In which I live to tell the tale

The proverbial 'they' say that it's not the fall off of a tall building that's so bad, it's the landing that'll get you. In a similar vein, it's not the sleeping in a snow cave that's cold, it's getting out of bed in the morning.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's back up.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about going on a sleigh ride with some foreign exchange students. I mentioned something along the lines of the fact that they might possibly qualify as being more Canadian than I am, because they'd slept outside overnight, in a hole in the snow. Shortly after that, Dan from the Bulkley Valley Search And Rescue crew came in and kindly offered me a shovel and promised he'd tell me where to shove it.

It seems that the BVSAR was planning an excursion for members to take part in a winter survival exercise, part of the many exercises that members need to complete as part of their training. A handful of members would be doing their first solo overnight trip, building a shelter and a fire, and presumably not needing the professional services of their colleagues in the process. Dan invited me to join the crew, and promised to show me what I needed to know to survive a night rolled up in a sleeping bag in the snow. 

We met a few days beforehand to go over what I would need, and what could be loaned. Had the conditions been colder, my stove probably wouldn't have worked, and I would have needed to get my hands on a liquid fuel stove; I also didn't have a portable shovel, or my own snowshoes. It turns out that most of what I needed, though, I already have, thanks to a decade and a half of camping in Ontario. I just needed more layers of all of it, to keep myself from turning into a Jonsicle. 

And that's how, two weekends ago, I found myself slogging down a path at Dennis Lake in borrowed snowshoes, trying to keep up with a 6'2” German and a 6'3” Dutch teenager, carrying far too much gear on my back (and maybe a bit too much Plan B on my front) and wishing I'd actually picked up those collapsable ski poles I've been meaning to buy for a few months.

When we arrived at the end of the trail, a fire was already roaring, so introductions were made, and then I set out to dig myself a suitable trench that could be overlaid with dead branches and a tarp, then partially covered in snow. Of course, the problem encountered with any outdoor activity in winter is that when you start to exercise, you start to sweat; and when you stop, your sweat helps you freeze your butt off. The added enjoyment of outdoor sleeping is that you then get to sleep in your sweat, in the hole that you just dug that caused all that sweat to begin with. I'm not sure my brain is fully equipped to handle this level of irony and causality. 

By the time I was ready to unroll my sleeping bag and two Thermarests (Yes, two. I brought my better half's as well as my own – what, you think I wanted to risk any part of me coming into direct contact with the snow?), Dan had built his snow cave, moved in, supervised my construction, and dug a pretty big fire pit down to the ground through about a metre of snow. Just because I'm willing doesn't mean I have to be instantly able, does it?

From there, we joined a few others by the fire to cook supper, then traded tales of the wilds into the night – okay, it was mostly listening to tales on my part – before reaching the inevitable point where I would be required to actually get into a sleeping bag, and fall asleep in my cave. 

To my surprise, it was actually quite easy to get to sleep. In fact, I woke up a bit late, and incredibly refreshed. And I only used one pocket hand warmer in my sleeping bag, at my feet.

Then came the unavoidable truth – I was awake, and it was time to get out of bed. Thankfully, Dan had mentioned a quick tip the previous day: start up some hand warmers, drop them in your boots and cover them with a sock (so air can get in, but the heat doesn't all get out) and your footwear should be waiting for you, nice and toasty, upon your arrival in the waking world in the a.m. Genius, simple, and a most welcome piece of advice.

The fact is, though, this tip would have been much more helpful had my warmers actually activated and kept my boots warm. Unfortunately, they did not activate until later on during the drive back to town, while in my coat pocket.

Aside from that one insignificant little hiccup, though, the entire process was entirely painless, relatively uneventful, definitely anticlimactic and – despite the fact this opinion may label me as a bit unbalanced – quite enjoyable. In fact, I will probably try this again some time. And with a little luck, BVSAR won't have to be involved, either as host or rescuer.

So take that, European high school girls; now I'm almost as Canadian as you are.

Time lapse video of building a shelter

In which I post a quick note (so readers know whether to go look for a body)

Thanks to Dan from the Bulkley Valley Search and Rescue, who came in to offer to take me out winter camping. No, seriously, I actually appreciate the offer, which I fully plan to take advantage of.

