Picture 400 people in an auditorium all listening to presentations about a common topic: Winter Camping! Yes, that happened again this year with the help of organizer David Bain (and more) at the Theatre of the Arts in Waterloo. This is the second year for the Ontario Winter Camping Symposium and I made sure to secure a ticket. There was a great line up consisting of 5 presentations, sponsors with lots of outdoor goodies ready to purchase, and lots of friends to chat with.
I had arrived early to the venue and was able to meet up with Christina to chat a bit before her busy day started. She was not only giving a presentation, but had her hot tent to set up as one of the displays.
As I walked in the doors, displays of outdoor gear and goodies were available for all to drool over… Maybe even purchase if you want.
On my left, was Kevin Callan who was there to represent Snowtrekker Tents and he had his new Asym tent on display. I definitely went inside to check that out.
On my right was a beautiful display from Backcountry Custom Canoes. John the owner and maker had his canoe, sleds, and kick sleds on display. There was even some goodies to purchase made by his daughter.
Welcoming you in the front was John from I Am the Outdoor Kind and Alan from Kingdom Outdoor. John has some great gear products that can be purchased through his website, which include cute cartoon animals in various outdoor activities. I currently own a sweater with a canoeing moose! Part of the purchase of these products goes toward helping out first responders in rural and wilderness situations.
Alan has lots of interesting pieces of gear all based around different types of watercraft. I currently have a Keynoe, which is a canoe key chain. At his site you are able to purchase these key chains as well as jewelry and watercraft storage equipment.
As I headed towards the auditorium Friends of Temagami had quite the booth set up with a huge map of the area, t-shirts for sale and lots of information on their local initiatives, such as Save Solice.
Next I headed over to see Man Camping’s display. There are many items that I was interested in getting from this display. I had to keep my credit card close so that it wouldn’t fly out of my pocket and into their charge machine! I did purchase some of their demerit badges, but was really checking out their new headlamps.
Continuing through the foyer, Whiskey Jack Outdoor Co was set up with their toboggans. If I only had the money….. They are much nicer than my home made sled, but I am still proud that I made a sled of my own to use for winter camping.
I especially liked Traversing‘s display of hand made canoe decorations. There was no way I was walking by and not buying something for my Christmas tree. This event was also taped by Traversing’s Evan and a video with highlights can be found on his web page.
Below is Christina doing her thing! Chatting to patrons and showing off her home made hot tent. On the other side of the auditorium, there was an Esker tent also set up to view, but alas I didn’t get a picture.
It was time for the symposium to begin, and David Bain welcomed the audience and chatted about the format for the day. He asked the audience “Who has never been winter camping before?” It was amazing to see so many hands go up! I mean this is what we are here for, to learn about winter camping and all it has to offer.
Up first was a group of ladies called the Silver Summit Sisters. This past winter the group of six (Rhonda, Drea, Becky, Heather, Marci, and Maren), guided by David Lee, headed to Killarney to hike Silver Peaks in the winter while cold camping. The ladies went through their experience of the good and the bad on this trip. Many of them had never been winter camping, or backpacking in the winter. Some highlights of the presentation were the toilet warmer (see the picture below), some talk about aggressive spooning (great technique to keep warm in winter), lots of laughs about what the packets in the hydrated meals actually are, as well as their trek to the peak. Unfortunately they didn’t quite make the journey to the top of Silver Peak, but found a great ridge to stop and assess their accomplishments. For these six ladies, they overcame their struggles and ended up having a great winter experience. I know they will be gearing to go next time and will be successful in getting to the peak.
The second presentation was from Tim Foley of Canadian Outdoor Equipment. He talked about doing regular scheduled maintenance on your winter gear. Little things like cleaning, drying out your hot tent, proper axe and knife oiling techniques, and using a natural soap that is great for cleaning gear and also not harmful to the environment.
The last of the morning session was Camper Christina who talked about making, and solo camping in her hot tent. Christina went through the details of what got her started in camping and blogging and how she has grown to build not one, but two hot tents to use in the winter. Her first was a tipi hot tent, but she realized this was too heavy to take into the back country on her own. This lead her to investigate building a new tent that was small enough for taking on her own in the woods. She went through her process of using painter’s drop cloths, plastic canvas, pins (lots of pins), lots of sewing, and many hours to build her tent. After going for a trial run in a campground, she wanted to go back country and she actually had invited me along, just to have a second person there in case anything went wrong in the woods. Since that was a success she headed to Killarney to take her tent solo in the back country. Killarney had very cold weather, like -42 degrees with wind chill cold. However, she had a very successful trip and has now taken the tent on many other back country adventures.
During lunch my credit card escaped and I did buy some goodies. That is what lunch is all about here. Time to chat with all the vendors and chat with other outdoor people.
After lunch the next session was with Ryan Atkins, Buck Miller and Eric Batty who did a 160km trek across Algonquin Park in the winter. They set off in the south west corner just outside Algonquin and went diagonally through the park following lakes, and portages along with breaking their own trail to end up in Deux Rivieres. These three men had met through mutual interests like biking and adventure racing. They talked about their trek and the trials and tribulations of crossing such a vast park. There are days when they had to change routes due to slush and open creeks, and days where they were cutting trails in deep snow with back country skis that didn’t like to go fast. It was really interesting to hear about their journey and a little part of me thought, if even just for a second, maybe I could do that. Umm… ya… I don’t think so. I would go for any back country winter experience, but hiking 10 days in the snow, in Algonquin….. OK, maybe I would if I had the right gear, guide, etc 🙂
The last presentation of the day was Glen Hooper. He has a forum called Winter Trekking with a plethora of information about winter and camping. His presentation was about lessons he learned while winter camping and he joked in his presentation that he is still learning lessons. He was very informative about types of layers to look for in winter and why it is very important to find gear that will wick away moisture and leave you dry. He is very interested in natural wool attire because it allows the moisture to escape, rather than stick to your body. There was also lots of information about different types of snow shoes including some, that he showed pictures of, that seem just too impractical for use but were a typical style from First Nations people.
Near the end of his session he discussed different roping techniques to haul your gear while in the back country. Lure of the North had put on workshops to help the winter camping community with some useful information on roping and using pulleys on your toboggan.
With all the presentations done, David came to the stage one last time to thank everyone involved and concluded the day with some final giveaways (I didn’t win anything this time).
David organizes another event called the Ontario Backcountry Canoe Symposium, which will run the spring for canoeing folks. The event is located in the same auditorium with a date of April 13th. If you are interested in information about backcountry canoeing, then make sure you keep an eye on their site for when tickets go on sale. They will sell out fast just like this symposium did.
One final thing, below is a picture of the swag and gear I received at the symposium. Pictured are a sticker from Wild and Found, my demerit badges from Man Camping, a sticker from Paddling Adventures Radio (Thanks Sean), tree ornament from Traversing, new winter sticker from I Am the Outdoor Kind as well as the paddling moose sticker!
Thank you for reading about this symposium. I highly recommend it to anyone wishing to know more about winter camping. You have to start somewhere!