I say I camp because it was imprinted on my consciousness when I was two years old. That’s when my parents bundled me into the back seat of their Austin and drove to a campground in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. I can almost smell the waterproof coating my dad painted on the canvas tent and visualize the silhouette of trees that would appear on the roof when the sun peeked through the forest above it. Camping from that point on became almost second nature to me.
I have so many memories of those early years and the simplicity of camping then. Everyone had pretty much the same canvas tent, which varied in size and sometimes colour. I remember bears roaming the campground in Jasper National Park while campers cooked in communal kitchens ignoring them for the most part. I remember elk stopping traffic as they ambled across the town’s main street. A camp neighbour and friend, on many of those trips, was an old prospector named Spud, whose red chestnut canoe rested beside his tent.
Spud awoke one morning to discover a large bear sleeping between our two tents. When I heard the story, I was very excited. “Oh,” I said, “I knew I felt something bumping me in the night.” I was about ten then. I would not, I must say, be as nonchalant should that occur today!
When I was eighteen, I went on my first foray with friends to those same Rocky Mountains. Sadly, their tent did not have water-proofing and we awoke to soaked sleeping bags after a hard night’s rain. From that point on I was determined to have my own tent.
Over the years I have camped in the Outback of Australia, the Canadian Arctic, New Mexico and the Grand Canyon in USA. I have hiked and canoed as far west as Haida Gwaii on Canada’s West Coast and as far east as the Niagara Peninsula in Ontario. Over the years I have owned four tents, each one more expensive and more technically efficient than the previous one. Like I said I am passionate.
Aside from the wonders of Mother Nature, her sights, sounds and smells, there is something else about camping that keeps me at it. It requires stamina and patience but more importantly it calls upon your imagination and creative ingenuity. Nothing does that more than rain storms and the sophisticated art of “tarping” and keeping dry.
I always carry a box of tarps of varying sizes and uses. The “grandfather” tarp, which is the oldest, is a thicker ply and large enough to cover a tent and picnic table and has one side that is smudged from forty years of wood smoke.
Tarps cover tents, firewood, firepits and bikes; they block the wind and provide shade.
Getting them high enough to cover your living space, and angled over the fire pit, requires make- shift ladders, ropes of varying lengths and patience and persistence as well as a vocabulary of unrepeatable invectives. I have used all of these!
Over the years I have learned to put essential gear in plastic tubs for easy storage and access. A friend taught me to store spices in little film cannisters and I have a spice box I freshen up every year. I still use a Coleman two- burner stove and once met a wonderful man who taught me how to take one apart and clean it. Today, just to be safe, I also have a propane cannister one for back-up.
The essentials of camping for me are simple. A good rain- proof tent with fly. A good sleeping bag and an adequate self -inflating mattress, a good stove and last but not least, a good friend.
Since I have all of these, I am heading out camping in another week with said friend. As I approach my eightieth year, I have had to add a few comfort items and make a few concessions. The tent is now big enough to stand up in, the lawn chair has a back rest and head rest, and the mattress is twice as thick!
Bonnie Dickie lives in Winnipeg, the Elm capital of Canada. In a previous life she worked for CBC in Yellowknife, NWT before moving South to freelance as a documentary filmmaker. Her work has taken her across the Arctic as well as China, Africa and Spain. Today she is semi-retired and aside from her dog walking exploits is focused on learning to play the ukulele-a talent she has yet to fully grasp.
Bonnie what a beautiful memory… in my “imagination” I could experience each of your detailed accounts of your camping experiences. What an incredible life giving camping memory… you are now aging in wisdom as you make choices that create the aging journey more comfortable where ever you are! Have a wonderful mother earth encounter with your “camping friend”. Blessings Jo-Ann