokes. Then she walked home. Benton was poring over some figures, but he pushed aside his pencil and paper when she entered.
“you had a visitor, i see,” she remarked.
“yes, jack fyfe. He picked up a deer on the ridge behind here and borrowed a boat to get home.”
“i saw him come out of the woods,” she said. “His camp can’t be far from here, is it? He only left the springs as you came in. Does he hunt deer for sport?”
“hardly. Oh, well, i suppose it’s sport for jack, in a way. He’s always piking around in the woods with a gun or a fishing rod,” benton returned. “But we kill ’em to eat mostly. It’s good meat and cheap. I get one myself now and then. However, you want to keep that under your hat–about us fellows hunting–or we’ll have game wardens nosing around here.”
“are you not allowed to hunt them?” She asked.
“not in close season. Hunting season’s from september to december.”
“if it’s unlawful, why break the law?” She ventured hesitatingly. “Isn’t that rather–er–“
“oh, bosh,” charlie derided. “A man in the woods is entitled to venison, if he’s hunter enough to get it. The woods are full of deer, and a few more or less don’t matter. We can’t run forty miles to town and back and pay famine prices for beef every two or three days, when we can get it at home in the woods.”
stella digested this in silence, but it occurred to her that this mild sample of lawlessness was quite in keeping with the men and the environment. There was no policeman on the corner, no mechanism of law and order visible anywhere. The characteristic attitude of these woodsmen was of intolerance for restraint, of complete self-sufficiency. It had colored her brother’s point of view. She perceived that whereas all her instinct was to know the rules of the game and abide by them, he, taking his cue from his environment, inclined to break rules that proved inconvenient, even to formulate new ones to apply.
“and suppose,” said she, “that a game warden should catch you or mr. Jack fyfe killing deer out of season?”
“we’d be hauled up and fined a hundred dollars or so,” he told her. “But they don’t catch us.”
he shrugged his shoulders, and smiling tolerantly upon her, proceeded to smoke.
dusk was falling now, the long twilight of the northern seasons gradually deepening, as they sat in silence. Along the creek bank arose the evening chorus of the frogs. The air, now hushed and still, was riven every few minutes by the whir of wings as ducks in evening flight swept by above. All the boisterous laughter and talk in the bunkhouse had died. The woods ranged gloomy and impenetrable, save only in the northwest, where a patch of sky lighted by diffused pink and gray revealed one mountain higher than its fellows standing bald against the horizon.
“well, i guess it’s time to turn in.” Benton muffled a yawn. “Pleasant dreams, sis. Oh, here’s your purse. I used part of the bank roll. You won’t have much use for money up here, anyway.”
he flipped the purse across to her and sauntered into his bedroom. Stella sat gazing thoughtfully at the vast bulk of mount douglas a few minutes longer. Then she too went into the box-like room, the bare discomfort of which chilled her merely to behold.
with a curious uncertainty, a feeling of reluctance for the proceeding almost, she examined the contents of her purse. For a little time she stood gazing into it, a queer curl to her full red lips. Then she flung it contemptuously on the bed and began to take down her hair.
“‘a rich, rough, tough country, where it doesn’t do to be finicky about anything,” she murmured, quoting a line from one of charlie benton’s letters. “It would appear to be rather unpleasantly true. Particularly the last clause.”
in her purse, which had contained one hundred and ten dollars, there now reposed in solitary state a twenty-dollar bill.
chapter v
the toll of big timber
day came again, in the natural sequence of events. Matt, the cook, roused all the camp at six o’clock with a tremendous banging on a piece of boiler plate hung by a wire. Long before that stella heard her brother astir. She wondered sleepily at his sprightliness, for as she remembered him at home he had been a confirmed lie-abed. She herself responded none too quickly to the breakfast gong, as a result of which slowness the crew had filed away to the day’s work, her brother striding in the lead, when she entered the mess-house.
she killed time with partial success till noon. Several times she was startled to momentary attention by the prolonged series of sharp cracks which heralded the thunderous crash of a falling tree. There were other sounds which betokened the loggers’ activity in the near-by forest,–the ringing whine of saw blades, the dull stroke of the axe, voices calling distantly.
she tried to interest herself in the camp and the beach and ended up by sitting on a log in a shady spot, staring dreamily over the lake. She thought impatiently of that homely saw concerning satan and idle hands, but she reflected also that in this isolation even mischief was comparatively impossible. There was not a soul to hold speech with except the cook, and he was too busy to talk, even if he had not been afflicted with a painful degree of diffidence when she addressed him. She could make no effort at settling down, at arranging things in what was to be her home. There was nothing to arrange, no odds and ends wherewith almost any woman can conjure up a homelike effect in the barest sort of place. She beheld the noon return of the crew much as a shipwrecked castaway on a desert shore might behold a rescuing sail, and she told charlie that she intended to go into the woods that afternoon and watch them work.
“all right,” said he. “Just so you don’t get in the way of a falling tree.”
a narrow fringe of brush and scrubby timber separated the camp from the actual work. From the water’s edge to the donkey engine was barely four hundred yards. From donkey to a ten-foot jump-off on the lake shore in a straight line on a five per cent. Gradient ran a curious roadway, made by placing two logs in the hollow scooped by tearing great timbers over the soft earth, and a bigger log on each side. Butt to butt and side to side, the outer sticks half their thickness above the inner, they formed a continuous trough the bottom and sides worn smooth with friction of sliding timbers. Stella had crossed it the previous evening and wondered what it was. Now, watching them at work, she saw. Also she saw why the great stumps that rose in every clearing in this land of massive trees were sawed six and eight feet above the ground. Always at the base the firs swelled sharply. Wherefore the falling gangs lifted themselves above the enlargement to make their cut.
two sawyers attacked a tree. First, with their double-bitted axes, each drove a deep notch into the sapwood just wide enough to take the end of a two-by-six plank four or five feet long with a single grab-nail in the end,–the springboard of the pacific coast logger, whose daily business lies among the biggest timber on god’s footstool. Each then clambered up on his precarious perch, took hold of his end of the long, limber saw, and cut in to a depth of a foot or more, according to the size of the tree. Then jointly they chopped down to this sawed line, and there was the undercut complete, a deep notch on the side to which the tree would fall. That done, they swung the ends of their springboards, or if it were a thick trunk, made new holding notches on the other side, and the long saw would eat steadily through the heart of the tree toward that yellow, gashed undercut, stroke upon stroke, ringing with a thin, metallic twang. Presently there would arise an ominous cracking. High in the air the tall crest would dip slowly, as if it bowed with manifest reluctance to the inevitable. The sawyers would drop lightly from their springboards, crying:
“tim-ber-r-r-r!”
the earthward swoop of the upper boughs would hasten till the air was full of a whistling, whishing sound. Then came the rending crash as the great tree smashed prone, crushing what small timber stood in its path, followed by the earth-quivering shock of its impact with the soil. The tree once down, the fallers went on to another. Immediately the swampers fell upon the prone trunk with axes, denuding it of limbs; the buckers followed them to saw it into lengths decreed by the boss logger. When the job was done, the brown fir was no longer a stately tree but saw-logs, each with the square butt that lay donkeyward, trimmed a trifle rounding with the axe.
benton worked one falling gang. The falling gang raced to keep ahead of the buckers and swampers, and they in turn raced to keep ahead of the hook tender, rigging slinger, and donkey, which last trio moved the logs from woods to water, once they were down and trimmed. Terrible, devastating forces of destruction they seemed to stella benton, wholly unused as she was to any woodland save the well-kept parks and little areas of groomed forest in her native state. All about in the ravaged woods lay the big logs, scores of them. They had only begun to pull with the donkey a week earlier, benton explained to her. With his size gang he could not keep a donkey engine working steadily. So they had felled and trimmed to a good start, and now the falling crew and the swampers and buckers were in a dingdong contest to see how long they could keep ahead of the puffing seattle yarder.
stella sat on a stump, watching. Over an area of many acres the ground was a litter of broken limbs, ragged tops, crushed and bent and broken younger growth, twisted awry by the big trees in their fall. Huge stumps upthrust like beacons in a ruffled harbor, grim, massive butts. From all the ravaged wood rose a pungent smell of pitch and sap, a resinous, pleasant smell. Radiating like the spokes of a wheel from the head of the chute ran deep, raw gashes in the earth, where the donkey had hauled up the brobdingnagian logs on the end of an inch cable.
“this is no small boy’s play, is it, stell?” Charlie said to her once in passing.
and she agreed that it was not. Agreed more emphatically and with half-awed wonder when she saw the donkey puff and quiver on its anchor cable, as the hauling line spooled up on the drum. On the outer end of that line snaked a sixty-foot stick, five feet across the butt, but it came down to the chute head, brushing earth and brush and small trees aside as if they were naught. Once the big log caromed against a stump. The rearward end flipped ten feet in the air and thirty feet sidewise. But it came clear and slid with incredible swiftness to the head of the chute, flinging aside showers of dirt and small stones, and leaving one more deep furrow in the forest floor. Benton trotted behind it. Once it came to rest well in the chute, he unhooked the line, freed the choker (the short noosed loop of cable that slips over the log’s end), and the haul-back cable hurried the main line back to another log. Benton followed, and again the donkey shuddered on its foundation skids till another log laid in the chute, with its end butted against that which lay before. One log after another was hauled down till half a dozen rested there, elongated peas in a wooden pod.
then a last big stick came with a rush, bunted these others powerfully so that they began to slide with the momentum thus imparted, slowly at first then, gathering way and speed, they shot down to the lake and plunged to the water over the ten-foot jump-off like a school of breaching whales.
all this took time, vastly more time than it takes in the telling. The logs were ponderous masses. They had to be maneuvered sometimes between stumps and standing timber, jerked this way and that to bring them into the clear. By four o’clock benton and his rigging-slinger had just finished bunting their second batch of logs down the chute. Stella watched these titanic labors with a growing interest and a dawning vision of why these men walked the earth with that reckless swing of their shoulders. For they were palpably masters in their environment. They strove with woodsy giants and laid them low. Amid constant dangers they sweated at a task that shamed the seven labors of hercules. Gladiators they were in a contest from which they did not always emerge victorious.
when benton and his helper followed the haul-back line away to the domain of the falling gang the last time, stella had so far unbent as to strike up conversation with the donkey engineer. That greasy individual finished stoking his fire box and replied to her first comment.
“work? You bet,” said he. “It’s real graft, this is. I got the easy end of it, and mine’s no snap. I miss a signal, big stick butts against something solid; biff! Goes the line and maybe cuts a man plumb in two. You got to be wide awake when you run a loggin’ donkey. These woods is no place for a man, anyway, if he ain’t spry both in his head and feet.”
“do many men get hurt logging?” Stella asked. “It looks awfully dangerous, with these big trees falling and smashing everything. Look at that. Goodness!”
from the donkey they could see a shower of ragged splinters and broken limbs fly when a two-hundred-foot fir smashed a dead cedar that stood in the way of its downward swoop. They could hear the pieces strike against brush and trees like the patter of shot on a tin wall.
the donkey engineer gazed calmly enough.
