Whenever we plan our adventures, we find other people’s blog posts, comments and reports of their own trips very useful. So we thought we’d share ours in hopes they inspire others to get outside.
Recently, I read an article about a newly published study that suggests not all people find escape into nature soothing and restorative. On the contrary, they crave a bustling city scene when they need to relax. The idea that traffic and crowds can be anything but stress-inducing is foreign to me, but who am I to judge. One thing I know for sure is that I am not one of those people. I definitely need nature to de-stress and unwind.
Our younger son likes to share stories, solve math problems and study new scientific concepts while hiking. So during last weekend’s backpacking trip his dad was teaching him about factorials and permutations. Don’t ask me to explain what those are because I wasn’t really listening. I was working on a scientific formula of my own, one that would explain why backpacking works so well as a de-stressor. My theory is that there is only a certain amount of baggage our bodies can handle. So the more weight you pile up on your back and the longer you lug it around, the faster you shed the other kind of weight, the one that is made up of schedules, deadlines, to-do lists and digital noise. Add a few dozen bug bites and there is little else you can think about.
I am writing this post surrounded by camping gear at various stages of dryness: tents spread across the floor, shoes propped up against the radiator, clothes hanging on chairs. It’s one of the less glorious parts of camping – having to sort out the gear after the trip, especially one that ended in frantic packing in the pouring rain. Our cat is enjoying it, though.
We love our Saturday microadventures. They are a great way to recharge at the end of the week, explore new places nearby, plus they don’t require a lot of planning. Sometimes, though, the need arises for a more intensive reboot, which means it’s time to plan a camping trip.
A few weeks ago, as I was browsing the Ontario Parks reservation site, I saw a yurt available at Silent Lake Provincial Park. It was a stroke of luck since roofed accommodations for winter usually get booked months in advance. We visited Silent Lake a couple of times before, including for my birthday last summer, but never in the winter, so it was a great opportunity to see it in a different light.
Be careful what you wish for, they say. That’s what I was thinking after spending over an hour stuck in a traffic jam, all courtesy of the lake effect snow storm. All winter, I’ve been complaining about the lack of winter: no snow, no skiing opportunities, no beautiful enchanted forest. And here we were, less than thirty minutes away from our weekend destination, Allegany State Park, with nothing else to do but watch the snow coat our car until all we could see was faint blinking of the police vehicle up ahead. After an hour of willing the cars in front of us to move, I decided to get outside and take a walk. It was definitely magical: large flakes of snow falling softly, blanketing the world around. I walked to the front of the line, chatted with fellow stranded travellers, learned that two trucks had ended up in a ditch earlier that day bringing all the traffic to a standstill. Eventually, the mess was cleared up and we started moving but it felt like dog-sledding or even just walking would have been faster. The world around was completely white, with only rear lights of the truck in front guiding us ahead. I wanted winter, and I got it.
Back in our home country, there is a superstition that the way you ring in the new year determines how you spend it. So for the past six years or so, we have been heading into the woods to spend the first minutes of January 1st around a campfire. And it seems to be working: we have had no shortage of campfires and incredible camping moments for the rest of the year.
It is the season to tally up accomplishments over the past year and make plans for the next one. Our New Year resolutions are usually summed up with “camp as much possible, visit as many new places as possible, try as many new things as possible.” Putting together a list of 2015 best camping moments is a slightly more difficult task since there were so many of them. Nonetheless, here is my attempt to narrow the list to our 10 favourite camping memories of 2015 (in no particular order).
I zoom in on a lonely red leaf tucked in between bare branches. Not ready to let go of the tree that has been its home for the past several months, it is basking in the sun, blushing under its fiery gaze. Eventually, it will get whisked away by the wind and twirl its way onto the ground, adding its warmth to an already thick blanket. Or it will zigzag through the air and end up on the steely surface of the lake below, a tiny red boat gliding into winter. I wish good luck to a brave little traveller and continue on my way.
What do dinosaurs and volcanoes have to do with World War II and how is any of these things connected to Neys Provincial Park? Read on to find out!
Neys Provincial Park is located on the northern shore of Lake Superior not far from a small town of Marathon. It is considerably smaller and less famous than the other Lake Superior parks, like the nearby Pukaskwa, Sleeping Giant or Lake Superior Provincial Park itself, but it is in no way less beautiful or less exciting than its more well-known neighbours. We made Neys one of the pit stops on our return trip from Quetico and in the end we regretted not being able to stay longer to explore everything the park had to offer.
Last week, our family displayed acute symptoms of camping withdrawal disorder: desire to sleep on the hard ground, cravings for slightly burned food prepared over a campfire, constant attempts to block out the noisy city to hear the birds. With the next camping trip two whole weeks away, we knew we couldn’t last that long. We needed our camping fix now. So on Friday night we threw our gear into the back of our car and headed to Killbear.
Gone Camping 