Bayfield Students Visit Lake Baikal, the ‘Other’ Largest Lake

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Any Bayfield schoolchild knows that right outside the classroom is the world’s largest freshwater lake by surface area – Lake Superior.

But, as seven students learned firsthand last summer, when it comes to fresh water, the title of biggest by volume belongs to Lake Baikal (by-CALL), the long, narrow rift lake in southern Siberia.

Two years ago, Bayfield High School teacher Rick Erickson concocted a plan, an exchange program of sorts, to connect students who live beside these two great bodies of fresh water – 5,500 miles apart – and learn how the lakes shape who we are.

It’s the kind of unorthodox instruction that earned Rick a 2015 Horace Mann Award for Teaching Excellence from the National Education Association Foundation. Only five U.S. educators receive the prestigious award each year.

For the inaugural Superior-Baikal adventure, the seven students from Bayfield, accompanied by seven adults, spent more than a week last July exploring Lake Baikal and its communities. Serving as unofficial Lake Superior ambassadors, the students shared videos, agates and traditional crafts from our region with their Russian host families around Baikal.

Looking past the differences in language and culture, Rick says, “it became evident to me that the lake there is very similar to Superior. Watching the students play in the lake, swim in the lake, look out at the lake, it was very much like the experience here on Superior.”

Even as relations between the United States and Russia chilled over the summer, “the students’ ability to connect with other students transcended those political issues.”

The itinerary included ferry and train rides, hiking, visits to history and science museums and much socializing with hosts. The Russian students translated during the trip, since the Bayfield contingent didn’t speak Russian and the Russian adults didn’t speak English. But some things, like music, can hurdle any language barrier.

A ride on the circum-Baikal train turned into an impromptu singalong, recalls Rick. “We hopped on the train, which was packed. It appeared there was no room. They immediately shifted around and created spaces for us to sit. As soon as we sat down, there was an older Russian woman and she said, ‘Sing!’”

Adds student Eve Smith, “We started singing American folk songs, simple songs that your average child would know. And then they started singing beautiful Russian folk songs.”

Afterwards, they chatted with a university researcher who outlined the basics of Baikal biology. (One major difference? “They have freshwater seals!” says Eve.)

“When we were coming back, a student said, ‘It wasn’t a vacation, it was an intense cultural experience,’” says Rick.

Dave Doering, a Bayfield teacher and chaperone on the trip, adds, “It was almost like a hidden curriculum. We had all these activities we were doing, but yet the real lessons were these kids interacting with one another on a personal level. And forming bonds that, when we left, there were tears. … We really hope those connections will tie these two lakes together.”

Throughout the trip, the Russians and Americans found much to bond over: similar forests and birchbark crafts; the traditional Siberian banya that resembles our saunas; and Olkhon Island, that lake’s largest, which has a deep spiritual significance to the indigenous people, not unlike Madeline Island to the Ojibwe. Olkhon’s sandy beaches and ferry offered still more memories of home.

Almost as soon as the group returned to Wisconsin, Rick and his Russian co-organizer, Sergei, began planning the other half of the exchange: bringing Baikal students to Lake Superior this summer. Developing the itinerary has been an opportunity to reflect on all of the things that make our Lake special.

“I’m really looking forward to it,” says student Oakley Doering, “to show them what our lake is like.”

If the school district and local underwriters are willing, Rick will take a group to Russia every four years, giving each high school student an opportunity to go.