“them flyin’ chunks raise the dickens sometimes,” he observed. “Oh, yes, now an’ then a man gets laid out. There’s some things you got to take a chance on. Maybe you get cut with an axe, or a limb drops on you, or you get in the way of a breakin’ line,–though a man ain’t got any business in the bight of a line. A man don’t stand much show when the end of a inch ‘n’ a quarter cable snaps at him like a whiplash. I seen a feller on howe sound cut square in two with a cable-end once. A broken block’s the worst, though. That generally gets the riggin’ slinger, but a piece of it’s liable to hit anybody. You see them big iron pulley blocks the haul-back cable works in? Well, sometimes they have to anchor a snatch block to a stump an’ run the main line through it at an angle to get a log out the way you want. Suppose the block breaks when i’m givin’ it to her? Chunks uh that broken cast iron’ll fly like bullets. Yes, sir, broken blocks is bad business. Maybe you noticed the boys used the snatch block two or three times this afternoon? We’ve been lucky in this camp all spring. Nobody so much as nicked himself with an axe. Breaks in the gear don’t come very often, anyway, with an outfit in first-class shape. We got good gear an’ a good crew–about as _skookum_ a bunch as i ever saw in the woods.”
two hundred yards distant charlie benton rose on a stump and semaphored with his arms. The engineer whistled answer and stood to his levers; the main line began to spool slowly in on the drum. Another signal, and he shut off. Another signal, after a brief wait, and the drum rolled faster, the line tautened like a fiddle-string, and the ponderous machine vibrated with the strain of its effort.
suddenly the line came slack. Stella, watching for the log to appear, saw her brother leap backward off the stump, saw the cable whip sidewise, mowing down a clump of saplings that stood in the bight of the line, before the engineer could cut off the power. In that return of comparative silence there rose above the sibilant hiss of the blow-off valve a sudden commotion of voices.
“damn!” The donkey engineer peered over the brush. “That don’t sound good. I guess somebody got it in the neck.”
almost immediately sam davis and two other men came running.
“what’s up?” The engineer called as they passed on a dog trot.
“block broke,” davis answered over his shoulder. “Piece of it near took a leg off jim renfrew.”
stella stood a moment, hesitating.
“i may be able to do something. I’ll go and see,” she said.
“better not,” the engineer warned. “Liable to run into something that’ll about turn your stomach. What was i tellin’ about a broken block? Them ragged pieces of flyin’ iron sure mess a man up. They’ll bring a bed spring, an’ pack him down to the boat, an’ get him to a doctor quick as they can. That’s all. You couldn’t do nothin’.”
nevertheless she went. Renfrew was the rigging slinger working with charlie, a big, blond man who blushed like a schoolboy when benton introduced him to her. Twenty minutes before he had gone trotting after the haul-back, sound and hearty, laughing at some sally of her brother’s. It seemed a trifle incredible that he should lie mangled and bleeding among the green forest growth, while his fellows hurried for a stretcher.
two hundred yards at right angles from where charlie had stood giving signals she found a little group under a branchy cedar. Renfrew lay on his back, mercifully unconscious. Benton squatted beside him, twisting a silk handkerchief with a stick tightly above the wound. His hands and renfrew’s clothing and the mossy ground was smeared with blood. Stella looked over his shoulder. The overalls were cut away. In the thick of the man’s thigh stood a ragged gash she could have laid both hands in. She drew back.
benton looked up.
“better keep away,” he advised shortly. “We’ve done all that can be done.”
she retreated a little and sat down on a root, half-sickened. The other two men stood up. Benton sat back, his first-aid work done, and rolled a cigarette with fingers that shook a little. Off to one side she saw the fallers climb up on their springboards. Presently arose the ringing whine of the thin steel blade, the chuck of axes where the swampers attacked a fallen tree. No matter, she thought, that injury came to one, that death might hover near, the work went on apace, like action on a battlefield.
a few minutes thereafter the two men who had gone with sam davis returned with the spring from benton’s bed and a light mattress. They laid the injured logger on this and covered him with a blanket. Then four of them picked it up. As they started, stella heard one say to her brother:
“matt’s jagged.”
“what?” Benton exploded. “Where’d it come from?”
“one uh them hungry bay shingle-bolt cutters’s in camp,” the logger answered. “Maybe he brought a bottle. I didn’t stop to see. But matt’s sure got a tank full.”
benton ripped out an angry oath, passed his men, and strode away down the path. Stella fell in behind him, wakened to a sudden uneasiness at the wrathful set of his features. She barely kept in sight, so rapidly did he move.
sam davis had smoke pouring from the _chickamin’s_ stack, but the kitchen pipe lifted no blue column, though it was close to five o’clock. Benton made straight for the cookhouse. Stella followed, a trifle uncertainly. A glimpse past charlie as he came out showed her matt staggering aimlessly about the kitchen, red-eyed, scowling, muttering to himself. Benton hurried to the bunkhouse door, much as a hound might follow a scent, peered in, and went on to the corner.
on the side facing the lake he found the source of the cook’s intoxication. A tall and swarthy lumberjack squatted on his haunches, gabbling in the chinook jargon to a _klootchman_ and a wizen-featured old siwash. The indian woman was drunk beyond any mistaking, affably drunk. She looked up at benton out of vacuous eyes, grinned, and extended to him a square-faced bottle of old tim gin. The logger rose to his feet.
“h’lo, benton,” he greeted thickly. “How’s every-thin’?”
benton’s answer was a quick lurch of his body and a smashing jab of his clenched fist. The blow stretched the logger on his back, with blood streaming from both nostrils. But he was a hardy customer, for he bounced up like a rubber ball, only to be floored even more viciously before he was well set on his feet. This time benton snarled a curse and kicked him as he lay.
“charlie, charlie!” Stella screamed.
if he heard her, he gave no heed.
“hit the trail, you,” he shouted at the logger. “Hit it quick before i tramp your damned face into the ground. I told you once not to come around here feeding booze to my cook. I do all the whisky-drinking that’s done in this camp, and don’t you forget it. Damn your eyes, i’ve got troubles enough without whisky.”
the man gathered himself up, badly shaken, and holding his hand to his bleeding nose, made off to his rowboat at the float.
“g’wan home,” benton curtly ordered the siwashes. “Get drunk at your own camp, not in mine. _sabe?_ beat it.”
they scuttled off, the wizened little old man steadying his fat _klootch_ along her uncertain way. Down on the lake the chastised logger stood out in his boat, resting once on his oars to shake a fist at benton. Then charlie faced about on his shocked and outraged sister.
“good heavens!” She burst out. “Is it necessary to be so downright brutal in actions as well as speech?”
“i’m running a logging camp, not a kindergarten,” he snapped angrily. “I know what i’m doing. If you don’t like it, go in the house where your hyper-sensitive tastes won’t be offended.”
“thank you,” she responded cuttingly and swung about, angry and hurt–only to have a fresh scare from the drunken cook, who came reeling forward.
“i’m gonna quit,” he loudly declared. “I ain’t goin’ to stick ’round here no more. The job’s no good. I want m’ time. Yuh hear me, benton. I’m through. Com-pletely, ab-sho-lutely through. You bet i am. Gimme m’ time. I’m a gone goose.”
“quit, then, hang you,” benton growled. “You’ll get your check in a minute. You’re a fine excuse for a cook, all right–get drunk right on the job. You don’t need to show up here again, when you’ve had your jag out.”
“‘s all right,” matt declared largely. “‘S other jobs. You ain’t the whole pacific coast. Oh, way down ‘pon the swa-a-nee ribber–“
he broke into dolorous song and turned back into the cookhouse. Benton’s hard-set face relaxed. He laughed shortly.
“takes all kinds to make a world,” he commented. “Don’t look so horrified, sis. This isn’t the regular order of events. It’s just an accumulation–and it sort of got me going. Here’s the boys.”
the four stretcher men set down their burden in the shade of the bunkhouse. Renfrew was conscious now.
“tough luck, jim,” benton sympathized. “Does it pain much?”
renfrew shook his head. White and weakened from shock and loss of blood, nevertheless he bravely disclaimed pain.
“we’ll get you fixed up at the springs,” benton went on. “It’s a nasty slash in the meat, but i don’t think the bone was touched. You’ll be on deck before long. I’ll see you through, anyway.”
they gave him a drink of water and filled his pipe, joking him about easy days in the hospital while they sweated in the woods. The drunken cook came out, carrying his rolled blankets, began maudlin sympathy, and was promptly squelched, whereupon he retreated to the float, emitting conversation to the world at large. Then they carried renfrew down to the float, and davis began to haul up the anchor to lay the _chickamin_ alongside.
while the chain was still chattering in the hawse pipe, the squat black hull of jack fyfe’s tender rounded the nearest point.
“whistle him up, sam,” benton ordered. “Jack can beat our time, and this bleeding must be stopped quick.”
the tender veered in from her course at the signal. Fyfe himself was at the wheel. Five minutes effected a complete arrangement, and the _panther_ drew off with the drunken cook singing atop of the pilot house, and renfrew comfortable in her cabin, and jack fyfe’s promise to see him properly installed and attended in the local hospital at roaring springs.
benton heaved a sigh of relief and turned to his sister.
“still mad, stell?” He asked placatingly and put his arm over her shoulders.
“of course not,” she responded instantly to this kindlier phase. “Ugh! Your hands are all bloody, charlie.”
“that’s so, but it’ll wash off,” he replied. “Well, we’re shy a good woodsman and a cook, and i’ll miss ’em both. But it might be worse. Here’s where you go to bat, stella. Get on your apron and lend me a hand in the kitchen, like a good girl. We have to eat, no matter what happens.”
chapter vi
the dignity (?) Of toil
by such imperceptible degrees that she was scarce aware of it, stella took her place as a cog in her brother’s logging machine, a unit in the human mechanism which he operated skilfully and relentlessly at top speed to achieve his desired end–one million feet of timber in boomsticks by september the first.
from the evening that she stepped into the breach created by a drunken cook, the kitchen burden settled steadily upon her shoulders. For a week benton daily expected and spoke of the arrival of a new cook. Fyfe had wired a vancouver employment agency to send one, the day he took jim renfrew down. But either cooks were scarce, or the order went astray, for no rough and ready kitchen mechanic arrived. Benton in the meantime ceased to look for one. He worked like a horse, unsparing of himself, unsparing of others. He rose at half-past four, lighted the kitchen fire, roused stella, and helped her prepare breakfast, preliminary to his day in the woods. Later he impressed katy john into service to wait on the table and wash dishes. He labored patiently to teach stella certain simple tricks of cooking that she did not know.
quick of perception, as thorough as her brother in whatsoever she set her hand to do, stella was soon equal to the job. And as the days passed and no camp cook came to their relief, benton left the job to her as a matter of course.