Apparently Smithers is the sort of town where if you mention that you're jealous of high school girls sleeping in an ice cave, someone will offer to show you where and how to dig your own (ice cave, that is). I appreciate the opportunity as much as I appreciate learning that I need to be careful what I write in the future, since it's becoming clear that if I talk the talk, I will be asked to walk the walk.

The obvious plus, of course, is that if I screw up or get myself into trouble, I'll already be camping with the crew who volunteer to find people like me when we get in over our heads (sometimes literally). I see this as the equivalent to learning to juggle chainsaws in the hospital parking lot.

Short story shorter, if you see a frostbitten guy with ice in his beard, a camera around his neck and a dazed look in his eyes wandering around Hudson Bay Mountain next weekend, just point me to the nearest public house with a ready supply of Jameson.

In which I have strange meats (and eat them, too)

Try as I might, I can't get the word “innappropriate” out of my head. Normally, I hate the word “innappropriate” - I'm a bit of a believer in that things are either wrong, or they're not wrong. Sometimes, though, there's just no other word that properly describes a particular conundrum. 

In this case, I'm up against the wall, so to speak. As a writer that enjoys my own version of humour - and yes, I realize I'm often the only one that gets the joke - and the occasional pun and double entendre, I enjoy wordplay; as an employee of a newspaper in what seems to generally be a politically liberal but morally conservative town, I need to remember my audience, and keep my humour in check.

So, what to do when your subject is a dinner which included cougar, beaver and bear on the menu? Because I've been biting my tongue so hard you could just about add it to the menu of "food Jon has eaten for the first time in the last 2 weeks."

I guess it would probably just be best if I gave up on (probably offensive to the easily offended) jokes and moved on to the subject at hand – that being the fish and wild game banquet held at the Bulkley Valley Rod and Gun Club late last month. 

Anyone reading this site knows that I've been on a mission to experience as many distinctly northern activities as I can. What better way to do that than to check out a dinner featuring all sorts of tasty meat dishes, made up of the moving parts of the nature I moved here to enjoy?

I think the latest internet-spawned term for my regular diet classifies me as an opportunitarian – I'll eat what's available (and all those cougar and beaver jokes struggle to break free...). At home, that means mostly veggies and fish, and a few things as equally foreign to hunters as lynx was to me, like tofu, tvp and tempeh. During barbeque season, add sausage and subtract the soy products. At restaurants, I'll usually have something involving beef or pork, and I've been known to inflict serious damage on a serving of bacon. 

So if I'm going to a game dinner, of course I'm going to try it all. Plus seconds.

Generally I consider the origin and ingredients of my food to be the two most important factors of what I'm eating. Anything with chemicals I can't pronounce, I'll tend to avoid. I love to cook, so I'm more of a basic ingredient shopper anyway. Which is a roundabout way of saying, I don't have any dietary issues with wild game; in fact, I think it's probably quite a bit better for me than the occasional steak or pork chop that I'll eat when I'm at a restaurant. 

Besides, I've long been of the opinion - both before and after half a dozen years of vegetarianism - that if you can't face up to the reality of an animal being killed in order for you to eat, you probably shouldn't be eating that animal. Dining on caribou served to me by the dude that shot, cleaned and cooked it is only one small step away from doing the dirty work myself. Which is a roundabout way of saying, I think wild game is probably a more ethically sound food choice than, say, the average commercially raised side of beef, or farmed salmon.

But on to the pressing question - what does the tofu-eating guy think of dishes like venison lasagna, cougar with gravy, moose stew or a big slab of caribou? Without a doubt, moose, deer and caribou all make very tasty dishes, especially under the watchful eye of Larry Hartwell and his crew in the kitchen. As for the lynx, cougar and beaver, they were all a bit dry, even with the sauce. (My tongue is bleeding profusely from all the biting - I'll be lucky if I can say my name aloud, never mind recite a lewd joke by this time tomorrow).

Anyway, as it turns out, I enjoy eating wild animals. So maybe I will do okay with northern life, after all.

Who knows, in a few years, maybe I'll actually head out in the fall and fill up my freezer. All I have to do first is get a gun. And a license for it. And take a firearms safety course. And learn how to shoot a gun. And get a few weeks off work. And learn how to hunt. And where to hunt. Then there's that whole field dressing process...

Okay, on second thought, maybe I'll just keep going to the game dinner every year.