Why I like camping in the fall

There are no bugs. Well okay there are a couple of flies hiding out from the cold but I haven’t seen a single mosquito. There was one wasp but only one.

There are fewer people who want to camp at this time of year. The campgrounds can still be full on the weekends and, of course, there are fewer campgrounds that are open. When you get one with flush toilets and showers it’s a bonus. We also have an electrical hookup so we brought along a small electric heater that has a thermostat. By setting it at 10C overnight we keep the van nice and warm and, if we come in from a walk and are chilled we can crank it up to 18 or 20 and really get toasty before dropping it down or turning it off entirely.

That brings up another advantage of a hookup. Of course you can use hookups in the summer as well but it’s very nice when the wind is blowing to be able to plug in the electric kettle to make tea or coffee.

Camping in the fall is also easier on the fridge. In the heat of summer the poor little propane fridge works as hard as it possibly can to try to keep food cold and as for the freezer compartment - don’t count on hard ice cream.

I think the best reason for camping in the fall is that it’s not too hot. I’m not a fan of heat and you can only take off so many clothes to try and cool down. I love to go for walks when it’s chilly enough that you need a fleece or a light down jacket and maybe a toque. That is the perfect temperature and if you’re lucky enough to have brilliant sunny days there is heat in the sun.

But the best reason for camping in the fall is the scenery. As I write this, it’s the middle of October. The aspens are stubbornly clinging to their yellow leaves so that the mountain hillsides are sprinkled with flecks of gold. There is also the delightful feeling of making the best of this season before the snow coats the Rockies and the only place I want to be is in my house with central heating. It’s that last touch of freedom. I know some will scoff and extoll the joys of camping in a snow cave, skiing in pristine snow and keeping warm over a wood fire. I’m sure there are delights there too for those hardy enough to enjoy them. It’s a romantic notion, but I’m not in my twenties anymore and the older I get the more I enjoy my creature comforts. What was once a grand adventure is now simply uncomfortable and unpleasant and I’m in the incredibly fortunate position of being able to make choices about how cold or uncomfortable I want to be when the leaves turn and the wind whips through mountain passes.

Tomorrow we will park the van for the season, for despite talk of taking it out every month in the year, I prefer to stay home when the high temperatures never venture above freezing. Oh I might be tempted to go snowshoeing for half a day here and there but I’m pretty sure at this stage of my life I’ll choose central heating over camping in the van every time even though the van is equipped with a furnace.

Covid comes calling

This is 2022 and things are very different from when I was growing up. It sounds stupid to even say that because, of course, things are different. How could they not be? Sometimes when I think back, though, I’m stopped cold by what we used to do and the attitudes we held and never questioned.

When I was a kid the prevailing wisdom was that if you were too sick to go to school you were too sick to do anything fun you wanted to do in the evening. While that might be translated as ‘If you’re sick stay home - period,’ that’s not the way I interpreted it. I dragged my butt to school through colds, flu, and bouts of strep. I remember sitting in a math class with my throat so sore and swollen that when the teacher asked me a question I couldn’t answer it. 

I don’t remember my mother even suggesting that I should stay home. I may have forgotten that detail or perhaps she was in the habit of carrying on regardless of how she felt and she saw nothing unusual about it when I did the same thing. Also I might have been a slightly stubborn child and perhaps she figured there was no point arguing with me. So off I went to school sick or healthy. Luckily I wasn’t sick a lot. I wanted to go from grade 1 through grade 12 without any absences. I have no idea why this was important to me. Chickenpox in grade 10 had other ideas when I had to miss some of my final exams.

In all of this there was no concern that I might be transmitting infection to other people. Even when I was teaching I dosed myself up with Tylenol Cold and Flu, armed myself with boxes of kleenex and staggered into work. It was much more effort to plan for a sub than it was to just go in. Besides, I used to joke, I probably got the bugs from the kids in the first place so why not give them back. Most of my colleagues did the same thing.

Covid 19 has given us a collective slap upside the head when it comes to attitudes like these, and that’s a good thing. Deena Hinshaw’s words, ‘Stay home if you’re sick,’ are loud and clear these days. So that’s exactly what we are doing.

Both of us have tested positive for Covid. We know how we contracted it and we wouldn’t necessarily do anything differently if we were to rewind a few days before we became infected. I’m grateful that we have vaccines and that we are both up to date with ours. I’ve been sicker with other viruses and I’m relieved that I now have permission to stay put and do nothing. How soon I’m going to get back out there will likely depend more on how I feel than strictly on a negative Covid test. I’m in no rush and I realize how fortunate I am that I don’t have a job where others are depending on me.

