NEWS ON THE BIG WILD
Enter our 'Singing in the Rain' contest
by Aaron Pettigrew | April 3, 2009
April is a lovely time of year. Birds and flowers come back from their winter vacations, little woodland critters wake up, trees start budding and growing leaves... and the rain is relentless.Yes, it's a lovely time, unless, like me, you're the sort that likes being dry and comfortable. For us, April is the tricky month before May – everything is lush and beautiful, but you have to plan three outfits for every day: one for the cold, one for the warm, and one for the rain.
Still, if it wasn't for all that water, I guess we wouldn't have much of a forest to play around in. So join us in celebrating April and all its, well, wetness, by entering our 'Singing in the Rain' contest.
Entering is simple. Just share your story of rain-soaked adventure – from the fun hike in the mud to the discomfort of a leaky tent – and you could win an awesome Synergy 2 waterproof breathable jacket from MEC.
You can enter with a story, a photo (or set of photos), or a video published in any of three places:
* On TheBigWild.org:
Log in to your account and add an experience, photo(s), or video that tells your story. (And if you don't have an account, why not create one?)
Note: Please don't post your story in the comments area at the bottom of this post.
* On our Facebook page:
Become a fan of our facebook page and add your story, video or photo(s) to our wall.
* On your own blog:
Write a story, post a video or photo(s), and tag them 'thebigwild'. We'll use the popular blog search engine Technorati to track your entry.
However you choose to enter, just be sure to do it before the contest closes on April 30th May 3. At the end of the month, we'll choose our favourite story and give away our dynamite prize. It's that easy!
For our full contest rules, visit http://thebigwild.org/singing-rain-contest-rules.
(Bloggers: for help tagging your posts, visit http://technorati.com/help/tags.html.)
Be creative, have fun, and good luck!
Help Protect Canada's Wild Spaces
Join us in calling on our political representatives to protect Canada’s precious public land and water forever.
Connect With The Big Wild
Sign up for our monthly newsletter:
Spread the word about The Big Wild:
Holdin' on the Caribou:
A tiny sand spit at the delta of the Caribou with the Flat River was the only tenting spot available among the large rocks on this Nahanni tributary, a poor choice should it rain. I'd been lucky so far on this solo adventure - descended the Cascade of the Thirteen Steps, scared off a black bear, and avoiding a bushwhack through a field of fallen trees - so I'd be fine here.
That sense of well being changed around 3 am when a huge thunderstorm broke overhead. As winds lashed rain against the tent, I desperately held on to the tent poles through the nylon walls. I prayed, for what seemed like hours, that the Caribou wouldn't rise and sweep me away. Slowly the storm abated and I released my grip, looked about outside and returned to bed. Once again, I'd been saved on the mystical Nahanni River by a guardian spirit watching over me.
An outdoor wedding is a sign of optimism, naivete, or downright ignorance of the perils... Nikki and I should have known better. But we elected to get hitched at Camp Grafton, where we both spent many happy times as kids and adults, in a very rustic setting. A hundred-plus guests, an outdoor chapel, and an August afternoon set the stage.
The Shuswap area has great weather in August, except for the times when it doesn't. Right after the rehearsal dinner - eaten outside - the storm hit and the rain came down. Several people were down at the beach, or hiking in the forest above. Only those in the camp compound could get inside, and the rain came down so hard it wasn't possible to stand. For two hours, the storm pounded the lake into froth, the ground into quagmire, and our spirits into disarray. It took several rescue attempts to get everyone back into shelter and safe. We tried to sleep, with the angry weather drumming on the cabin roofs long into the night.
For the ceremony, the sun shone. There was some mud, but the ground thankfully didn't swallow the girls' shoes, and stayed off their dresses when they came up the path to the chapel. It was the best wedding ever, we all agreed. Nikki and I will be celebrating our 21st anniversary this summer.
I remember one particularly rain soaked camping trip in the near North many summers ago. A buddy and I were out on the lake when the world became very still, and very silent. The lake was a smooth mirror. No wind, no ripples other than those created by our paddles and canoe. We had seen this before, and immediately knew that a storm was headed our way.
It was a mad dash back to the island. Neither of us were in any mood to face an electrical storm on the lake. Fortunately we made it to the camp before one of the greatest rain and light shows I have witnessed hit us head on. For the next 6 hours we watched in fascination as the surrounding area was inundated with buckets of continuous water and flashes of brilliant light lit up the landscape. The thunder claps were so loud that our vices were continually lost in the din of repeating, rolling thunder. My god, it was great to be alive!
Those moments are far and few between. I know
this memory will last a life time.
My fiance and I were camping with a group during an annual campout. We had a large tent that didn't have a rain cover. The roof was a very light canvas material and the sides were some nylon type. We had put the tent up together and I had water proofed the roof. A thunder storm struck that night and it was raining cats and dogs with the thunder and lightning all around us. Soon there were water drops slowly falling inside the tent. After about 5 minutes it was raining inside the tent and the air mattress began floating on the floor of the tent. Shortly after that the side of the tent my fiance had staked to the ground collapsed. We spent the last few hours of the night inside our vehicle. I bought a used tent pop-up the next day from another member of our group.
Atop the Blomidon bluff on the Minas Basin in Nova Scotia sits Blomidon Provincial Park. It is a gem of a park providing fantastic views and wonderful hikes, but the location and elevation makes it very exposed to the weather.
My wife, baby boy, and two bassett hounds were camping at Blomidon last August, and we can testify to the wettest August on record. We had planned to stay for the whole month, but one night the skies opened up--sending us scrambling to get the dogs in the car and the rest of us in our tent. Sheltered in our Frontenac, we watched our campfire submerge and float away into the forest on the new river that swelled from the road and into our campsite. Thankfully, we all weathered the storm just a little damp, but realized in the morning that our camping trip was at an end. The dining tent and its contents were drenched, the ground spongy, and the sky still very grey. In our younger years we would have soldiered on, but wet dogs and a baby certainly set new limits on what you can endure.
We hope for better weather this year, and big tarps just in case.
It was May 28 and the ice was just off the Churchill River. Snow descended on our camp in big, thick, heavy flakes, making everything damp and cold. As novice paddlers, we chose to stay off the water in the safety of camp.
Eventually however, my husband got bored and decided to go out fishing in the canoe in the lee of the island we were camped on. He hadn't yet learned the importance of ballast, and was sitting in the boat with the bow high in the air, wearing multiple layers of clothing, rubber boots and no lifejacket. He tipped out into the frigid water and the boat had swamped. I heard him hollering my name from the warmth of the campfire.
I panicked and started peeling off my clothes, but he was too far for me to swim to, despite my being a very strong swimmer. Finally, in time that seemed like forever, I ran back to camp, grabbed some clothes and matches, put them in a garbage bag, tied them around my waist and ran to the water, intending to swim across to meet him.
I got back to the water's edge and there was no Chris, no boat, just silent falling snow. My heart stopped. I thought he was gone. Then I heard 'Shuuue", and there he was dragging himself up onto the shoreline. He had sunk just when it was shallow enough to put his feet on the bottom. He was slurring and confused, but still with me.
I swam across the narrow channel with the bag of clothes and lit a fire. We warmed our numb bodies and then went in search for the canoe. We found both the boat and the paddle, paddled back to camp and spent the next 2 hours shoved into one sleeping back trying to warm Chris up.
Although we have since improved our paddling skills, this experience has never let us forget the perils of cold water in springtime.