“you can handle that kitchen with katy as well as a man,” he said to her at last. “And it will give you something to occupy your time. I’d have to pay a cook seventy dollars a month. Katy draws twenty-five. You can credit yourself with the balance, and i’ll pay off when the contract money comes in. We might as well keep the coin in the family. I’ll feel easier, because you won’t get drunk and jump the job in a pinch. What do you say?”
she said the only possible thing to say under the circumstances. But she did not say it with pleasure, nor with any feeling of gratitude. It was hard work, and she and hard work were utter strangers. Her feet ached from continual standing on them. The heat and the smell of stewing meat and vegetables sickened her. Her hands were growing rough and red from dabbling in water, punching bread dough, handling the varied articles of food that go to make up a meal. Upon hands and forearms there stung continually certain small cuts and burns that lack of experience over a hot range inevitably inflicted upon her. Whereas time had promised to hang heavy on her hands, now an hour of idleness in the day became a precious boon.
yet in her own way she was as full of determination as her brother. She saw plainly enough that she must leave the drone stage behind. She perceived that to be fed and clothed and housed and to have her wishes readily gratified was not an inherent right–that some one must foot the bill–that now for all she received she must return equitable value. At home she had never thought of it in that light; in fact, she had never thought of it at all. Now that she was beginning to get a glimmering of her true economic relation to the world at large, she had no wish to emulate the clinging vine, even if thereby she could have secured a continuance of that silk-lined existence which had been her fortunate lot. Her pride revolted against parasitism. It was therefore a certain personal satisfaction to have achieved self-support at a stroke, insofar as that in the sweat of her brow,–all too literally,–she earned her bread and a compensation besides. But there were times when that solace seemed scarcely to weigh against her growing detest for the endless routine of her task, the exasperating physical weariness and irritations it brought upon her.
for to prepare three times daily food for a dozen hungry men is no mean undertaking. One cannot have in a logging camp the conveniences of a hotel kitchen. The water must be carried in buckets from the creek near by, and wood brought in armfuls from the pile of sawn blocks outside. The low-roofed kitchen shanty was always like an oven. The flies swarmed in their tens of thousands. As the men sweated with axe and saw in the woods, so she sweated in the kitchen. And her work began two hours before their day’s labor, and continued two hours after they were done. She slept, like one exhausted and rose full of sleep-heaviness, full of bodily soreness and spiritual protest when the alarm clock raised its din in the cool morning.
“you don’t like thees work, do you, mees benton?” Katy john said to her one day, in the soft, slurring accent that colored her english. “You wasn’t cut out for a cook.”
“this isn’t work,” stella retorted irritably. “It’s simple drudgery. I don’t wonder that men cooks take to drink.”
katy laughed.
“why don’t you be nice to mr. Abbey,” she suggested archly. “He’d like to give you a better job than thees–for life. My, but it must be nice to have lots of money like that man’s got, and never have to work.”
“you’ll get those potatoes peeled sooner if you don’t talk quite so much, katy,” miss benton made reply.
there was that way out, as the siwash girl broadly indicated. Paul abbey had grown into the habit of coming there rather more often than mere neighborliness called for, and it was palpable that he did not come to hold converse with benton or benton’s gang, although he was “hail fellow” with all woodsmen. At first his coming might have been laid to any whim. Latterly stella herself was unmistakably the attraction. He brought his sister once, a fair-haired girl about stella’s age. She proved an exceedingly self-contained young person, whose speech during the hour of her stay amounted to a dozen or so drawling sentences. With no hint of condescension or superciliousness, she still managed to arouse in stella a mild degree of resentment. She wore an impeccable pongee silk, simple and costly, and _her_ hands had evidently never known the roughening of work. In one way and another miss benton straightway conceived an active dislike for linda abbey. As her reception of paul’s sister was not conducive to chumminess, paul did not bring linda again.
but he came oftener than stella desired to be bothered with him. Charlie was beginning to indulge in some rather broad joking, which offended and irritated her. She was not in the least attracted to paul abbey. He was a nice enough young man; for all she knew, he might be a concentration of all the manly virtues, but he gave no fillip to either her imagination or her emotions. He was too much like a certain type of young fellow she had known in other embodiments. Her instinct warned her that stripped of his worldly goods he would be wholly commonplace. She could be friends with the paul abbey kind of man, but when she tried to consider him as a possible lover, she found herself unresponsive, even amused. She was forced to consider it, because abbey was fast approaching that stage. It was heralded in the look of dumb appeal that she frequently surprised in his gaze, by various signs and tokens, that stella benton was too sophisticated to mistake. One of these days he would lay his heart, and hand at her feet.
sometimes she considered what her life might be |
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| The Agentic AI bridge: a perspective on educational leadership, teacher developm |
| Posted on Monday, July 20 @ 00:01:10 PDT (19 reads) | |
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Abstract
artificial intelligence (ai) is increasingly transforming education, with the emergence of agentic ai introducing new opportunities for adaptive, autonomous, and context-aware support. This perspective paper explores agentic ai, a bridge connecting educational leadership, developmental supervision, reflective professional learning, educator readiness, and sustainable education. Drawing on glickmans developmental supervision model, gibbs reflective cycle, and research on teacher workload and professional growth, the paper argues that agentic ai can support differentiated supervision, continuous reflection, and personalized professional development while reducing administrative pressures. However, its successful implementation depends on supportive leadership, organizational readiness, and educators’ willingness to engage with innovation. From a perspective paper, agentic ai is positioned not as a replacement for educators, but as a tool that has the potential to enhance human expertise and strengthen educational sustainability. By integrating technological innovation with human-centered educational practices, agentic ai offers a pathway toward more adaptive, inclusive, and future-oriented educational systems.
highlights
agentic ai: the technology/capability itself.
agentic ai bridge framework: the specific theoretical model.
ai agency: another name of agentic ai.
introduction
background on ai in education
ai-enabled educational technologies have been present in schools and universities for over two decades. A content analysis of 100 ai-in-education studies published between 2010 and 2020 revealed that these earlier applications could be organized across three layers: a development layer encompassing classification, matching, and recommendation; an application layer covering feedback and adaptive learning; and an integration layer including affective computing and gamification (). Despite this breadth, persistent challenges remained, including inappropriate use of ai techniques, shifting teacher and student roles, and unresolved ethical concerns (). These earlier ai systems were limited in what they could do. They worked best when given clear instructions and fixed tasks, such as grading a quiz or recommending a resource, but could not respond meaningfully to complex or unpredictable situations (). Managing knowledge in schools and universities still relied heavily on human effort, fixed curricula, and manual process that struggled to keep pace with the fast-changing demands of modern education (). It became clear that simply digitalizing existing practices was not enough. What was needed were systems that could think, adapt and act, not just respond ().
agentic ai refers to advanced artificial intelligence systems capable of acting autonomously, adapting to changing situations, making decisions, and pursuing goals with minimal human intervention (). Unlike traditional ai systems that merely respond to prompts, agentic ai can continuously analyze information, monitor progress, and take proactive actions to support learning, teaching, and organizational improvement. Another study defines it as an interactive system that can process and react to information from its surroundings, including visual inputs, verbal or written communication, and other contextual cues, in order to perform meaningful and appropriate actions (). Agentic ai systems engage in meaningful human-like interactions, are autonomous and context-aware, and present goal-oriented behaviours, initiating actions based on their goals, state, and knowledge, and making informed decisions using data and environmental cues with limited human supervision (). This distinction in not merely technical. It represents a shift from ai as a passive tool that responds to instructions, to ai as an active partner that participates in how knowledge is created, shared, and managed within educational systems (; ). In education, the growing importance of agentic ai lies in its ability to create adaptive learning environments, reduce administrative burdens, support professional development, and enhance data-driven decision-making for both educators and school leaders ().
according to the meta-analysis conducted by , ai can support sustainable education by improving academic achievement and increasing learner engagement. Sustainability in education emphasizes institutional effectiveness, operational efficiency, and the long-term continuity of educational systems (). In this context, ai agency is increasingly viewed as tool for enhancing educational quality, reducing administrative workload, and expanding access to learning opportunities ().
traditional approaches to teacher professional development have long struggled with structural limitations, including the lack of strategic planning, discontinuous training programmers, and methods that prioritize theoretical knowledge over adaptive professional skills (). These limitations are not simply logistical, they reflect a deeper gap between training contexts and real classroom practice, where knowledge gained in professional development fails to transfer meaningfully into teaching behavior. Addressing this gap requires more than better training content, it requires systems that can bridge the training context and the practical content continuously and adaptively (). Recent conceptual work has proposed integrating teacher professional development, ai supported learning, and the long-term development of teachers’ professional vision within a single framework. Rather than serving only as a technological tool, ai functions as a bridge that connects professional learning with classroom practice by reinforcing learning transfer, supporting evidence-based reasoning, and promoting adaptive teaching (). This is precisely the role of agentic ai bridge framework is designed to fulfill, not as a replacement for professional learning. But as the connecting mechanism that makes professional learning continuous, context-sensitive, and genuinely adaptive across the full educational system.
within the context of this perspective, agentic ai is conceptualized as a bridging mechanism that could facilitate the connection between educational leadership, teacher development, and sustainable educational outcomes, see figure 1. Rather than operating as a collecting of isolated technological functions, agentic ai facilitates continuous feedback, adaptive support, and data-informed decision-making across multiple levels of the educational system. Through these processes, it links leadership practices, workload management, developmental supervision, reflective professional learning, and teacher readiness within a unified framework for educational improvement. Unlike conventional ai systems that primarily respond to user inputs or perform predefined tasks, agentic ai is characterized by its ability to act autonomously, adapt to changing contexts, coordinate multiple actions, and provide proactive support in pursuit of specific goals (; ). As illustrated in figure 2, agentic ai differs from classical ai in its higher levels of autonomy, context awareness, adaptability, reasoning, and goal-oriented planning. These are not just technical upgrades; they reflect a fundamentally different way of operating. To understand where agentic ai sits within the broader landscape of ai in education, propose a framework that classifies educational ai tools form simple general-purpose systems at the lowest level, through instruction executors and ai assistants, to human-ai collaboration at the highest level. Agentic ai operates at this top level, where both the degree of agency and the depth of human-ai interaction are at their highest. This is what makes it capable of doing something earlier ai tools could not: functioning as a genuine partner in educational processes rather than a background utility. These capabilities enable agentic systems to move beyond simple information delivery and support more dynamic and personalized educational processes. For example, agentic ai can monitor progress, identify emerging needs, recommend interventions, and assist decision-making without requiring constant human direction (). In educational settings, such capabilities may strengthen professional learning, facilitate adaptive supervision, and support continuous improvement by maintain ongoing feedback loops between leadership, educators, and institutional goals (). Consequently, the value of agentic ai lies not only in automating tasks, but also in its ability to provide adaptive, context-aware, and goal-driven support that evolves in response to the changing needs of educational systems and their stakeholders.
