[Behind the Bastards] Part One: The Inventor of Those 'Troubled Teen' Wilderness Camps Where They Kill Kids

Back in the mid nineties I went to a in-patient outward bound type wilderness based rehabilitation facility. It no longer exists, and aside from some paper records likely in filing boxes in someone’s garage, yellowing away, there really is nothing to tie my IRL identity to this place.

It was called Wilderness Treatment Center, in a small town in northwest Montana, close to Idaho/Canada, population less than 1000.

I was unfortunate enough to be sent there during December. I boarded a plane in south Texas where it was almost 80, and ended up in a place where it was single digits F. My days consisted of being woken up at 430-500 every morning for ‘rock crew’. Being on the rock crew meant you took draw knives/spokeshaves and shaved down tree bark from felled trees until sunrise. The trees we shaved were turned into furniture by others. I fed cattle in a blizzard and got frostnip on my nose, and fingers. I got coerced into spending three weeks backpacking thru the woods in and around Glacier National Park. I ended up being evacuated early because I got frostbite on three of my toes. My punishment for being sent back early? More rock crews and interaction ‘stricts’ (couldn’t talk to others and others were told to not interact with me). I was forced to walk thru nipple deep snow, pulling fallen trees. I got stood outside on a tree stump on my cabin porch in my shorts and a T-shirt for telling the cook his food sucked. While it was snowing. I was isolated multiple times for a week at a time because I spoke up about my aftercare plan which included being shipped to a halfway house in Lousyanna for a year or more. I was ignored by people who were supposed to be helping me to break an addiction that has followed me my entire life. I had trusts violated. They withheld letters I sent to my family. They withheld letters my family sent. They starved me when I balked.

Fuck you Mike, Ernie, Preston, and Mary. I still think about you pieces of shit every now and then. I hope every single one of you die miserable and alone in the throes of a bad crack addiction.

Outward Bound and its ilk do more harm than good. But I did get to see Going to The Sun Road so who can even say if it’s bad or not.