Paddling Together

Through inclusive adventures, we seek to engage, inspire, and make the outdoors accessible for people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities. Your support makes that possible in this year when connections to each other and the outdoors are more important than ever.

Inclusive Outdoor Experiences That Change Lives

Your gift helps us provide scholarships for people with financial need, programs for underserved youth and families, support services for people with disabilities, and more.

Making the Outdoors Accessible

Through initiatives like Gateway to Adventure, Families Integrating Together, and Share the Adventure, Wilderness Inquiry brings incredible outdoor experiences to adults, youth, and families of all abilities and inspires everyone to find common humanity.  

Removing Barriers

By using experiential, immersive learning to engage students in academic coursework in a classroom without walls, our Credit Recovery program brings the joy of learning to youth with diverse learning styles. Credit Recovery directly supports students who need additional academic credit to graduate from high school. Additionally, need-based financial aid makes it possible for individuals, families, and organizations to experience the great outdoors. Socioeconomic status should not be a determinant of whether someone can access nature.

Connecting for Improved Outcomes

Place-based, educational outdoor programming through Canoemobile brings together 32,000+ underserved youth in more than 50 communities across Minnesota and around the country, helping the natural world come to life through STEM, history, social studies, and math exploration. Both our “floating classroom” and our “virtual outdoor classroom” engage youth in the natural world close to home – improving school performance, cultivating a stewardship ethic, and creating pathways to pursue educational and career opportunities in the outdoors. 

Preparing for the Journey Ahead

The challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic have stretched us and directly impacted our ability to deliver our mission. Like a good backpacker, we've lightened our load to the pure essentials – but we know that when we reach the end of this trail the need for our work will be greater than ever. Together, we can make it to the other side of the woods. 

“I did it! I was able to test my limits, and I made it! This trip boosted my positive beliefs about myself. I felt that I was able to reclaim a part of myself that has been absent for a long time; I got to live from my strengths rather than my disabilities. It gives me the confidence to go on a river canoe trip with my family.” -Susan, Share the Adventure trip participant