figure 1
figure 2
the organizational implications of agentic ai in education extend beyond individual classrooms or teachers. At the institutional level, ai tools are already reshaping how schools are organized, managed and lead, automating administrative processes, enabling data-driven decision making, optimizing resource allocation, and transforming leadership from administrative compliance toward instructional focus (). Critically, however, this transformation is not automatic. Argues that most current ai initiatives in school management represent innovation, incremental improvements in efficiency, rather than genuine transformation, where ai catalyzes new forms of participatory leadership, reimagined school organization, and fundamentally student-centered environments. The strongest cases for transformation emerge only when leadership, teacher development, school organization, and technology co-evolve together as a system. This systemic insight is central to the agentic ai bridge framework, which proposes precisely this kind of co-evolution, where agentic ai does not digitize existing control structures but transforms them by continuously connecting leadership, supervision, professional learning, and sustainability within a self-reinforcing system.
the limitations of earlier ai tools, and the distinct capabilities of agentic ai, point directly to the need for a new conceptual framework. Prior ai applications in education fell short not because ai itself was inadequate, but because the systems being used lacked the autonomy, adaptability, and contextual judgment needed to engage with the full complexity of educational life (; ). At the same time, simply deploying more powerful ai is not enough. For agentic ai to genuinely improve educational outcomes, it must be embedded within clear structures, structures that connect leadership, supervision, professional learning, and institutional sustainability in a coherent and principled way (; ). It is necessary that the agentic ai bridge framework, introduced in the following section, is designed to address. The framework explains how agentic ai can serve as a dynamic connecting force across educational leadership, developmental supervision, workload management, reflective professional learning, teacher readiness, and long-term sustainability, not as a collection of isolated tools, but as an integrated system that continuously learns, adapts and improves.
this paper is organized as follows. The next section introduces the agentic ai bridge framework and explains the rationale for integrating glickmans development supervision model, gibbs reflective cycle, teacher readiness, workload management, and sustainability into a single model. The following sections then apply this framework to educational leadership, developmental supervision, and reflective professional learning in turn, showing how each construct is activated through the frameworks three mechanisms. The paper then discusses teacher readiness as a moderating condition and sustainability as an emergent, long-term outcome. The next sections address the ethical conditions required for responsible deployment. The last sections outline a sustainable orientation, future research agenda and conclusion.
the agentic ai bridge framework
while generative ai systems and learning analytics platforms have made significant contributions to education, they remain insufficient for the purposes of this framework. Generative ai systems, such as large language models, are reactive by nature: they produce outputs when prompted but cannot independently monitor educational processes, identify emerging needs, or initiate action without human direction (; ). Learning analytics platforms, meanwhile, can track and visualize data effectively but lack the capacity to act on that data autonomously, they surface information for human decision-makers rather than participating in the decision-making process itself (; ). What distinguishes agentic ai is precisely its agency, the capacity to initiate, monitor, adapt, and act continuously across complex and evolving educational contexts without requiring constant human prompting (; ).
from detection to reflection: how agentic ai connects leadership, supervision, professional learning and teacher’s readiness
a concrete example helps illustrate this distinction. Consider the challenge of identifying and responding to bullying behavior in schools. A conventional ai system or learning analytics tool might flag patterns in students if bullying happened. Unfortunately, it flags after bullying had already caused harm. A generative ai tool, if asked, might explain what bullying looks like or suggest intervention strategies. But neither can act in real time, without being prompted, to detect and respond to a live incident as it unfolds. Agentic ai, by contrast, can do precisely this. It can be integrated with camera systems and real-time interaction monitoring, agentic ai can continuously analyze peer interactions, distinguish between bullying and joking in context, and initiate support responses immediately and without waiting for a teacher to notice or intervene (). This kind of continuous, real-time, proactive response is only possible because agentic ai possesses genuine agency, it does not wait to be asked; it monitors, judges and acts. This example captures something essential about why agentic ai is uniquely suited to educational environments, because the most important moments where “direct interference” is crucial in school life rarely happen at convenient times or in predictable ways. In a school setting, to ensure a safe student environment, the school leadership must expect the unexpected. This simple example, when examined carefully, reveals how agentic ai simultaneously activates all three domains of the framework: “educations leadership, developmental supervision and reflective professional learning”.
at the level of educational leadership, the detection of a bullying incident generates immediate, evidence-based data that the school principal can act upon without spending hours reviewing footage or waiting for a teachers report. Rather than reacting to a problem that has already escalated, the principal receives a proactive alert, contextualized, specific and actionable. This frees the principal to focus on what matters most, deciding how to respond, speaking with parents, and arranging the right support of the student involved. Rather than spending time finding the problem, the leader can focus entirely on solving it. This is cognitive offloading in action: agentic ai handles the monitoring so the leader can focus on judgment and people (; ; ).
the same incident also creates a direct opportunity for developmental supervision. The teachers whose classroom the bullying occurred in, do not receive a vague piece of feedback weeks later, they receive specific, real-time evidence of exactly what happened: how the situation developed, what the classroom dynamic looked like beforehand, and where attention may have been directed at key moments. This gives the supervisor, whether a head of department or a senior colleague, something concrete to work with. If the teacher is newer and less experienced, the supervisor can offer clear, direct guidance on what to do differently. If they are more experienced, the conversation can be more collaborative, exploring together what the evidence reveals and what changes might help. In both cases, supervision moves from a vague impression-based discussion to a specific, evidence-informed conversation grounded in what actually happened (; ).
the process does not stop here. After the supervisory conversation, agentic ai prompts the teacher to reflect, not at a fixed time on a calendar, but now when reflection is most useful and most meaningful. The prompt follows the stages of gibbs reflective cycle: what happened, how did it feel, what went well or not well, what else could have been done, and what will be done differently next time (; ). This is not a generic exercise. It is directly connected to a real event the teacher experienced that day. Over time, as these reflective prompts accumulate across different classroom situations, teachers develop deeper professional knowledge and stronger adaptive skills, gradually closing the gap between what is learned in training and what actually happens in practice (; ).
what this example shows is that agentic ai does not support leadership, supervision, and reflection as three separate activities. It connects them in a single, continuous process, the leadership response shapes the supervisory conversation, the supervisory conversation deepens the reflection, and the reflection builds the teachers readiness to respond better next time. Each part strengthens the next. This is exactly the dynamic the agentic ai bridge framework proposes, and the example of bullying shows clearly why it requires genuine agency to work. A generative ai tool could suggest what to do about bullying if someone asked. A data dashboard could show a pattern after the fact. But only agentic ai can detect the incident, alert the leader, support the supervisory process, and prompt the teachers reflection. All continuously, without waiting to be asked (; ).
this property is not only desirable; it is theoretically indispensable to the proposed framework. Educations leadership, developmental supervision and reflective professional learning are not isolated, one-time events. They are ongoing, interdependent, and context-sensitive processes that unfold across time and require continuous adaptive support (, ; ). A system that only responds when prompted cannot maintain the feedback loops, adaptive interventions, and proactive goal pursuit that these processes require. Evidence supports this across multiple educational functions. In student support, agentic ai systems have demonstrated the ability to analyze academic records, career aspirations, and engagement patterns simultaneously, generating tailored recommendations that dynamically adjust learning pathways in real time as student needs evolve (). At the institutional level, multi-agent architectures integrating large language models, reinforcement learning, and predictive analytics have achieved significant improvements in recommendation accuracy, grading efficiency, and dropout prediction, outcomes that no single reactive or analytics-only system could produce (). At the leadership level, agentic ai is emerging as a proactive partner for academic leaders, serving as tutor, metacognitive coach, and collaborative teaching assistant simultaneously, reducing administrative burdens while enabling more personalized and responsive educational experiences ().
to make this concrete: a generative ai tool can answer a question about supervision, but it cannot monitor a teachers’ development over weeks, identify when an intervention is needed, and act on that without being asked. A learning analytics dashboard can show a school leader patterns in teacher performance, but it cannot initiate a conversation, recommend a professional development pathway, or adjust support as the teacher grows. A camera system with classical ai can record a bullying incident, but it cannot distinguish context, judge severity and trigger a real-time response without human instruction. Agentic ai can do all these things continuously, simultaneously, and coherently across an entire educational system. This is why agentic ai is not simply the most advanced option available, but the only theoretically appropriate foundation for a framework that spans leadership, supervision, professional learning, teacher readiness and sustainability (; ; ).
the framework
figure 1 presents the agentic ai bridge framework, which conceptualizes agentic ai not as a standalone tool but as a dynamic mediating system operation through three explicit mechanisms that connect educational constructs to sustainable outcomes.
the left side of the figure shows four educational constructs arranged sequentially: educational leadership sets the institutional vision and goals, which shapes how workload is managed, which in turn creates the conditions for more meaningful developmental supervision, which ultimately deepens teachers’ capacity for reflective learning (, ; ). These constructs are not independent, each one builds on the previous, forming a developmental chain that agentic ai is positioned to strengthen.
at the center of the framework, the agentic ai bridge operates through three explicit mechanisms. The first is cognitive offloading: agentic ai absorbs routine administrative tasks, reducing work pressure on school leaders and freeing cognitive resources for higher-order responsibilities such as strategic decision-making and teacher mentoring (; ). This mechanism directly activates the educational leadership and workload management constructs on the left. The second mechanism is reflective amplification: ai-generated prompts and data outputs scaffold deeper professional reflection, initiating and sustaining reflective cycle, prompting teachers to describe what happened, evaluate it critically, and plan deliberate changes to their practice (). This mechanism activates developmental supervision and reflective learning constructs. The third mechanism is adaptive readiness loop: the framework continuously adjusts its outputs in response to the readiness conditions present in the school, ensuring that ai integration remains responsive rather than imposed ().
the right side of the figure maps each mechanism to the ai capabilities it produces cognitive offloading generates decision-making assistance and data-driven supervision; reflective amplification produces reflective prompts and collaborative leadership support setting; and the adaptive readiness loop generates ongoing readiness scaffolding that builds teacher confidence over time.
a critical theoretical proposition of the framework is that teacher readiness functions as a moderate variable, not a sequential step. As shown in figure 1, teacher readiness sits below the agentic ai bridge and sends upward arrows into all three mechanisms. This means the degree to which each mechanism activates and produces its intended capability is bounded by teachers’ individual and institutional readiness to engage with agentic ai (). When readiness is low, the mechanisms are partially activated; as readiness develops through professional learning, the mechanisms operate at full capacity.
a second, distinct theoretical proposition concerns the ethical deployment condition, shown in figure 1 as governing all three mechanisms rather than moderating them in the manner of teacher readiness. Where teacher readiness determines the degree to which each mechanism activates, the ethical deployment condition determines whether a mechanism may legitimately operate at all. It functions as a gating condition rather than a graded moderator: consent, oversight, accountability and data protection are not variables that partially strengthen or weaken a mechanisms output, but requirements that must be satisfied before any mechanism is considered active within the framework. This distinction matters theoretically. Teacher readiness describes a continuum, low readiness produces partial activation, and readiness developed through professional learning produces fuller activation. The ethical deployment condition, by contrast, describes a threshold, a mechanism whether meets the requirements or not. Positioned this way, the ethical deployment condition and teacher readiness operates as two independent constraints on the same three mechanisms: readiness governs how fully a mechanism operates once permitted, while the ethical deployment condition governs whether it is permitted to operate in the first place.