For now, the sparrows careen around in chittering gangs from bush to bush. The dog walkers make their rounds; a flicker putters around at the bottom of the Manitoba maple, and a cup of English breakfast tea, tepid now, sits on the window sill. In a while I will get out of my PJ’s; in a while I will get Odie up and the quiet of the morning will be broken. In a while I will empty the dishwasher. In this moment I am content.

Among Arctic birds: Arctic 11

High Arctic Explorer: Arctic 11

I love to watch the fulmars. They seem to follow the ship as we move across from Canada to Greenland. Lizanne thought they might follow us all the way to Greenland but somewhere mid Davis Strait we lost them. I don’t know why they follow. Maybe the ship stirs up tasty treats as it cuts through Arctic waters. Maybe they hope for a dump of garbage off the stern. Sorry birds; that’s not going to happen. Or maybe they just like to play in the air currents created by the ship.

Fulmar riding the air

They fly up to the stern of the ship, drop suddenly so you can almost touch them and then swerve to starboard or port at the last possible second. From there they arc out beyond the ship flying away to the stern only to turn and chase the ship again.

As I stood on the starboard deck one evening watching the performance one came within arm’s length of me. I swear he looked at me and kicked his feet in the air as he passed. I can’t think why a bird in flight would kick its feet in flight and I’ve never seen another bird do that. It looked like he was thoroughly enjoying himself soaring and diving alongside the ship.

Part of the fun for me is to try to capture bird moments with my camera. After this trip I have more photos of birds than of any other subject. Most of them are either photos of bird butts 'go-away birds’ or they are blurry blobs. Even though gulls, fulmars, and kittiwakes are much larger than the sparrows and robins at home, it’s still difficult for me to catch them in flight. The best shot would be of a bird in flight looking directly into my lens with the light glinting off its eye. I’ll keep chasing that shot.

On Arctic expeditions the birds I love to watch are the ones that don’t inhabit the south. One of my favourites is the thick-billed murre. Thick-billed murres are in the auk family as are puffins and penguins. One of the reasons I have a particular fondness for these birds is that they seem like such underdogs. One nickname for them is ‘flying footballs.’ They have the highest cost of flight of any bird because of their short wings better designed for propelling them as they dive than for carrying them in the air.. I love to watch their determined flapping and running across the water in an attempt to get airborne. I recall watching one little guy at the side of the ship do his run up to takeoff. Just as it seemed that his stubby wings would finally lift him from the surface, a swell came along and washed over his head. A few seconds later his head emerged and he began his running and flapping again this time successfully.

Coming in for a landing

It's hard to isolate just one

Ok guys who's leading?

I can so fly

Another thing I admire about the murres is that they seem to have to work so hard to survive. They lay a single egg on a rocky outcrop and the parents take turns tending the egg and then the chick. When it’s time for the chicks to join the flock in the water the father sits in the water far below the cliff and calls to the youngster who must then leap into the water with wings not yet ready to carry it up. If the chick is lucky it lands beside Dad and off they go to spend the next 6 to 8 weeks on the water where Dad continues to provide food. I’m not sure what Mom is up to during this time. If the chick is unlucky and lands on the rocks it becomes part of a banquet for the waiting polar bears.

The last of the birds I tried to photograph on the recent Arctic expedition were a pair of parasitic jaegers. Not a lovely name and in Europe they are called Arctic skua. They got their name for a reason however. They get their food by stealing it from other birds. When they are nesting they prey on other birds and their eggs. When they are at sea they wait for a gull or a tern to catch a fish and then chase the bird in order to fluster it and steal its dinner.

We came across a nesting pair in Croker Bay. They were none to happy with us and screamed and dove as people walked over the invisible line that determined their territory. I tried to stay far enough back that the birds would settle on the ground and preen. They have the most fascinating tails. In flight the parasitic jaegers have long straight feathers emanating from their gracefully rounded tails.

I don’t know how long I spent watching and photographing these birds but as with so many things when I’m completely engaged, I didn’t notice how much time had passed. When I looked up from my camera I saw that people were moving toward the shore to get in zodiacs and go back to the ship. As Jason told us many times, not everyone will fit on the last zodiac so I put the lens cap back on my camera and headed to where my splash pants and rubber boots were waiting. That photo shoot burned up half of the remaining battery for my Olympus camera but it was well worth it for the experience regardless of the quality of photos.