I began my trip like everyone begins every trip, having their girlfriend pick them up at 5:30 in the morning. She kindly drove me to the Charlottetown airport where I caught a flight to Halifax, to Toronto, and ultimately to Vancouver. The only interesting things to note about the flying aspect of the trip were that I sat beside the most annoying person in the world from Toronto to Vancouver and that most of BC was on fire.

Once in Vancouver I stayed at the very nice Georgian Court Hotel. It is back door neighbors to the CBC building in Vancouver. I sat staring out my windows for hours on end waiting to get a glimpse of dreamboat Ian Hannamansing. He must have a secret tunnel or face mask to deal with his fame.

The weather in Vancouver was as it had been for the past 3 months. Hot and dry. I spent the first day walking around the city, to MEC, to Canada Place, and my final destination, Science World and its Omnimax theatre. After touring Science World and watching an amazing Omnimax movie about risk and skydiving. I went to sleep early as I had to be at the bus station at 7:00 am.

From this point on days are relative to when your course starts. Day 1 being the start and day 21 being the end of my course. Everything from food to schedule is labled accordingly (Day 5 lunch, Day 10 re-supply, etc)

Day One

I arrive at the bus station. There are many like me standing around. It’s not hard to spot us, we look like a marching MEC band. Everyone seems to be wearing brand new, never touched the wilderness hiking boots, pants, and bandannas. There are roughly forty of us. Apparently four courses start at the same time (10 people per course). I sit alone and quietly place bets with myself as to who would be on my course. It’s a good thing I didn’t go to the casino for the three weeks. I don’t think I guessed a single person correctly.

We all had to buy Greyhound tickets to Nanaimo. We were supposed to go to Pemberton, but due to wildfires the course had been moved to Vancouver Island. Because we were aplenty Greyhound was nice enough to give us our own bus. (in hindsight, this would have been better to do at the end of the course). All of us are strangers, except for five girls who speak French. These five girls obviously know each other quite well. I correctly figure that these then must be the “students from the same school who may know each other” that I was notified about. They were definitely on my course. That left four unknowns.

We took the ferry from Horseshoe bay to Nanaimo, a stunningly beautiful ferry ride. Having grown up traveling on ferries pre-bridge era I was mystified at the similarities in ferries across the nation. Same bathrooms, tables, food, signs etc. While I was sitting and reading in a generic ferry chair a man I’d guess to be in his late thirties sat beside me and introduced himself. He was on the same course as I. His name was Ernie, a cabinetmaker from BC. He had a wife and two kids (I saw them crying when he left the bus station). He liked Clancy novels, middle eastern stuff, day hikes, and cars. I told him a little (very little) about myself. I figured that if we were going to be together for twenty one days better not to reveal everything at the start and have nothing to talk about near the end. Only three unknown course mates left.

After Ernie left I noticed that one of the French girls had brought two non-French girls over to the rest of the French crew. I overheard a poor English introduction and something about them being on their course. Only one unknown course mate left.

At the bus station we sat around and waited for the vans to come pick us up. Apparently moving the entire wilderness school from one place to another has been a logistical nightmare. The vans finally arrived and we loaded our luggage onto their tops, roped it down and piled in. I ended sitting beside a CTO of some company who was going on a seven day course. The driver did a quick survey of the van to see what course each person was going on. 12 seven day hands went into the air and only two 21 day hands including my own. I quickly turned around and saw the final course mate - a mid forties male with glasses in the back seat. We exchanged awkward “I guess I’ll get to know you looks”. I felt somewhat proud having sleuthed so successfully. I went back to my book.

We arrived in the middle of nowhere just outside of Campbell River. Our base camp was an old Scout Camp. The forty students piled out of the vans and unloaded our gear. Once the gear was unloaded and the bladders emptied we assembled into a circle some 50 people round. The director then welcomed us to Outward Bound. Most people listened half-assedly as they scanned the circle for who their course mates might be. The welcome wrapped up and the director moved into announcing the members and instructors of each course. Our course was the second to be announced.

She introduced the two instructors:
Matt – Somewhere between 25 and 30. Reddish hair. Extremely intense eyes. Big smile and a joker. Has been in the mountains since he was 17. His first year instructing Outward Bound.

Jasmin – Mid twenties. Dark brown/black mid length hair. Serious rock climber. Has been with Outward Bound for a number of years. Seemed quieter than Matt.

Jasmin then read off the names of those in our course:

Veronique
Julie
Dan (me)
Peter
Veronique
Virginie
Catherine
Jacquie
Amanda
Ernie

We hived off and went to our own little campsite in the woods. It was weird wheeling a normal suitcase to a campsite. Those wheels were definitely not made for heavy mulch.

We all sat by the gear marked with our names. I think my gear was between Amanda and Virginie. We played some name remembering games (you throw me an orange, you say my name. I throw the orange to someone else and say their name..). While this violated my strict “no ice-breakers” rule I played along. Being naturally good with names the game was as fun as throwing an orange around could be.

Once we’ve all learned how to throw an orange properly we began to do the infamous “duffle shuffle”. This in part involved removing from your luggage (which doesn’t have to be a duffle bag) the $1200.00 worth of MEC gear you had to buy and placing it in a neat pile for inspection, one piece at a time. If your particular piece of gear passed inspection it was placed in your pack. If it failed it went back to your luggage. All “failed” gear was then logged and they would later hunt down a replacement for you. The only gear of mine that failed was my apparently small cup and bowl.

After gear inspection we moved into “group gear”. This is gear that belongs to the group and we as the participants were responsible for it. It consists of the stoves, tents, tarps, etc.. We were instructed on how to set up the tents, how to light the stoves, tie knots, store the fuel, and so on and so forth.

The tents: We had two Kivas and one we called “the sauce”. None of the tents had floors. I repeat, the tents did not have floors. This was a shocking to all.

So we set up our tents for the night. The three guys (me, Ernie, Peter) were stuck in a small Kiva.

We then kissed our luggage and all the amenities within goodbye for the remainder of the course. We ate supper with the rest of the groups. I think it was spaghetti. We then used the disgusting outhouses and went to sleep in our tents, on the ground. Day 1 was over.

Move on to Day 2 >>