finally, the framework does not terminate at a fixed outcome. Sustainable education emerges as the product of a reinforcing feedback loop. As the three mechanisms produce improved leadership, supervision and reflective practice, these outcomes strengthen teacher readiness, which in turn deepens the effectiveness of all three mechanisms in the next cycle (; ). This self-sustaining dynamic is what the framework proposes as the essential difference between agentic ai and prior generations of educational technology. It does not produce one-time improvement, but rather a continuously improving system of educational practice.
these domains do not operate independently, they form a dynamic, interdependent system in which changes in one domain directly influence the others. Agentic ai initiates this system by first addressing workload. When administrative burdens on school leaders are reduced through cognitive offloading, leaders gain the time, attention, and relational capacity needed to engage in meaningful developmental supervision (; ). This matters because glickmans development supervision model effective implementation becomes difficult when supervisors and teachers experience excessive workload. It requires supervisors to accurately read a teachers developmental sate and respond with the appropriate level of support, a judgement that demands genuine presence and focus rather that distracted compliance (). When supervisions quality improves, it creates the conditions for deeper professional reflection. Teachers who receive contextually sensitive evidence-based supervisory feedback are better positioned to move through the full sequence of gibbs reflective cycle, progressing beyond surface description of events toward genuine evaluation, critical analysis, and deliberate action planning (; ). This deeper reflection, sustained over time, builds teacher readiness, not simply familiarity with ai tools, but the professional confidence, adaptability, and self-regulation needed to engage fully with agentic ai systems and benefit from what they offer (). As readiness grows, the three mechanisms of the framework, cognitive offloading, reflective amplification, and adaptive readiness loop. Activate more effectively in each subsequent cycle. Leadership might become more strategic, supervision could become more developmental, reflection probably becomes more transformative, and the system might become more capable of sustaining improvement over time. It is this self-reinforcing dynamic, where each domain strengthens the next, and the cycle continuously deepens, that produces sustainable educational outcomes not as a fixed endpoint, but as an emergent property of the framework itself (; ).
these two theories (gibbs and glickmans) were not combined simply because they appear together in the literature. Each one describes a different level at which change happens, and together they cover the full path from an individual teachers experience to system-wide outcomes. At the individual level, reflective cycle describes how a teacher processes and learns from experience. At the relational level, glickmans development supervision model describes how a supervisor adjusts support, more directive or more collaborative, to match a teachers stage of development. At the capacity level, workload management and teacher readiness describe whether a teacher has the time, energy, and disposition needed for reflection and supervision to happen. At the sustainability level, it describes the long-term, cumulative outcome of these processes across an institution. Agentic ai is the one element that touches every level, which is what makes it possible to treat it as a causal connector linking these constructs, rather than a shared them running through them descriptively.
boundary conditions and transferability
the agentic ai bridge framework is developed with reference to educational leadership and supervision practice in the uae, where supervisory authority is comparatively centralized and system-level ai adoption is actively promoted through national digital-transformation policy. We treat this setting as an illustrative case rather a definitional boundary. The frameworks three mechanisms are stated at a level of abstraction: cognitive offloading, reflective amplification and adaptive readiness, that we expect to generalize across school and higher-education contexts. However, the strength and even the direction of the linkages between constructs are conditioned on at least four contextual factors: (a) the degree of centralization in supervisory authority, which shapes who controls ai-generated data and how it is used in evaluation; (b) the maturity of digital infrastructure and data-governance regulation; (c) prevailing norms of teacher autonomy and professional trust, which affect whether ai-mediated monitoring is experienced as support or surveillance; and (d) resource availability, which determines whether workload relief from automation is realized in practice or offset by new technical burdens. We therefore present the framework as a transferable but context-conditioned model, and we return to these conditions when discussing cultural and social considerations below.
cultural and social considerations
agentic ai in educational supervision is not purely technical intervention; it is embedded in relations of trust and authority between teachers, supervisors, and institutions. The same data-driven supervision mechanism (mechanism 1) that a teacher is one setting experiences as evidence-based support may, in a context with lower institutional trust or stronger surveillance norms, be experienced as intensified managerial control. Whether this occurs depends on teacher autonomy norms (the degree to which teacher expect independent professional judgment to be respected); privacy expectations and existing data-protection regulation; parental and community expectations about the role of technology in schooling; and the broader policy environments stance on algorithmic decision making in public institutions. We therefore treat cultural and social embeddedness as a moderating layer that sits alongside teacher readiness (figure 1): the frameworks mechanisms are activated not only by individual readiness but also by the collective, institutional acceptability of ai-mediated supervision.
ethical deployment condition
ethical governance is not treated as an external constraint on an otherwise complete framework. It is a condition on which the frameworks mechanisms depend for legitimate operation (figure 1). Specifically, any deployment of agentic ai withing the supervisory mechanisms described above must satisfy four conditions: informed consent from teachers regarding what is monitored and how it is used; meaningful human oversight of ai-generated judgments before they inform supervisory decisions; clear accountability for erroneous or biased outputs; and data protection consistent with applicable regulations.
any ai capabilities referenced as an illustrative example in this framework, such as automated behavioral incident detection, must be handled carefully. Before such as capability is treated as part of the framework, it must be examined against the following concerns. First, does the capability involve continuous monitoring that amounts to surveillance, regardless of its intended developmental purpose? Second, can meaningful consent realistically be obtained from those being monitored, rather than consent being assumed as a condition of participation? Third, how is the resulting data stored, accessed and protected, particularly where it concerns sensitive behavioral information? Fourth, what happens when the system produces a false positive, and what consequence follow for the individuals involved? Fifth, who is a accountable when such an error occurs? Sixth, does relying on the capability risk reducing a complex, context-dependent human interaction to a single algorithmic classification, at the cost of the relational nuance human judgment would otherwise bring? These questions are not treated as a brief limitation to be noted once and set aside. They are built into the ethical deployment condition itself, so that no capability is considered part of the framework until it can be shown to satisfy consent, oversight, accountability, and data protection requirements ().
agentic ai, educational leadership, and workload management
despite the growing potential of agentic ai in education, schools continue to face increasing administrative demands, data-driven responsibilities, and workplace pressures that affect teachers’ performance, decision-making, and professional growth (). Teachers are expected to manage instructional responsibilities while also handling documentation, reporting, assessment tracking, and continuous data analysis (). These growing demands often limit opportunities for meaningful professional development and reflective practice, placing operational tasks ahead of instructional improvement ().
in response to these challenges, educational institutions are increasingly exploring the use of ai to improve efficiency and support educational practices. Ai-based systems can automate repetitive administrative tasks, organize educational data, and support more informed decision-making processes, allowing teachers to dedicate greater attention to teaching and student learning (). Effective school leadership remains essential in ensuring that these technologies are implemented responsibly and in ways that genuinely support educators rather than increase complexity (). When integrated effectively, agentic ai may reduce workload pressures, strengthen educational leadership through cognitive offloading, and contribute to more adaptive and sustainable learning environments.
leadership is not treated here as a single enabling condition. Instead, several leadership traditions are distinguished, each showing a different pathway through which agentic ais mechanisms operate. In instructional-leadership terms, cognitive offloading (mechanism 1) is theorized to redirect leaders’ freed attention toward instructional conversations, sharpened by ai-generated evidence rather than impressionistic observation. In distributed-leadership terms, the same offloading creates capacity for supervisory and monitory responsibilities to be distributed to teacher-leaders rather than concentrated in formal leadership roles (). In data-informed-leadership terms, agentic ai changes not just the volume but the timeliness and granularity of decision-making data, altering the pace at which leadership decisions can reasonably be made. In technology-leadership terms, leaders are positioned not as passive beneficiaries of automation but as active governors of it, responsible for the ethical deployment condition described in figure 1. Treating these strands separately clarifies that agentic ai does not act on leadership generically but interacts with specific leadership practices in specific ways.
beyond improving operational efficiency, agentic ai also may enhance the creation of opportunities for more personalized and responsive approaches to teacher supervision and professional support. This aligns closely with developmental models of supervision that recognize teachers’ varying levels of expertise, readiness, and professional needs.
agentic ai and the glickman’s developmental supervision model
building on the role of agentic ai in reduction administrative workload and supporting educational leadership, its potential extends beyond operational efficiency to the enhancement of teacher development. As schools seek more personalized and sustainable approaches to professional growth, there is a growing need for supervisory models that recognize the diverse needs, experiences, and readiness levels of educators. In this regard, agentic ai offers a promising mechanism for strengthening the implementation of glickmans developmental supervision model.
glickmans developmental supervision model recognizes that teachers vary in their levels of expertise, commitment, and instructional readiness, requiring different supervisory approaches ranging from directive supervision for novice teachers to collaborative and non-directive supervision for more experienced educators (). Although the model provides a strong framework for differentiated teacher support, its implementation of often constrained by limited supervisory capacity, time pressures, and difficulties in providing individualized guidance at scale.
agentic ai offers a practical solution to these challenges by enabling continuous, data-informed, and adaptive support. For novice teachers, ai agents can function as instructional coaches by identifying areas of improvement, recommending targeted professional learning resources, and providing structured guidance aligned with classroom needs. Such support can supplement the efforts of school leaders, particularly in contexts where increasing workload limits opportunities for frequent supervision ().
for teachers at intermediate stages of professional development, agentic ai can facilitate more collaborative forms of supervision by analyzing classroom data, identifying professional learning needs, and recommending relevant peer-learning opportunities. Rather than replacing human interaction, these systems can strengthen collaboration by ensuring that professional dialogue is informed by evidence and focused on instructional improvement ().
similarly, experienced teachers can benefit from non-directive forms of ai-supported supervision. Through performance analytics, research recommendations, and reflective prompts, agentic ai can encourage self-directed professional growth while preserving teacher autonomy. In this way, the technology serves as a catalyst for reflection rather than a prescriptive decision-maker.
the integration of agentic ai with the developmental supervision model demonstrates how intelligent technologies can support differentiated and scalable professional development wile maintaining the human-centered principles of effective supervision. By aligning supervisory practices with teachers’ developmental needs, educational institutions can foster continuous growth, strengthen instructional quality, and better prepare educators and learners for the demands of an evolving educational landscape (; ).
while differentiated supervision provides teachers with support that aligns with their professional needs, long-term improvement also depends on continuous reflection and learning from experience. Effective professional growth requires educators to critically examine their practices, adapt to changing educational demands, and engage in ongoing development. In this regard, reflective frameworks such as gibbs reflective cycle can be strengthened through the adaptive and personalized capabilities of agentic ai.
