Wintercamp Reflection

My wintercamp experience this year was better than last year's.

I was in a group of six girls, so right away we knew that we would need to work hard to build a big enough quinzhee, since all of us wanted to sleep over the same night. We built a pretty good base the first day, but realized that we would be hard pressed to finish on time. We decided to go with another group in a different class, but it was hard to find a group big enough to share a quinzhee with us. We ended up going with a group of five grade 10 boys, which turned out to be a mistake. We found that they didn't really do much, other than dig it out after we built it.

We thought that our quinzhee would be big enough, since we could fit everyone in lying down with no equipment. When we went to put our stuff inside though, it was a tight fit. Luckily, that, coupled with our amazing cold sink and platform, made for a warm night.

In the morning, I had to go to performance and then to the relay assembly, so I was unable to help clean up the entire camp and the outdoor ed room. However, I did clean up all my stuff and make sure that I left it as clean as I could.

In terms of what went better than last year, I think we had better planning and communication, as well as I was better prepared. For dinner, everyone brought what they were supposed to and we had a much healthier meal. I had gone through last year, and knew what I should bring and what I didn't need to, and so it went better in that respect as well.

Two things that could have gone better were definitely communicating with the other group and make a bigger quinzhee. In regards to the communication, the other group thought that they were switching nights with us when in reality the arrow drawn by the teacher was to signify that we were sharing a quinzhee. The quinzhee we had was big enough for everyone, but not with the equipment, so making that bigger would have been better.

If I could give some advice to people doing wintercamp for the first time, it would be to pick a good group who will work well together, make a bigger quinzhee then you think you need when piling the snow, plan a healthy meal, have a warm sleeping bag, and read previous wintercamp reflections so that you don't have too much stuff.

All in all, my second wintercamp was a lot better than last years, and quite enjoyable.

Wintercamp Reflection

Wintercamp this year was exceptionally better than last year. Last year, I had no idea what to expect and I definitely was not prepared enough as i could have been. This year, I had bigger expectations for my group and myself since we did not do as well as i had hoped last year and I had a completely different mindset. Although my group and I have certainly improved, we did encounter challenges along the way. 

One thing I would like to improve for next time is overall communication. Like we had done the year before, we asked another group with the same amount of members to help build a quinzhee to share so that one group would sleep over one night and the other would sleep over the following day. There were issues with communication with the other group which made everyone confused and tense. For example, there was a line between our group member’s names and the other group to show that we were sharing the same quinzhee, but the other group thought that meant we were switching nights so they showed up with their gear on the night we were originally going to camp out. Unfortunately they had to sleep in another quinzhee. The second important thing i would want to improve on for the next time is the menu planning. I think that after each Outdoor Ed trip my group and i get better and better at planning our meals, but we still haven’t made a meal that is really healthy and includes all the food groups. For dinner we had cheese quesadillas and beef and cheese ravioli which was filling but excluded vegetables which was similar to the meal we had last year which was pasta and hotdogs. For the next time I would plan a meal with more veggies like red and green peppers or mushrooms. 

The one thing I was most dreading about this year’s wintercamp was the actual sleeping part of the trip. Last year, Julia and I had to pick another quinzhee the day of to dig out so we could sleep in it since there was a last minute mix up with another person and there was not enough room in the quinzhee we had built. The entrance to mine and Julia’s new quinzhee was way too long and small with little to no platform so we were cold the entire night. Inside, we were squished together and I was sleeping against the wall which made my sleeping bag and pillow wet. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep at all that night. This year I was able to sleep in the quinzhee I was supposed to and we built the quinzhee incredibly well. We knew that we had to pile up a lot of snow since there were 6 members in our group and we would need a lot of room, so we used our class time wisely and worked efficiently to make a huge pile on a hill which made it easier to make the platform and so we wouldn’t have to make it so big. Everyone worked really well and no one from our group slacked off. At night I was worried about going to sleep but thankfully it wasn’t as bad as i thought it would be. At first there were only three of us in the quinzhee, so as i got into my sleeping bag it was a bit cold, but after everyone was inside i started to warm up. I tried to use my hot-pocket warmers for my feet but it turns out that they were expired and i was really upset. The only part of my body that was cold during the night was my face since i couldn’t breathe if i put my head inside my sleeping bag. A big reason I stayed warm was because we were all very close together. At the time we were making our quinzhee, we thought it was going to be really big and have plenty of room to spare, but when we added all of our sleeping bags, pillows, and gear we realized it was more cramped than we had expected.  Overall, I slept better, had a better built quinzhee, and stayed warm for most of the time compared to last year. 

I believe that the most important recommendation i could make to a first year winter-camper is to dress warmly and check if you have a nice and warm sleeping bag while making sure you don’t get your sleeping gear wet. There is nothing worse than getting your clothes or sleeping bag wet because you’ll either have to go warm your stuff up by a fire or not sleep at all because you’ll be so frozen. Another tip for keeping warm at night is to make certain that your quinzhee is well built with a good platform so the cold wind doesn’t come in. Building on a hill is also a good idea because you wouldn’t have to build the platform as big. You could also build pillars or keep a wall in the quinzhee if you built it too big. An extra suggestion would be to bring candles since it lights up the quinzhee and adds a little bit of heat. The next important thing is to ensure that you make a proper meal plan that has all the food groups, is not difficult to make, and fills you up because it’s important for digestion which helps keeps you warm at night when you go to sleep. In addition, collecting a lot of firewood is very necessary because if you want a fire to be going all night you’ll need a lot and you will undeniably run out of wood very quickly. 

