Some called me a saint.
Most called me an idiot.
Both labels were bestowed upon me when I explained that I’d be spending my Christmas break driving 10 Boy Scouts ranging in age from 13- to 15-years old 1,500 miles to the Minnesota – Canada Border to sleep outside in subzero temperatures.
Again, most people called me an idiot.
This trip to the Great White North came about when the Troop that I’m Scoutmaster of won the lottery to attend Northern Tier, one of the Boy Scouts’ premier high adventure camps. Our notice of acceptance included a list of activities Scouts could participate in, a list of clothing and equipment to ensure frostbite, hypothermia, and death didn’t occur while taking part in said activities, and an astronomical invoice that made me wonder why any sane person would pay such an extraordinary fee for the risk of freezing to death.
Despite the massive cost, we paid our bill following a year of fundraisers, rented a 15-passenger van, and headed north. We left the Texas Hill Country at noon on Christmas Day and drove up and out of the Lone Star State and past Indian Casino after Indian Casino and into and through lands void of all human presence and activity except for radical evangelicals preaching on a.m. radio. We arrived at Northern Tier outside Ely, Minnesota late on the night of December 27 to be greeted by a single digit temperature, a snowstorm that would drop 10 inches of snow on us, and our female interpreter Ashley C.
Ashley introduced herself then rushed us into a 15-minute hike to the cabins where we would spend our first night. The hike through the snow in our Texas clothing was miserably cold and our separate adult and boy cabins sparse, containing nothing but eight cots and three plug-in heaters each.
“The bathrooms,” Ashley explained. “Are back down the hill about 10 minutes.” Ashley then added that the Boy Scouts’ Leave No Trace policy meant that all of our bathroom duties – including the brushing of teeth – had to be exercised in the bathroom so as not to mar the pristine nature of nature itself. Keeping the boys from urinating outside wasn’t nearly as difficult as I thought it would be as the boys all lost interest in doing so when they tried and failed unsuccessfully to see their urine stream freeze before hitting the ground.
Apparently, it has to be a lot colder than that night’s temperature of -18 for that to happen.
We bid Ashley good night and burrowed into our sleeping bags for some much-deserved rest. The next day, Ashley took us to “The Bay” where we were all outfitted with darn-near-at-the-North-Pole-appropriate clothing and footwear. The clothing that the camp provided was relatively new and warm enough unless you found yourself standing still outside. There, despite the wearing of the best synthetic layers available for rent, fingers and toes quickly went numb. For this reason, no one is allowed to stand still at Northern Tier. Campers must be moving at all times.
Ashley took this mantra to heart and quickly put us to work making a snow kitchen, which involved all of us shoveling snow into a pile that would later freeze into a counter height workstation that we could cook upon. Yes, from that point forward all our meals would be prepared and eaten outside.
While moving.
Always moving.
We christened our new kitchen with lunch then made plans to venture away from the cabins and into the woods to build snow shelters to spend the night in. “We’ve gotta hurry,” Ashley announced. “Remember, sun goes down at 4 o’clock around here.”
Perhaps the people that called me an idiot were right.
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