agentic ai and gibb’s reflective professional learning
while differentiated supervision provides with support that aligns with their developmental needs, sustained professional growth also depends on continuous reflection and learning from experience. Reflective practice enables educators to evaluate their instructional decisions, identify areas for improvement, and adapt to evolving educational demands. In this regards, gibbs reflective cycle offers a valuable framework that can be enhanced through the adaptive capabilities of agentic ai.
gibbs reflective cycle () provides a structured process through which teachers critically examine their experiences through six stages: description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and action planning. Reflective practice is widely recognized as a key component of professional learning because it strengthens self-awareness, critical thinking, and instructional effectiveness. However, meaningful reflection is often constrained by time limitations, workload pressures, and the absence of structured support systems within schools ().
agentic ai presents an opportunity to transform reflective practice from an occasional activity into a continuous and personalized learning process. Unlike traditional ai systems, agentic ai can provide adaptive guidance, contextual feedback, and ongoing reflective dialogue based on teachers’ experiences and classroom data (). For example, ai agents can guide educators through the stages of reflection, identify recurring instructional patterns, recommend evidence-based strategies, and support action planning for future practice. Through their ability to retain previous interactions and provide scaffolded support, these systems can foster more consistent and sustainable professional development ().
nevertheless, the effectiveness of reflective practice depends on more than technological support. Professional learning remains deeply rooted in human interaction, collegial collaboration, mentorship, and contextual understanding. While agentic ai can strengthen reflective processes, it cannot fully replicate the empathy, trust, and shared experiences that emerge through professional learning communities and instructional leadership. Consequently, agentic ai should be viewed as a complement to, rather than a replacement for, the human dimensions of professional growth ().
this balance between technological support and human agency also highlights an important consideration for the successful integration of agentic ai in education. Although intelligent systems can provide personalized guidance and professional support, educators differ in their willingness and ability to engage with such innovations. As a result, individual characteristics and personal traits play a critical role in shaping how teachers perceive, adopt, and benefit from agentic ai.
personal traits and readiness for agentic ai
the preceding discussion highlights the potential of agentic ai to support educational leadership, reduce workload pressures through cognitive offloading, enhance developmental supervision by operationalising glickmans model by providing continuous evidence, and strengthen reflective professional learning and growth that functions as an external scaffold that initiates gibbs cycle. However, the successful implementation of these opportunities depends not only on technical capabilities but also on the individuals who engage with them. As a result, educators’ personal traits, experiences, and readiness for innovation play a critical role in determining the effectiveness of agentic ai within educational settings, as it moderates the threshold at which each mechanism activates.
research suggests that teachers differ in their readiness to adopt new technologies, technological competence, and willingness to engage in continuous learning (). While some educators readily embrace innovation, others may experience challenges due to differences in personality, beliefs, professional experience, or prior exposure to technology. Teachers who demonstrate openness, adaptability, and confidence are generally more likely to integrate ai-based tools into their practice, whereas concerns related to technological complexity or fears of replacement may hinder adoption. These differences suggest that educational transformation cannot be achieved through a one-size-fits-all approach ().
from this perspective, agentic ai has the potential to support more personalized pathways for professional growth. By adapting to teachers’ needs, capabilities, and levels of readiness, ai systems can provide differentiated professional development, individualized feedback, and tailored learning opportunities that promote confidence and continuous improvement (). Such personalized support aligns closely with the developmental and supervisory approaches discussed earlier, reinforcing the idea that effective educational improvement requires responsiveness to individual differences rather than uniform interventions ().
in addition to individual characteristics, contextual factors such as school culture, access to technology, and attitudes toward innovation also influence educators’ perceptions of agentic ai. Educational leaders therefore play an important role in fostering environments that encourage experimentation, professional learning, and responsible technology adoption (; ). Recognizing these human and contextual dimensions is essential for ensuring the agentic ai serves as a tool for empowerment rather than a source of resistance.
ultimately, the effectiveness of agentic ai depends on the interaction between technological capabilities and human readiness (). This perspective reinforces the broader argument of this paper that sustainable educational transformation requires not only intelligent technologies but also supportive leadership, adaptive professional development, and educators who are prepared to engage with change (; ).
collectively, the perspectives presented thus far suggest that the transformative potential of agentic ai extends beyond any single educational function. By supporting leadership, reducing workload pressures, enabling differentiated supervision, fostering reflective professional learning, and accommodating individual differences among educators, agentic ai creates the conditions necessary for sustainable and future-oriented educational systems. This raises an important question: how can these interconnected benefits contribute to the long-term sustainability of education in an increasingly complex and rapidly changing world?
toward sustainable and future-oriented education
collectively, the preceding discussion demonstrates that the value of agentic ai extends beyond isolated educational functions. Through its ability to reduce workload pressures, support educational leadership, facilitate differentiated supervision, strengthen reflective professional learning, and accommodate individual differences among educators, agentic ai may contribute to the broader goal of educational sustainability as an emergent property of reinforcing loops. Rather than functioning solely as technological innovation, it has the potential to serve as an enabling mechanism that connects multiple dimensions of educational improvement.
sustainable education is commonly associated with maintaining educational quality, institutional effectiveness, operational efficiency, and the long-term capacity of educational systems to respond to changing societal needs (). From this perspective, sustainability is viewed as an outcome of effective leadership, ongoing professional development, educator adaptability, and organizational capacity for continuous improvement. Agentic ai may offer significant opportunities to support these goals. Research suggest that ai-enabled educational technologies can enhance learning engagement, improve academic achievement, expand access to learning opportunities, and support more inclusive educational practices (; ). Furthermore, adaptive and personalized learning environments can help address diverse learner needs while promoting educational quality and equity, which align closely with the objectives of sustainable development goal 4 (; ).
however, the sustainability of educational transformation depends on more than technological advancements alone. As highlighted throughout this paper, effective implementation requires supportive leadership, manageable workloads, differentiated supervision, continuous professional learning, and educators who are willing and prepared to engage with innovation. When these elements operate in isolation, their impact may be limited. When connected through the adaptive capabilities of agentic ai, they create a more coherent and responsive educational ecosystem that supports both teacher development and student success.
from a synthetic perspective, agentic ai can be viewed as the bridge between current educational challenges and the future of sustainable education. It links leadership with professional growth, supervision with reflection, and technological innovation with human development. Importantly, its value lies not in replacing educators or educational leaders, but in augmenting their capacity to make informed decisions, personalize support, and foster meaningful learning experiences. As educational systems continue to evolve in response to increasing complexity and rapid technological change, the successful integration of agentic ai may provide a pathway toward more adaptive, inclusive, and sustainable educational environments that prepare both educators and learners to thrive in a rapidly changing world. Within the agentic ai bridge framework, sustainability is conceptualized as the cumulative outcome of the interconnected processes discussed throughout this perspective paper. Effective leadership, manageable workloads, developmental supervision, reflective professional learning, and teacher readiness collectively contribute to the long-term resilience and effectiveness of educational systems. Agentic ai may support these processes through adaptive feedback, personalization, and continuous decision support, thereby strengthening the capacity of educational institutions to sustain improvement over time.
while this perspective highlights the potential of agentic ai to support educational leadership, teacher development, and sustainability, its implementation also raises important challenges related to data privacy, algorithmic bias, teacher surveillance, accountability, and unequal access to technology (; ). Furthermore, excessive reliance on ai-supported recommendations may affect professional autonomy and create new forms of dependency on digital platforms (; ). These concerns highlight the importance of ethical governance, transparency, and human-centered implementation strategies when integrating agentic ai into educational systems.
future research
as a conceptual contribution, the propositions advanced here require empirical testing before they can be treated as established findings. Four lines of research are proposed, aligned with the frameworks structure. First, design-based research pilots that introduce agentic ai tools into supervisory workflows, measuring workload and decision-making effectiveness before and after (testing mechanism 1). Second, qualitative interview studies with school leaders and teachers examining whether ai-generated prompts measurably alter the depth or frequency of gibbs-cyle reflection compared with unprompted reflection (testing mechanism 2). Third, development and validation of a teacher-readiness survey instrument, tested against observed patterns of ai utilization, to establish whether readiness functions as a moderator as proposed (testing mechanism 3). Fourth, a longitudinal mixed-methods study tracking institutions over multiple academic years, to test whether the proposed reinforcing feedback loop is observable as an accumulating trend toward the sustainability indicators used in the wider literature (; ).
conclusion
this paper argues that the value of agentic ai lies not in any single educational application, but in its potential to connect multiple dimensions of educational improvement within a unified framework. Through the proposed agentic ai bridge framework, educational leadership, workload management, developmental supervision, reflective professional learning, teacher readiness, and sustainable education outcome are conceptualised as interconnected process rather than isolated initiatives. Agentic ai serves as the connecting mechanism, facilitating adaptive support, continuous feedback, and data-informed decision-making across educational systems (; ).
realising this potential, however, depends on how honestly institutions engage with the risks that accompany ai integration. Continuous ai monitoring can erode the professional autonomy that effective supervision and reflection require. Predictive systems can amplify existing inequalities rather than correct them. And the data collection that agentic ai deepens upon creates privacy and consent obligations that many institutions are not yet equipped to meet (; ; ). There are not peripheral concerns, they are conditions. The frameworks reinforcing feedback loop only produces sustainable outcomes when ai recommendations are transparent and contestable, data governance is robust, and teacher professional autonomy is genuinely protected rather than monitored (; ). As a conceptual perspective, the relationships proposed in this paper should be viewed as theoretical possibilities rather than empirically established outcomes. Future research is needed to examine the practical implementation of agentic ai in educational settings and to evaluate its impact on leadership practices, teacher development, and long-term educational sustainability.
ultimately, the contribution of this perspective lies in repositioning agentic ai from a standalone technological innovation to a principled connecting mechanism, one that supports more adaptive, human-centered, and sustainable educational systems. Sustainable education in the age of agentic ai is not simply about institutional efficiency. It is about preserving the reflective depth that gibbs cycle demands, the supervisory trust that glickmans model requires, and the human judgment that no algorithm can replace. When these conditions are met, agentic ai does not replace what makes education meaningful, it strengthens it (; ; ).
statements
data availability statement
the original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.
author contributions
mh: writing – review & editing, investigation, writing – original draft, supervision, conceptualization, funding acquisition, resources, formal analysis, visualization, project administration, validation. Ak: project administration, writing – original draft, formal analysis, visualization, resources, validation, investigation, supervision, writing – review & editing, funding acquisition, conceptualization. Wm: writing – review & editing, investigation, writing – original draft, funding acquisition, supervision, visualization, resources, conceptualization, validation, formal analysis, project administration. Ak: resources, project administration, writing – review & editing, funding acquisition, validation, visualization, formal analysis, supervision, investigation, writing – original draft, conceptualization. Ma: funding acquisition, writing – original draft, writing – review & editing, formal analysis, resources, visualization, project administration, supervision, validation, conceptualization, investigation. Ha: writing – original draft, writing – review & editing, supervision, funding acquisition, resources, investigation, project administration, validation, formal analysis, visualization, conceptualization.