All in all, this trip was so much better than last year’s wintercamp because i actually got to sleep and I was very warm at night. I had a lot of fun and the next day at school was not as tough as i thought it would be. Our dinner probably could have been healthier, but it still tasted awesome. I had a great time and i am glad i was apart of wintercamp this year. 

Wintercamp Reflection

This trip was a great experience. The weather was not too warm as to soak our gear, but not so cold that it made the night uncomfortable. I found that sleeping in the quinzhee was not as bad as I thought it would be, considering the fact that we made our sleeping block a little small, so I was constantly sliding off the platform. Aside from that minor flaw, the sleep was great. It was very warm inside the quinzhee, so we were able to sleep comfortably. For dinner, I had a boil-in-the-bag meal, which consisted of sweet and sour pork. To go with it, I had hot chocolate, diced fruit, granola and some oatmeal cookies. I think that this was a good meal, since it was enough to sustain me until the morning. In the morning, we ate pancakes, bacon and eggs, which was a great conclusion to the wintercamp experience. Throughout the night, I only woke up one or twice, but each time it was easy to fall back asleep since the quinzhee was warm and comfortable, since we had built the wall to a thickness that kept lots of heat inside, and kept us warm. The only problem with the quinzhee was that in the morning when I woke up, there was a thin layer of moisture which made the boots and coats cold, but not unbearable. Also, it made packing annoying since the water was making everything moist which made some of my clothes for the next day wet.

I think that our group did an excellent job working as a group and participating with equal amounts of effort. This helped maintain a sense of companionship which is very important to building a good quinzhee to sleep in during the winter. Our cold sink worked very well, since the quinzhee was nice and warm, and it was comfortable inside. I think that the only thing I would change would be to increase the size of the quinzhee so that we could make the sleeping platform longer. The reason for this is that my feet hung off the edge the whole night, and made it slightly uncomfortable. Overall, my experience on the wintercamp trip was a very good one, and I really enjoyed it.

PAD3O-Winter Camp Reflection

I’ve been waiting for this experience since last semester, when the winter camp had to be cancelled because of freezing rain and thawing temperatures.

I am really glad that I got this second opportunity.

My group, 6 girls in total, decided to build a quinzhee in which we all could sleep together, so it had to be big. We found a good spot which included a slope, so that we could build a low entrance, which would allow the cold air to stay outside. Then we estimated the size of the quinzhee and flattened the snow for the foundation on which our quinzhee would be built on. With the help of Mr. Brouwer we planned out an inner structure of the quinzhee, which included a wall to support the ceiling of our rather big quinzhee. Also we took some time in class to think of a good food menu for the night, which allowed us to fully concentrate on the quinzhee building process afterwards. In my mind the provident planning is a very important step, which my group from last semester did not do as carefully. In general the approaching of the building process was planned out better, thinking back to the group before, we just shoveled snow on one spot and instead of a shared plan everybody had his own ideas.

Compared to that my group from this semester communicated very well and we organised all the ideas together, before we started with the actual building process. That way everybody knew what was happening and that made it possible for us to work as a team.  

Also we were able to speed-up the building process, as everybody helped and worked hard. In addition we cut out the snow in blogs while hollowing out the quinzhee, which made it a lot easier and faster.

Overall I can say that the communication and teamwork within my group was ideal and that thanks to that I had a fun time.

But there were also things which we could improve for next time.

Even though we communicated well within our group, we had some problems with the group who was going to use our quinzhee for the first night and helped us with building it.

It was hard for us to communicate with them because they have Outdoor Ed as an afternoon class, whereas we have it in the morning. This made it hard for us to clearly communicate ideas and plans, so we ended up with a shorter (and due to that also higher) entrance than we had planed. It also came to misunderstandings, i.e. when we were talking of a wall we meant inside the quinzhee as a supporter, but they understood a wall outside the entrance as a protector from the wind. So after the quinzhee was already halfway dug out without the basic approach of a wall we had to change our plans and dig out an obvious pillar instead (which worked as well). In the end everything turned out fine for us, though it was frustrating at some points, because we felt like it could have been better if we just had communicated properly.

In spite of those misunderstandings it was a great experience for me and our quinzhee also turned out to be just fine and warm enough.

For future groups I can definitely recommend to build the quinzhee on the top of a slope and a low entrance, this will save you the extra work of a platform/cold sink. First you have to find a group with which you enjoy working with and then make a detailed plan before you start building, while you are still in the classroom. I learned that metal shovels are the best tool to cut out blogs of snow when digging out the quinzhee. Last but not least you need to make sure that your sleeping platform is carefully flattened. In case it is not, one of you will have a sleepless night, just because of a tiny bump of snow right under your spine. No matter how you turn around this bump will make your sleep as uncomfortable as possible. Just like in the fairy tale “The Princess of the Pea”.

If you keep all these points in mind and you properly build your quinzhee, then, according to Mr. Brouwer, you will have the sleep of a lifetime.