My scout troop signed up for Okpic High Adventure camping in Ely, MN. Okpic apparently means "pointless suffering" in Lakota. Upon arrival at the camp site we were issued military-caliber cold weather survival clothing, which was my third sign I was in deep trouble. The first two signs were, 1) I was outdoors in Minnesota in February, and 2) although it was plenty cold at home already, that wasn't good enough for us and we drove 6 hours straight north to get to this place. The fact that we were not technically in the Arctic Circle was merely semantics for geography geeks.
Perhaps in other cultures I would have been considered a man at age 13. But I was nowhere near that in my own suburb-based culture, and neither were my scout pals. The only reason we're still alive is due to the military clothing and the dads that were with us. We geared up like gangly, unsure Michelin men and camped the first night in large tents, the kids in one and the dads in another.
The next morning the dads yelled at us to get going. As is typical in youth camping trips the adults were super organized, already well fed, coffee in hand and gear packed up in spite of temperatures somewhere near 0. That's Fahrenheit for my Euro metric friends. Us kids were stumbling around in the dark, most afraid to emerge from their sleeping bags due to the bitter cold even inside the tent. Going outside was utterly unthinkable. We were completely useless until one of the dads pulled back the flap of the tent and enough sunlight came in for us to find our asses with both hands and get moving.
Moving, because we weren't at the real campsite yet. That was MUCH farther into the woods, as if the night in the tent wasn't high adventure enough. Would we and our gear be transported there by snowmobile? 4-wheel all terrain vehicle? Oh goodness gracious no. We're hiking it and pulling our gear on sleds. With dubious expressions we were yoked up like oxen to plastic sleds toting food, sleeping bags, cooking gear, and other necessities. We slogged through thick snow, deep woods, up hills, down hills, to grandmothers Arctic refuge we go. Finally the dads found a snowy clearing that suited our simple needs and we collapsed on the spot.
The windchill was well below zero and it was only mid-day. I didn't know it at the time but the Boy Scouts give out a badge if you go camping when the wind chill is 50 below or colder. Oh yeah, I got one of those.
We ate some gruel for lunch. We had two kinds of food on this trip: swill for breakfast and gruel for everything else. I don't think there was any difference in the meals -- it just felt appropriate to name the morning version of the campfire-cooked, squeeze-bottle-butter-covered glop something different.
The primary afternoon activity was igloo making. I'm going to share with you the complex, high-tech steps for making an igloo: You shovel a bunch of snow in a pile. You wait for it to pack down a bit. Then you dig out the inside part. A revelation, I'm sure. Nonetheless, we were not trusted to sleep in an igloo of our own making. The guides directed us to use "pre-owned" igloos.
Before we got the privilege of spending any time in our new homes we had "free time." Fleeing back to civilization was not listed as an option so a handful of us decided to try snowshoeing. My main memory of this revolves around an event that can only occur when a handful of teenage boys are engaging in age/gender-appropriate group(stupid)think.
Kid #1: "Hey, I heard that snow tastes like peanut butter the closer you are to Canada."
Me (utterly incredulous): "No way. I'm trying some."
I used a ski pole to bring some of this allegedly flavorful snow to my mouth. I licked some snow and tasted some snow. And I tasted some metal ski pole. And continued to taste it. Yep, my tongue was stuck. It wasn't a complete whiff since I got some of the snow but that didn't lessen this demonstration of idiocy. I quickly assessed the situation: my tongue was stuck, there was no hot water for 5 miles, and I was not surrounded by medical geniuses. So I rolled the ski pole off my tongue, noting the pinkish residue left behind on the pole. My next free time activity was spitting blood for the ensuing 2 hours.
As soon as the sun went down we went to bed. We were utterly exhausted, the wind was howling in sub-zero conditions, and there was no light to do anything. Three of us could just fit in one igloo. We were asleep in no time.
I learned a couple things about igloo camping. One is: they're a lot warmer than a tent in cold weather conditions. By morning our body heat had warmed up the inside to the point where we couldn't see our breath anymore. The combination of our exhaustion and the increasing warmth allowed us to sleep twelve straight hours.
The second thing, and this is a bit more of a negative, is the ease with which one can brush the inside of the igloo and experience snow cascading down onto one's face. This was not the McMansion of igloos, so my head and feet were right up against the walls. Every time I shifted my head I brushed against the inside wall of snow causing flaky ice to fall onto face. I probably could have slept 16 hours if it wasn't for this constant annoyance.
We had another helping of swill and hiked back. I have no recollection of the return trek probably because all I could think about it was the warm conversion van that would transport me home to normal life. Even homework looked appealing at this point.
Shortly after that I decided I'd had enough of the Boy Scouts. Growing older was part of it. A greatly diminished desire to ever camp again was a bigger part of it. It was a mixture of "I'll never top that" and "I have no desire to do anything like that again." I've only been camping once since then and it could barely be called camping because it was for my friend's bachelor party. The event could more accurately be described as "drinking Jack Daniel's outdoors and passing out in temporary nylon structures called 'tents.'"
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