funding
the author(s) declared that financial support was not received for this work and/or its publication.
conflict of interest
the author(s) declared that this work was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
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summary
keywords
agentic ai, developmental supervision, educational leadership, professional development, reflective practice, sustainability
citation
al hasan m, kashef a, mohsen w, khan agy, alomari m and aishan h (2026) the agentic ai bridge: a perspective on educational leadership, teacher development, and sustainability in the ai era. Front. Educ. 11:1895511. Doi: 10.3389/feduc.2026.1895511
received
30 may 2026
revised
04 july 2026
accepted
06 july 2026
published
20 july 2026
volume
11 - 2026
edited by
mohammed borhandden musah, emirates college for advanced education, united arab emirates
updates
copyright
© 2026 al hasan, kashef, mohsen, khan, alomari and aishan.
this is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (cc by). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*correspondence: wissal mohsen 700039354@uaeu.Ac.Ae
disclaimer
all claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher. |
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| What Is The Capital Of Texas |
| Posted on Monday, July 20 @ 00:01:10 PDT (15 reads) | |
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ever catch yourself asking a simple question, what is the capital of texas, and then realize you also want the best places to walk, tour, and explore once you get there?
austin is the answer, and the texas state capitol is the landmark most people picture first.
if you’re planning a visit, a school report, or a quick history refresher, i’ll walk you through the fast facts, the backstory, and the best ways to enjoy the capitol grounds without overplanning.
you’ll also see how spots like lady bird lake, the bullock museum, and the university of texas at austin fit into the same easy day.
quick facts (better than a one-word answer)
- capital city: austin, in travis county, in central texas along the colorado river.
- capital since: 1839 (picked during the republic of texas era).
- signature landmark: the texas state capitol, completed and dedicated in 1888, known for its sunset-red granite exterior.
- population snapshot: austin counted 961,855 residents in the 2020 census, and the u.S. Census bureau estimate for july 1, 2025 is 1,002,632.
- big reasons people visit: government history, live music, outdoor trails, museums, and major festivals.
key takeaways
- austin is the capital of texas, chosen in 1839 and named in honor of stephen f. Austin, often called the “father of texas.”
- the texas state capitol at 1100 congress ave. Was dedicated in 1888 and later designated a national historic landmark (1986).
- austin passed 1 million residents in the july 1, 2025 population estimate, following a 2020 census count of 961,855.
- major draws include south by southwest, austin city limits music festival, and the city’s longtime “live music capital of the world” branding.
- the state preservation board runs many visitor services tied to the capitol, including capitol tours, the capitol visitors center, and planning help for field trips.
the capital of texas: austin
austin is the capital of texas, set in central texas along the colorado river and anchored by the texas state capitol in downtown austin.
if you want one easy starting point, aim for the capitol visitors center area first, then branch out to the capitol, museums, and the lake trails.
watch a quick overview video of the texas state capitol
official designation as the capital
austin became the capital in 1839 during the republic of texas era, and it has held that role ever since.
when you walk the capitol complex today, you’re seeing more than a building, you’re seeing the center of state government, where the texas legislature meets and many state office buildings sit nearby.
if you like the dramatic chapters of texas history, the archives war is the one to remember: the standoff took place on december 30 to 31, 1842, when austin residents blocked an attempt to move government records out of the city.
- best quick win: take a guided capitol tour for the story, then do a self-guided lap outside for statues and memorials.
- good to know: the state preservation board oversees the capitol, the capitol extension, and the texas state capitol grounds, so their visitor info tends to stay consistent across the whole complex.
- if you’re with kids: pick one “inside” goal (rotunda and chambers) and one “outside” goal (monuments and wide-open lawns) to keep the pace easy.
location in central texas along the colorado river
austin sits in central texas on the eastern edge of the texas hill country, with the colorado river cutting right through the city.
that river setting shapes a lot of what you do here. You can tour government history in the morning, then spend the afternoon on water or trails.
| quick nearby pairings | why it works |
|---|---|
| texas capitol to lady bird lake | easy way to mix civic sightseeing with outdoor time on the same day. |
| capitol to bullock museum | a natural combo for school field trips and family activities, with texas history in both places. |
| austin to san antonio | close enough for a day trip if you want missions, riverwalk time, or more texas history. |
if you like a long walk, the ann and roy butler hike-and-bike trail forms a loop around lady bird lake with about 10 miles of trail to explore.
if you plan your day around walking, austin rewards you with “big-city” sights that still feel close together.
historical background of austin as the capital
austin didn’t become the capital by accident. Leaders wanted an inland seat of government, and the colorado river area offered a central location for the republic of texas.
before austin took over in 1839, the government moved around a lot, and those fast moves still show up in texas history sites and museum exhibits today.
video: a short history of austin and the texas capitol
selection by republic of texas president mirabeau lamar
president mirabeau b. Lamar supported choosing the new capital site in 1839, and the community that became austin grew from there.
the area was also known by the name waterloo early on, before it was renamed austin to honor stephen f. Austin.
if you want the “street layout” story, look for mentions of edwin waller and the early city plan around congress avenue, it helps explain why downtown austin still feels like it funnels you toward the dome.
- history tip: pair a capitol tour with a short walk down congress avenue so you can feel how the city was oriented around the seat of government.
- extra credit for students: note how texas shifted from being tied to coahuila (with saltillo as a capital city) into a separate republic and later a u.S. State.
previous capitals: washington-on-the-brazos, houston, and san felipe de austin
texas cycled through several capitals in the 1830s. That’s why you’ll see washington-on-the-brazos, west columbia, and houston show up again and again in republic of texas timelines.
for a clean snapshot, here’s a simple timeline you can use in a report or a lesson plan.
| period | capital (example) | why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| 1835 (provisional) | san felipe de austin | early organizing center before independence. |
| 1836 (interim) | washington-on-the-brazos | declaration of independence era setting. |
| 1836 to 1837 | columbia (west columbia) | first capital of the elected government of the republic of texas. |
| 1837 to 1839 | houston | short-lived capital before the move inland. |
| from 1839 | austin | long-term seat of texas government. |
geography and climate of austin
austin sits where the hill country meets the flatter land to the east, so you get limestone hills, creek beds, and big shade trees, all in the same metro area.
the climate is humid subtropical, which is a fancy way of saying summers run hot and winters stay mild enough for year-round plans.
video: what austin looks and feels like across the seasons
central location within texas
austin’s central texas location makes it a practical hub for trips from san antonio, houston, and the dallas area.
you’ll also hear “texas hill country” constantly, because the scenery changes fast as you head west and northwest.
- easy half-day plan: capitol complex in the morning, then lady bird lake trail time after lunch.
- easy full-day plan: add barton creek greenbelt or a museum stop like the bullock museum.
- drive-smart plan: if you’re coming in for festivals, park once and walk, or lean on public transit.
climate overview
austin’s heat is real, and it can shape your day more than you expect.
in a national weather service climate summary for the city’s camp mabry station, normal highs reach 90°f by about may 26 and stay above 90°f until about september 23, with heat index values sometimes climbing above 110.
- start outdoor plans early, then save indoor stops (museums, the capitol visitors center) for mid-afternoon.
- carry water on the trails, and bring sunscreen even if you plan to stay “mostly downtown.”
- if you’re planning field trips, pick shaded breaks on the capitol grounds so the group can reset.
the texas state capitol
the texas state capitol is the most recognizable building in austin, and it’s also one of the easiest “big” attractions to visit because tours are free and the grounds are open for walking.
if you want to get the most from it, think in layers: building, capitol extension, then capitol grounds.
address: 1100 congress ave., Austin, tx
the texas state capitol sits at 1100 congress ave. In downtown austin and serves as the seat of texas government.
it’s worth slowing down outside first, the dome, the granite, and the layout of congress avenue are part of the experience.
- fast start: step into the rotunda first, then decide if you want a guided tour or a self-guided lap.
- with kids: mix “look up” moments inside with “run free” moments outside on the capitol grounds.
- for photos: the south side facing congress avenue is the classic view.
national historic landmark status
the texas state capitol is a national historic landmark, a recognition tied to its history and architecture.
if you care about details, the capitol’s long restoration story also explains why so much of the complex is carefully maintained and clearly signed.
architecture and design
the current capitol was dedicated on may 16, 1888, after a previous limestone capitol building burned on november 9, 1881.
a texas government “fast facts” sheet about the building notes that workers shipped 188,518 cubic feet of sunset-red granite from a quarry via a specially constructed railroad, and that the finished capitol had 392 rooms, 924 windows, and 404 doors.
here’s the “so what” for visitors: those numbers translate into a building that feels huge inside, with long corridors, lots of staircases, and plenty of corners where you’ll want to pause and look up.
free, guided tours available
if you’re trying to choose between wandering and learning, i’d do both: start with a guided tour, then come back later for your own pace.
as of 2026, the state preservation board lists free guided tour hours as monday through saturday with tours running between 9:00 a.M. And 4:15 p.M. (Last tour departs at 4:15 p.M.), And sunday with tours between 12:00 p.M. And 4:15 p.M. Self-guided tour brochures are available at the north entry and other info points.
| visitor detail | what to plan for |
|---|---|
| capitol building hours | often listed as 7:00 a.M. To 10:00 p.M., With changes possible for holidays or special events. |
| capitol grounds | open daily, a good early-morning or sunset walk. |
| visitors parking garage | free for the first 2 hours on weekdays, then $1 per half hour, with a stated maximum daily charge of $12. |
if you’re thinking about capitol accessibility, the texas capitol visitor’s guide notes that facilities are accessible to visitors with disabilities, and it highlights accessible entrances plus elevators that reach the capitol and the capitol extension levels.
key landmarks in austin
austin makes it easy to build a fun day because the best stops cluster near downtown austin.
you can go from texas history to lake views to a museum without a long drive.
lady bird lake
lady bird lake is a central stretch of the colorado river, and it’s one of the easiest ways to “reset” after a capitol visit.
if you want a simple outdoor goal, follow the ann and roy butler hike-and-bike trail loop around the lake, it’s about 10 miles total, so you can do a short section or turn it into a long walk.
- quick win: pick one bridge crossing so you get water views from both sides.
- family activities idea: turn it into a scavenger hunt (boats, birds, skyline, murals).
- heat tip: aim for morning or evening in summer.
barton creek greenbelt
if you want “austin nature” without leaving the city, the barton creek greenbelt is the classic pick.
the city of austin’s parks guidance describes over 12 miles to explore in the greenbelt system, with a main trail of about 7.5 miles that links popular trailheads.
- first-timer plan: choose one trailhead, walk to a swimming hole or scenic spot, then turn back.
- comfort plan: bring shoes that handle rocky sections, and pack water.
- keep it simple: after rain, expect slick limestone and muddy stretches.
historical sites near the capitol
near the texas capitol area, you’ll find more history than most people expect in a short radius.
the bullock museum sits nearby and focuses on the “story of texas,” while the governor’s mansion and state cemetery add two very different views of public life in texas.
