The Bear Necessities

It may have escaped your notice, but over 40% of Canada is covered in dense forest, full of cool Canadian things like chipmunks, beavers and, ah... grizzly bears. And so Mikala and I, not being the sorts who are deterred by the possibility of a gruesome death at the claws of a savage wild beast, decided to up sticks and spend a few nights "roughing it" out in the remote forests of Birkenhead Lake, just north of Whistler.

Unfortunately the most "extreme" bivouacking that we'd done was a few nights at the V2003 music festival, where the only thing we had to worry about being attacked by were crusty students too pissed up to find their own tent. Fortunately we had experienced Sherpas, in the form of Gregg & Anita, to show us the ropes. Anita can do the mating call of a caribou (I shit ye not) and Gregg is slightly French Canadian, which means he is genetically pre-disposed to enjoy chopping wood.


So, on a hot, sunny Friday evening we all bundled into the Gregg mobile, our camping gear wrapped in tarpaulins and lashed to the roof-rack like a big, blue burrito, and set sail for the great outdoors!

Birkenhead is usually three hours drive North of Vancouver. I say "usually" because this does not factor in some bell-end flipping his truck on the highway and consequently stopping traffic in both directions for an hour and a half (he emerged from the crash unscathed, by the way, so I can lay on the scorn guilt-free).


Whilst this was a minor inconvenience for our crew, the poor lady in the car in front had a wedding cake MADE ENTIRELY OF ICE CREAM to deliver. That'll learn her for deviating from the classic fruitcake. Anyway...

When we finally arrived at our site, a secluded little clearing, away from prying eyes, we set about making camp with great gusto. Unfortunately it was pitch black and I didn't have a torch; neither did I realise that we were missing a piece of the tent we'd borrowed. After about an hour of me mincing around like a twat, Gregg found the missing tent piece and our humble abode was swiftly erected. Anita cooked us up some Bison Smokies and much beer ensued as we munched our hot dogs and looked up in bewilderment at the beautiful night sky.

The next morning it pissed it down with rain.

And then it stopped and the sun came out.

And then it started raining again.

And then it stopped and the sun came out.

And then is started raining again.

And so on and so forth, for the entire bloody day.

What this meant was that we had to keep switching from combats and anoraks to shorts and flip-flops all day. I reckon we had more wardrobe changes than bloody Madonna.

Fortunately our stalwart Sherpas came well prepared with ropes, tarps and a handy-dandy canopy, so the rain was, at worst, a minor inconvenience. We even managed to sneak in a quick swim in the lake while the sun was out, the scenery around which was breathtaking.


Mikala, being the woodland freak that she is, managed to make a new friend:


That afternoon Gregg chopped wood, Anita made more awesome camp tucker and Mikala and I provided moral support while drinking beer and chilling out.


In the evening we snuggled round the camp fire and told mysterious tales of teen-angst and school embarrassment. Which I won't bore you all with... what goes on camp stays on camp, I'm afraid! After a warming mug of cocoa, complete with marshmallows we called it a day and retired to our tee-pees.

The next day was fairly uneventful.


We chilled out and enjoyed the majestic scenery one more time before striking camp and re-burritoing the Volvo before heading back to civilisation for a much needed shower.


We had survived our first foray into the great Canadian outdoors!