Growing up in Canada
Growing up in Canada, and going to school filled with shiftless hippies, I went on a number of ill-conceived and poorly executed school trips in the wilderness. The most memorable was certainly a grade 8 (we were probably about 13) trip to Tamagami, which is right up in logging country in northern-ish Ontario.

Now, our class teacher had decided our adventure was going to be a canoe trip. I had never set foot in a canoe before. Most of the others in my class had some canoeing experience, but no one had much more than a passing knowledge. On day one, we drove for almost the whole day to the base camp where we were supposed to pick up our rental equipment, get a quick crash course in canoeing, and set off.

After getting our gear, we got the basics of canoeing lesson. I was a fat kid - there's no way around it - and after they'd made me tip my canoe, there was no way I was hauling my fat arse back in there. After a number of very undignified tries, they gave up and paired me up with two guys from my class with slightly more experience and better upper body strength than a pudgy 13-year-old girl. Finally, we got all the gear in the boats and were ready to start off.

Unfortunately, while we were getting ready, the wind had picked up somewhat. And when I say somewhat... I mean rather a lot. Our teacher made the decision to set off anyways, so off we went. It was supposed to be an easy one hour paddle. It wasn't. It took us almost three hours to cross the lake, and the waves were so large, I spent most of the trip bailing instead of paddling. We were going against the wind, and sometimes it felt like we were hardly moving forwards. Finally, we made it; we were the very first canoe at the campsite! Unfortunately, as we looked behind us, it became apparent that things were going to be pretty lonely. More than half of the canoes had already returned to the base camp, and word came to us that we'd have to go back, because the weather was just too bad.

The trip back was much faster because the wind was coming from behind us, and we were back in less than an hour. We found out that most of the other canoes had capsized at one point or another, and that our teacher had lost about half of his clothes in one of the overturns. I was pretty lucky: my stuff was fairly dry, but I was definitely in the minority. We set up tents near the beach and settled in for the night.

I've spent some miserable nights under canvas, but that night really took the cake. The wind was so strong that our cheap dome tent was almost flattened by it; the fabric was inches from our faces, and there was water everywhere. The temperature was close to zero C - it was early October - and we were cold and wet. The morning dawned, and it was still cold and rainy, and some other people's tents were in even worse shape than ours. The base camp had a summer camp on site, and our teacher made an emergency agreement with them to rent some of the cottages. They were just big old buildings with about 20 bunk beds in each. We spent the rest of the week around the wood stoves in the cabins while it poured and stormed outside; I don't think we ever got in the canoes again. It was a pretty brief brush with the wilderness.

All in all, we ended up having a pretty good time in Tamagami, but it was a miracle that no one drowned or got hypothermia. These days, someone's parents would probably sue.
(BlackArmadillo Avoided writing that article on, Fri 30 Mar 2012, 3:08, 1 reply)

I had a similar experience in the Lake District
One day of beautiful sunshine before howling wind and rain descended. Ours was the only tent to survive the night.
(Nitrous Nitrous, Fri 30 Mar 2012, 8:42, closed)