- bullock museum: a strong add-on for field trips, with exhibits that connect directly to what students see at the capitol.
- governor’s mansion: a reservation-based tour that adds a “how leaders lived” angle.
- state cemetery: a quiet, reflective stop that adds depth to a history-focused day.
cultural significance of austin
austin’s culture is a big part of why the capital city feels like more than a government hub.
music and arts education show up everywhere, from small stages to huge festivals.
known as the live music capital of the world
austin calls itself the “live music capital of the world,” and you’ll feel that in how the city schedules its weekends.
austin city limits, the long-running concert series, has helped broadcast the city’s sound far beyond texas.
if you want a “very austin” night, build it around live music first, then pick dinner second.
annual cultural events and music festivals
austin’s festival calendar can change your whole trip, including traffic, lodging prices, and the feel of downtown.
for planning purposes, two big dates are easy to remember.
- south by southwest: sxsw’s organizers list the 2026 event dates as march 12 to 18.
- austin city limits music festival: the festival’s published 2026 dates are october 2 to 4 and october 9 to 11 at zilker park.
- texas book festival: the texas book festival has announced november 14 to 15, 2026 in downtown austin, with a footprint that includes the texas state capitol area.
if you’re visiting during festival weeks, plan extra walking time and use the capitol visitors center as a calm break between crowded zones.
parks and outdoor attractions
austin’s outdoor life is one of its best features, and you don’t need a complicated plan to enjoy it.
pick one water stop and one trail stop, and you’ll feel like you’ve seen the city.
swimming holes and natural spaces
barton springs and the creeks around zilker park are famous for a reason, they give you cold water relief even when the air is hot.
mckinney falls adds a “state park feel” close to town, with waterfalls and creek crossings that work well for families.
- pack list: water, sun protection, a towel, and shoes that can get wet.
- safety habit: watch footing on smooth limestone, it can be slick.
- timing tip: go early on weekends to avoid long lines and crowded shorelines.
popular recreational activities
if you want ideas that fit almost any schedule, these are the go-to austin options.
- walk or jog a section of the lady bird lake trail loop.
- paddle on lady bird lake if you want water time without leaving the city center.
- hike the barton creek greenbelt for shade, limestone views, and creek crossings.
- bike between downtown and nearby parks, then cool down with a shaded picnic.
- mix a museum stop with a short outdoor stop so you stay comfortable in the heat.
demographics of austin
austin has grown into a major u.S. City, and that growth shows up in everything from housing costs to traffic patterns.
the easiest way to explain it in one line is this: the city that once felt like a college town now functions like a big metro.
population and growth trends
here’s a clean set of numbers you can use for schoolwork, planning, or quick context.
| topic | verified snapshot |
|---|---|
| 2020 census population | 961,855 |
| 2025 population estimate (july 1) | 1,002,632 |
| change from 2020 base to 2025 estimate | 4.6% |
| city land area (2020) | 319.94 square miles |
| population density (2020) | 3,006.4 people per square mile |
these figures are listed in the u.S. Census bureau’s quickfacts table for austin.
racial and ethnic composition
austin’s demographics are diverse and continue to shift as the city grows.
for a current, easy-to-quote snapshot, the 2020 to 2024 acs-based quickfacts figures list austin as 31.9% hispanic or latino, with 55.0% white alone, 9.1% asian alone, and 7.6% black alone (categories shown as “alone” in the table).
- for students: remember that “hispanic or latino” is an ethnicity, not a race, so it overlaps with the race categories.
- for visitors: neighborhood culture varies a lot, so don’t assume one part of austin feels like the whole city.
key statistics from the 2020 census
the 2020 census count of 961,855 is still the anchor point many reports use, even as later estimates show austin crossing the one-million mark.
if you’re writing a paper, a good habit is to cite both: the 2020 census count for a “hard” number, and the 2025 estimate for a current sense of scale.
economy of austin
austin’s economy blends state government, education, and a heavy dose of tech, which is why “silicon hills” keeps sticking as a nickname.
it’s also why a visit can feel split between history and new industry, sometimes on the same block.
major industries
state jobs and the university of texas help stabilize austin’s employment base, and the tech sector adds growth and higher-wage roles.
- technology: dell’s founder, michael dell, started the company in austin in 1984, and its headquarters is in round rock.
- advanced manufacturing: tesla’s giga texas opening event took place on april 7, 2022, just outside austin in travis county.
- public sector: state agencies and the texas legislature support a wide range of state office buildings and services.
- tourism and events: festivals bring waves of visitors that support hotels, restaurants, and venue staff.
employment opportunities
austin’s job market tends to cluster around government, education, healthcare, and tech.
if you’re relocating for work, it helps to think in “corridors” instead of just city limits, because many major campuses and offices sit across austin and nearby suburbs.
infrastructure and transportation
austin traffic can be the hardest part of a trip, so a simple transit plan can save you time and stress.
if your day centers on downtown austin and the capitol complex, you can often park once and walk most of the rest.
roadways and highways
i-35 runs through austin and connects the city with san antonio and other texas cities.
major routes like us-183 and mopac help drivers skirt the core when downtown streets get crowded during events.
- festival reality: expect lane closures and heavy pedestrian areas near major venues.
- family tip: avoid hopping in and out of the car downtown, it can take longer than walking a few blocks.
public transportation options
capmetro offers bus and rail service across the city, plus options for riders who prefer to avoid driving downtown.
in a 2026 update, capmetro explains that tap to pay is available on buses, and that standard local fares use daily fare capping so riders do not pay more than $2.50 per service day for local rides when paying with tap to pay.
- bus: good for simple point-to-point trips in the core.
- rail: helpful if you’re coming from the north side and want to skip downtown parking.
- accessibility: paratransit service is available for eligible riders.
education in austin
education is one of austin’s defining strengths, and it shows up in the city’s workforce, museums, and arts scene.
even if you’re visiting, the campus areas add great walking routes and cultural stops.
higher education institutions
the university of texas at austin anchors austin’s higher education footprint and helps shape local research and tech recruiting.
in a 2025 university news update covering the 2025 to 2026 academic year, ut austin reported total fall enrollment of 55,000 students.
- ut austin: founded in 1883, with major programs across engineering, business, and the arts.
- austin community college: workforce training and transfer pathways.
- private universities: add more options for specialized programs and smaller campuses.
public and private schools
austin isd and neighboring districts serve families across the metro area.
private schools and specialized programs add more choices, which matters in a city that keeps growing.
government and politics
austin is where texas law and policy get written, debated, and passed.
that means a visit can be both a fun trip and a real-life civics lesson.
city government structure
austin operates under a council-manager system, where the mayor and council set policy and a city manager runs day-to-day operations.
as of july 2026, kirk watson is listed as austin’s mayor, and t.C. Broadnax is listed as the city manager (tenure beginning may 6, 2024).
- if you want to watch government in action: check for posted meeting times and visitor rules before you go.
- if you’re teaching civics: compare how city government works versus the texas legislature at the capitol.
role of austin as the state capital
austin’s role as the state capital brings state agencies, legislative staff, and public-facing services into one central area.
for visitors, the payoff is simple: you can tour historic spaces, learn how bills move, and still have time for a trail walk or a museum.
museums and points of interest
if the weather is hot, museums are your best friend in austin.
they also pair naturally with the texas state capitol because so many are close by.
texas state history museum
the bullock texas state history museum sits at 1800 north congress avenue, between the texas state capitol and the university of texas campus.
if you’re planning field trips, it’s a strong add-on because it turns big timelines into hands-on exhibits and short films.
- pairing tip: do the capitol first for “how government works,” then the museum for “how texas got here.”
- time tip: build in a quiet snack break between stops so kids stay engaged.
libraries and other cultural attractions
austin supports readers, students, and arts fans with museums, libraries, and rotating exhibits.
if you like poetry & literature, plan around author talks during the texas book festival weekend, or look for readings hosted by local cultural centers.
- harry ransom center: rare books and literary collections tied to research and writing.
- blanton museum of art: art collections and exhibits with student-friendly programming.
- lbj presidential library: modern history tied to a texas president.
- mexic-arte museum: latin american art and community-centered events.
cuisine and breweries in austin
austin food is part tradition, part creativity, and part standing in a line because a place is that popular.
if you keep your expectations simple, eat well, drink water, and plan one “treat meal,” you’ll do great.
barbecue and tex-mex
barbecue and tex-mex are the two flavors most visitors chase first, and austin delivers on both.
try brisket, breakfast tacos, and one local salsa you can’t identify but will miss later.
- line strategy: go early for famous barbecue spots, or pick a less-hyped place for a faster meal.
- family strategy: choose food trucks or counter service so the meal feels easy.
- heat strategy: save the spiciest meal for a day when you’re not spending hours outside.
local breweries and dining experiences
austin’s brewery scene pairs well with the city’s music culture, and many places run casual outdoor seating that fits warm evenings.
- franklin barbecue: famous for brisket and a classic austin “plan ahead” meal.
- jester king brewery: known for farmhouse-style brewing and a slower pace outside the city core.
- austin beerworks: a well-known local name with an easygoing taproom feel.
- torchy’s tacos: a once-trailer story that turned into a widely recognized austin brand.
- capitol dining option: if you want a simple lunch during your capitol visit, the cafeteria area in the capitol extension can be a practical break.
conclusion
if you came here for the short answer, here it is again: austin is the capital of texas.
and if you want the “what should i do with that answer,” start with the texas state capitol.
the capitol complex is easy to enjoy because you can mix free capitol tours, a self-guided walk on the texas state capitol grounds, and a museum stop without a complicated plan.
add the capitol visitors center if you want extra context, and treat it as your reset point when the heat kicks up.
if you have time for a second history stop, the state cemetery adds a quieter side of texas stories, and it’s close enough to fit into the same day.
if you’re visiting with students, pairing the capitol with the bullock museum turns a “government tour” into a fuller texas timeline.
for culture, austin backs up its “live music capital of the world” reputation with packed calendars.
if you’re scheduling around 2026, the published dates matter: sxsw runs march 12 to 18, acl festival runs october 2 to 4 and october 9 to 11, and the texas book festival runs november 14 to 15.
transportation can make or break your day, so keep it simple.
park once at the visitors parking garage if that fits your plan, or use capmetro and walk the rest.
finally, respect the climate.
austin summer days can run dangerously hot, so plan outdoor time early, take shade breaks, and keep indoor stops ready for the afternoon.
when people ask, “what is the capital of texas?”, Austin is the clear answer.
it’s also a city where you can stand under the pink granite dome in the morning, walk lady bird lake in the afternoon, and end the day with live music at night.
read more lifestyle and travel articles at clichémag.Com
images provided by deposit photos, bingai, adobe stock, unsplash, pexels, pixabay freepik, & creative commons. Other images might be provided with permission by their respective copyright holders including ai generators. |
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