Survived

Yes, I am alive and well, back from my survival course in the horrible swamps of eastern Manitoba. I could tell you all about it, chronilogical-like, but instead I will tell you in a different way. I will tell you all the things I realized, sitting on the bus on the way back from the course, that I should be more thankful for. In general order of importance:

1) A BUG-FREE ENVIRONMENT - Sure, there is the odd spider in the basement. I get a few mosquito bites if I hang out outside long enough in the summer, or go golfing at the crappy course by my place in Winnipeg. But that doesn't even begin to compare with the bugs I was putting up with last week. They were absolutely ridiculous. They even gave us some special spray to soak our clothes with (for which we had to sign a waiver due to health concerns), and I still got eaten alive. I had the gortex cover for my sleeping bag completely closed around me except for a breathing hole of about 3 inches across. Into that hole I put my insect headnet to block any intruders. They still made it into my sleeping bag, and bit my face enough that my lips were swollen and my right eye swelled completely shut after one night. Worst. But there were actually people in worse circumstances than me. If I hung out right next to the lake and away from the woods, there was a bit of a wind to keep the bugs away. Guys on the opposite shore were actually wearing their rain coats and rain pants all day because the bugs can't bite through them (it was 28 and sunny).

2) PEOPLE TO TALK TO - For the last 48 hours, I was all alone. The extent of my interaction was an instructor coming along, once each day for about 1 minute, to make sure my shelter was up, snares were out, that sort of thing. You can get pretty bored all alone like that, let me tell you. Kind of start to go crazy, even. Going through crappy situations, with someone else doing the same thing, and being able to talk about it...that is much preferred.

3) FOOD - That's right, I had 6 jujubes and 4 little packs of juice mix to last me 2 days. That obviously doesn't fill you up, but you sure do learn to enjoy every little morsel of food. For the first 7 days I had two meals per day, and that definitely got me started getting hungry. I would beg for the little tubes of peanut butter out of the ration packs (since it was about the only thing that wasn't all sugar), and some guys raided the garage where they stored the food and liberated a few meals. As for the final part when I was alone with my jujubes, I ate them in about 10 bites each, even though they were only about 2 inches long. The only fish I got was about 4 inches long, and supplied maybe a gram of protein. I was starting to get a bit light-headed whenever I stood up, and I was tripping over tree roots and rocks when walking around. On the way back we stopped at Chicken Chef, and the guy next to me ordered a large poutine and a pizza. Apparently he missed food, too.

4) AVAILABLE WATER - Overall, this wasn't really a big deal. We weren't given any water and there weren't any taps or anything, but we could go down to the lake to get it, and we had tabs and water pumps to filter it. However, on the day where we were doing navigation, it was 4 of us out in the middle of the crappy Manitoba swamp, and we ran out of water. We were just walking through this crap all day and it was at least 25 degrees or so, and almost 100% humidity. Lucky for that last point, because when it started to rain, we unfolded our waterproofed maps and made them all like funnels into a cup so we could have something to drink. We were getting pretty desparate there.

5) A PLACE TO SIT - All I had was a flat rock. Flat rocks aren't comfortable for sitting on. Or for laying on, for that matter. I definitely thought of this one while I was sitting on the soft cushy bus seat, it definitely struck the contrast.

But hey, I'm alive, and back to civilization. And I am sure I will soon be complaining that my food is too cold or that there is a fly in the house or that the water tastes bad or that my back hurts because this chair is so soft. How quickly I forget.