Back to the samplesRoughing Itby John SpurwayI define wilderness as any place that only gets one TV channel, so we were in the wilderness. In fact, even that one channel was a bit fuzzy, so this place could have been described as "the bush". I love to say "the bush." I've never quite understood it, though, since there usually aren't that many bushes in the bush, but I do love the sound of it and take every opportunity to throw it into conversations whenever possible.
The last tent I put up was a pup tent. The pup tent is a simple piece of canvas, two poles, two ropes to hold the poles and a handful of tent pegs you pounded into the ground anywhere you wanted to see people stub their toes. That was a long time ago. Not surprisingly, tent technology has come a long way since then, not to mention foot care. What we had borrowed was this high tech piece of gear that came in a pouch only slightly bigger than my wallet. There was a separate bag filled with hard, carbon fibre strips, bearing no resemblance to anything I'd ever seen before. Help from a neighbouring expert was solicited. "Oh no, there are no poles inside anymore, nothing to bang your head into in the dark." came the rather smug reply. "Where's the fun in that?" I demanded, noting the smugness, as I slid the space age collapsible poles through the outer sleeves. It was too easy. I was suspicious. "Who designed this thing ... NASA?" I queried. "Oh sure, it was designed for use on the moon!" came the snappy reply, which lead me to believe I was in over my head from both a camping and sarcasm standpoint. We finally stopped putting this thing up when it was standing and there were no pieces left over. Miraculously, it stayed standing. Perhaps the ant hill on which it was pitched provided some support. By this time, the bugs had finished their appetizer and were ready for the main course. "Maybe we should have put bug spray on before we started pitching the tent." I observed. "Oh, pitch, pitch, pitch. Is that all you ever do?" came the reply, followed by some all-knowing chuckles. "OK, let's get this straight. I am the one with the snappy comebacks, you are the camping experts. Let's stick to our assigned roles here, people. This is the bush. We don't want anyone getting hurt." The tent had been pitched in such short order, I was beginning to think there wasn't as much to roughing it as I had thought. Soon I was imaging myself as a rugged "coureur de bois" with my birch bark canoe pulled up on the side of a river, warming my hands over a crackling fire as the song of the river played in the background. "Tomorrow, we will paddle up the river and portage the falls to where the fish are abundant and the waterfowl are gathering for their winter trek", I would say to my trusty companion. Yes, I could do this. After all, the tent is up, isn't it? I think I was moments away from cancelling my subscription to PC Today when I heard: "Dad, where is the root beer?" "In the cooler in the back of the Jeep." Where was I? Oh yes, warming my hands over the crackling ... "Dear, did you remember the eggs?" "Yes, they're in the cooler beside the root beer." We'll portage past the falls and make our way ...
"It's in the Jeep, I'll bring it in in a minute. I'm just taking a breather." The song of the river playing ... "Isn't that tent up yet? It didn't look that hard to put up. It doesn't even have any moving parts! How hard can it be?" "It's up now. It took a few minutes, but I figured it out. I'm just taking a break before ..." "Dad, can I have some chips?" "Not now. I don't want you ruining your supper." The birchbark canoe ... "Well, when's supper?" "Soon" "How soon? I'm hungry" "As soon as ..." "Did you bring the cooler in yet? I need the eggs for the caesar salad dressing!" "I was just admiring the tent and imagining ..." "What are we having, Dad? I hope we aren't having caesar salad again! I barfed last time we had it. Remember?" "Yes, I remember, but you also had eaten too many chips, which is precisely why ..." "Can you bring the cooler in now? The tent looks fine." "I'm on my way." "Dad, can I have another root beer before you take the cooler inside?" "Sure, go ahead." "And some chips?" "No chips." OK, so there is no birchbark canoe, we aren't warming our hands over an open fire, and we won't be doing any portaging. As we sat there eating our barbequed steaks and caesar salad, listening to a new CD someone had brought, I reconsidered. Maybe this wasn't quite as much like roughing it as I had thought. I doubt there were propane barbeques back then and I'm pretty sure no self-respecting coureur de bois ever had chilled Mouton Cadet with his supper. At least we still had the sound of the river running over the rocks in front of us, which, after a few hours, reminded me I needed to answer the call of nature. "Where is the bathroom?" I asked innocently. "About thirty paces out the back door, beside the woodpile." I take it all back. This is life in the bush and we are, indeed, roughing it. Back to the samples |
