Winter Camp Reflection

Winter Camp Reflection

Jessie Lennon

One thing I think I did well was bringing proper clothing for the night. My outer gear kept me both dry and warm the whole night while we finished digging out the quinzee, played in the snow and made our food. My sleeping clothing kept me warm the whole night and stayed dry for the most part.

Another thing I think we all did well as a team was assigning roles to each other as to who is bringing what gear. Most of us brought multiple sleeping bags, blankets and extra gear in case something got wet or someone was cold. Each of us offered to bring different parts of our meal/snacks and other helpful things such as flame less candles to bring light to the shelter. 

Lastly, I think I did a good job of keeping myself, my group members and others entertained throughout the night. For the most part we stayed outside cooking our food, playing with a football, and just hanging out outside rather than staying hold up in the quinzee all night. When we weren't outside we were usually in our shelter (usually around 12 people) playing board games or just hanging out. 

I think we could have improved upon the quality of our platform. First, it wasn't as tall as it could have been and second it slanted towards the door so throughout the night we would wake up and have slid down a couple feet and would have to pull ourselves back up, disturbing everyone's sleep. The platform was fairly smooth at the beginning of the night, but as people came and went (we had a lot of traffic in our quinzee) the platform slowly wore down. 

Second I think we could have improved upon how organized we were. We brought quite a few blankets and sleeping bags like we said we would, but we were faced with the issue of having all of having all this stuff that shouldn't get wet needing to be put into the quinzee and not having anything to put them in (thankfully the outdoor ed room had garbage bags.) It took quite a while to organize everything when it was time for bed with quite a bit of arguing. In the morning we wanted to do everything in one trip and threw everything we could into any bag. It was very hectic and disorganized. 

My first recommendation for someone sleeping in a quinzee for the first time is to not make the group you're in too large. We were faced with the issue of having to make our quinzee quite large because we had five people in our group, and in the end two of our group members didn't sleep well due to lack of space. I think three would be a good number to have in a group. 

My second recommendation for someone sleeping in a quinzee for the first time is to bring extra gear. Throughout the night you will get cold and wet and having extra mitts or snow pants could come in handy at anytime. Even if you don't need the gear, someone else might. Bringing an abundance of food is also a good idea. We usually had around 12 people in our quinzee at a time and everyone was always snacking on the brownies and chips we had. 

Lastly I recommend you don't stay in your quinzee all night, first of all your platform may get ruined by all the traffic and second it is more fun being outside and messing around with the people you're with rather than staying inside all night. Cook over a fire, play a game of manhunt or play around with a ball. Enjoy the outdoors. 

Overall I couldn't have asked for a better night. I ended up getting a great nights sleep after a night with great people playing around outside and in. If I had the chance I would definitely do it again only making minimal changes.