Clank-clankity-clank!
“Bear!” Clankity-clank-clank-clank.
I woke up in the darkness, “Bear…?”. Unfurling from the comfort of my sleeping bag, I knelt at the edge of my foam mattress and peeked through the small camper window.
Uncle Boyd stood on the fold-out aluminum step of his camper. His wire rimmed glasses teetering crooked on his face and his meager waft of oily hair fell flat in front of them. Except for a well-worn pair of cowboy boots and sagging white underpants, he was naked.
Clanking and hammering pots and pans together, he yelled back into the camper, “Brenda, get the shotgun!”
“What’s happening,” Mom whispered from the top bunk.
“Someone left their cooler out again. That bear’s back,” I said. “Uncle Boyd’s gonna shoot it.”
“He’s not going to shoot it. He’ll just scare it.”
The blast rang through the camp followed by a testosterone charged fit of laughter and the cussing of men.
“Come back to bed, Leesa. You don’t need to hear any of that. The bear’s going to be fine.”
I cuddled back into my covers, wrapped my arms around my faithful rag-doll, Mrs.Beasley and pulled the flannel sheets up over my head.
Camping in the Rocky Mountains was something my family has done for as long as I can remember. A convoy of friends and families, including my Alberta uncles, aunts and cousins, would settle in to a pre-selected clearing, deep in the wilderness of the Rocky Mountains. Surrounded by slate cliffs and rugged, plunging rivers we’d set up for the months of July and August.
My mom, dad, brother and I were city dwellers with rural, small town roots. We anticipated this trip with excitement. As a child, I knew camping made me feel blissfully happy, I now know why. I was and am spiritually connected to this land. Thick forests and rushing mountain water was the conductor in our family’s exploration of new habitats, ourselves and of each other.
In preparation Mom would make bread and hundreds if not thousands of buns, freezing all of them. Shopping for ‘camping food’ was almost better than Christmas morning. Instant hot chocolate, hot dogs, marshmallows, mini-cereal packs of frosted flakes and corn pops brimmed out of our shopping cart. This was the good stuff that Mom would never let us have at home.
Some people brought tents, some had motor-homes sporting stovetops, and televisions—all the luxuries of home. We had a small camper that sat atop our yellow, nineteen-seventies Ford super-cab. Mom made ruffled curtains for its tiny, square windows. These matched the bench seat cushions she made for the campers only sitting area, a picnic style, arborite table and two benches that when reassembled come night-fall, served as my bed.
The main camp was set up close to a small stretch of the vast Athabasca River. Along its shores, I would create small tidal pools with river-rocks stacked into crescent moons, leaving an opening to meet the currents flow. All sorts of creatures and peculiar forest debris would drain into these natural science labs. Careful examination of tiny fish barely the size of my pinky-nail and dragon flies, with their delicate crosshatched, iridescent wings ensued.
In this vibrant river, we would fish for trout—baiting our own hooks with worms and flies. We were supposed to find our own bait, but Uncle Boyd let me use his. He’d pull an old coffee tin from his tackle box, saying that they were ones the fish liked best. We had to kill and clean the fish we caught. This was impossible for me. Even if I closed my eyes, I was not capable of clubbing the fish—it was hard enough to pull the hook from its cheek. My uncle would take mercy on me, and with one swift swing of the club the fish was dead. He’d cut and toss the head to eagerly awaiting eagles who seemed to know this was his plan, swooping—talons out, and snagging it at exactly the moment before the fish-head hit the river.
I finished prepping the fish for an awaiting skillet that bubbled with hot butter. I gutted and scaled the fish as per Uncle Boyd’s guidance and insistence, and slapped the trout down into the sizzling pan. The cast-iron skillet sat atop a small grate balanced over a twig burning fire. This fish was the best thing I’d ever eaten. Salted and crisped to perfection, we ate fresh trout on the rushing-river’s edge under the jagged outline of the darkening pine trees against the orange twilight sky.
The camp had two communal tents. One was a music tent with amps plugged into generators and a dance floor made of rough planks and plywood. My cousin Pete, a real musician, set up his entire drum kit in here. My Auntie Brenda played the bass, Uncle Boyd played guitar and sang along with my dad. Johnny Cash songs were a family favorite. I loved to join in with them because I knew all the words. My New Zealand born dad had a ‘Kiwi’ twang to his rendition of ‘Ring of Fire’ that everyone cheered for.
Kids armed with Tupperware-shakers filled with dry-rice and soup-spoons taped backside to backside added percussions. The plywood dancefloor served our dancing boots well and I’m sure you could hear the hootenanny all the way back to our long-forgotten city.
The other communal tent was the kitchen. Here, everyone ate, cooked and washed up. Both tents had a potbellied stove that was always stoked. These were surrounded by clotheslines strung this-way-and-that. Wrangler-jeans, t-shirts, towels and unmentionables dangled from the lines in every variation. Boots stuffed with newspaper jutting out the top lined the bottom of the stove, scenting the air with the burn of rubber. The kids would sit on the ground on the other side of these shoes drinking hot chocolate from tin mugs.
The first person up in the morning stoked the kitchen stove-fire. Welcome sunshine penetrated the canvas roof and walls burning the chill morning dew, creating a halo of fog as you approached. Upon entering, the steamy scent of porridge bubbling on the stovetop perked the senses.
After breakfast, we’d hear the daily camp-news report—who caught the biggest fish and what type of fly they used or who found a new hiking trail. Adventure germinated with announcements of anyone loading their pick-up truck with passengers on route to the swimming hole or heading up to explore the century old trapper’s cabins.
One day was dedicated to pealing and shredding at least one hundred pounds of potatoes into big rubber bins. From here, Aunty Brenda, Mom and Grandma would make ‘pult’. This staple of my Grandmothers Swedish upbringing was one of the few things Grandma took away from her home when she left Sweden at seven years old. It is a simple recipe of potatoes, flour, water and lots of butter. This created the dough for dumplings, spoon dropped into boiling water until they’d float. We’d fry up huge amounts of white onions and fry thick-cut bacon to serve alongside the pult. Uncle Boyd and Grandma would drink the warm, gooey pult-water afterwards, something I would gag watching.
There was always a grown-up willing to take the kids out on a nature walk, this was my favorite thing about camping. We’d search for vibrant forest and field flowers, the brighter coloured the better. Back at camp we’d crush them into a colourful paste, creating a natural paint pallet. Then, we’d compose the most wonderful mountain landscapes using our fingers or frayed twigs to create our masterpieces. Older kids had jack-knives and whittled small forest animal sculptures or wiener roasting sticks.
We’d string garlands of pine cones around the camper and watch as the chipmunks came to retrieve their seeds. These little creatures were typically seen hyper-speeding throughout the camp so if we could get them to stop for a moment to nibble on a seed or two it gave us time to see their sweet, wiggling noses, twitchy whiskers and nimble paws manoeuver the tiny seeds.
With many of the Rocky Mountain camping-clan elders are gone now, my immediate family has continued with these old traditions, adding some new ones in a more intimate camping experience in Rock Creek, BC.
We still enjoy the excitement and adventure found in the natural world, floating together down the lazy, Kettle River and riding our bikes through forest narrows and sprawling grass fields, always keeping an eye out for colourful paint-flowers.
Though a bear has never made its way into our camp, there are many chipmunks to watch, eagles to listen for and a resident beaver who isn’t afraid to flap its tail on the water in protest to our presence.
I am grateful for a deep connection to the wilderness that I share with my daughter, Ruby and my husband, Warren. I consider these moments and memories as some of my dearest treasures.