RRHS students travel to England

Ken Johnston

Five students from Rainy River High School participated in a very unique student exchange over March break.
Ethan Swentik, Mark Singleton, Katelyn Nielson, Morgan McNally and Nicole Seguin travelled to England for ten days as part of different kind of student exchange. Instead of going to another country for the entire school year or a semester, the students went there for ten days. They were paired with students from England and next year those students will come to Rainy River and spend ten days here.
The concept came from a school in Manitoba where RRHS teacher Laura Armistead had taught before. They did it for 30 years but in the past few years had not actively pursued it. So Armistead reincarnated it in Rainy River.
Over the course of the ten day excursion they visited Harlow, London, York, Cambridge and the Warrick Castle. They toured a Viking Museum, that Swentik noted was complete with authentic smells from the Viking era.
They spent one day attending school there with their exchange partners where they stood out like sore thumbs as the entire student body work uniforms.
Most of them said they were surprised how small the homes were there. “They had very cramped space... two bedrooms for four girls, two grey hounds and two parents where I stayed,” said Nielson.
They all spent a weekend doing things with their exchange families. That say some explore London, Swentik and Singleton went to a local rugby match, McNally went to a museum.
Teacher/chaperone Laura Armistead said they only had four hours of sun the entire time they were there and it was when they went punting which is like a gondola tour of the many canals in England.
The rest of the time it was cloudy and rainy even the day they took one of those famous double decker bus tours. “We road on the top deck and were soaked, “ said Swentik. They saw Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and London Bridge on that tour.
Each of the RRHS students had different things they enjoyed about the trip.
Singleton said, “I really liked Cambridge and the punting.”
Swentik said, “I loved London. There is so much culture and amazing architecture there. Everything is so much older.” He also enjoyed the British Museum saying it was “awesome.”
Nielson said, “This was my first time outside of Canada and the US so I really enjoyed seeing another part of the world and all the history it has.”
McNally echoed Swentik saying, “The architecture of London was overwhelming and so different than here.”
Nicole Seguin said that the highlight of the trip was, “Going on the London Eye and seeing a bird’s eye view of the city.”
RRHS students were a little worried their counterparts won’t find Rainy River very exciting, but Armistead said they shouldn’t think that way. “They likely have not seen snow, snowmobiles or ice fishing.” She said they will be coming when the Festival Du Voyageur is on in Winnipeg and will spend some time there in the city as well as go to Moose Lake.