Winter Camping, February 9-12, 2006
Mistig Waetru, Northshield (Calumet, MI)

Signy and I left immediately after work on Thursday (after picking up 
the mail, which delivered a really cool book about Halstatt textiles), 
and had a long, but uneventful drive to Waseau, WI. The hotel was nice, 
and had a good breakfast spread, including cook your own waffles!

We got on the road in good time and drove through flurries and sunshine 
to Houghton, MI. There we stopped at the grocery store and stocked up 
for the weekend. Cocoa and cider mix, cereal bars, bottled water, yams 
and apples, and potato sausage. Enough calories to feed both of us for 
almost a week in heated living quarters. Then back in the car for 
another half hour to the Butler Farm, just outside Calumet.

As we slid down the hill to the driveway, we saw Ulfin and Denis walking 
down and waved. This year, for the first time for this event, I did not 
overshoot the driveway. We said our hellos and caught up on the most 
vital gossip. The most important gossip was three new Signs of the 
Apocalypse: Mac would not be winter camping; Mac had bought a house; and 
Birk was seen with a lady friend.  Birk also had car troubles and would 
not be attending. These two men have been vital to my previous winter 
camping experiences, so it was rather odd to have them absent. I 
consoled myself by thinking that Mac hadn’t bought a house, his 
girlfriend had, and he was just squatting there.

Because of a new Northshield law, winter camping was not an official 
event this year. Because of that, discharge of firearms was not 
prohibited, and after discussion, Ulfin broke out his black powder rifle 
and they went to kill beer cans. I wish I could have joined in, but I 
was busy.

Signy changed into her garb, I pulled on my overalls. We donned our 
winter boots and snowshoes and headed out to the site.

The day was blindingly sunny and clear. An odd sight for the area. 
Nicklos recognized me in my mundane coat and overalls and sunglasses, 
which impressed me. When we got to the campsite, there were about 5-6 
others already digging away or sitting around the fire. And I didn’t 
recognize a single one. A couple of them apparently knew me, though. I 
dragged out fuzzy memories from last year to find a vague recollection 
of one Masasugu, and mentally bearded another and got Ragnar, who I 
first met as Nicklos’ bodyguard when he came up as prince.

We scouted around for potential campsites. We initially chose one along 
the tree line, “You’ve got Royalty Row!” but decided it was more fitting 
that we squat in the unpopulated “MacVille” neighborhood. I felt badly 
that we couldn’t decorate MacVille as it should be decorated, but we 
hadn’t come prepared for that level of ostentation and imbibing.

I dug the footprint of our trench, then went looking for sticks to 
support the roof as Signy finished digging. I love finding and cutting 
sticks. I had a bit of a disagreement with the new saw, but with proper 
application of precicely applied force, I got it to see things my way. I 
tromped all over looking for the perfect sticks, got all sweaty even 
with my coat off, and was ready to cut more sticks when Signy said that 
we had enough.

She put together the bedding as I brought the rest of our gear out. Tarp 
first, four thick wool blankets, a sleeping bag envelope in which are 
the sheepskins and our personal mummy bags. Another wool blanket on top. 
The big tarp over the roof, a candle, a length of wool fabric for the 
door, and we were good to go.

We hiked back to the house so that I could get out of my sweaty mundane 
clothes and into garb. I love my garb. Besides long underwear, one pair 
of wool pants, modern boots and mittens, I just layered my regular garb. 
Signy also has a modern hat for under her hood after dark or when it’s 
windy. We ravenously accepted our hosts’ offer of soup before we headed 
back to camp.

Then we hiked back as the sun started to set. Most people were done with 
the bulk of setting up, so we had plenty of company as we cooked our 
sausage for dinner. We heated up water for cocoa. It’s very easy to get 
dehydrated out in the snow, what with being cold, the wind, and not 
wanting to open your layers to relieve yourself. It’s also much more 
comfortable if you take care to drink enough. We had our own coffee pot 
this year, so we could add to the hot water in camp. Niklos had bought 
some pasties and was warming them on the bricks around the fire pit. The 
moon was shining down brightly enough to read by, and had a huge ring 
around it.

A large crew headed into town (sometime after 10pm) for pizza and 
alcohol. I was exhausted and went to bed. Signy stayed up another 2-3 
hours talking to Denis. We don’t get to see enough of him.

I awoke refreshed and rested and warm. Signy was warm, but other than 
that had slept poorly and was hurting from sleeping on the ground. She 
emerged from our warm cocoon at a reasonable time, and poked me out 
around 11am. I ate my Pop-Tarts, had a drink, then hiked to the house to 
change socks and underwear. It’s such a little thing, but even if you 
haven’t been sweating, changing the under layers give a huge benefit in 
comfort.

Back at the fire, there was a lot of talking and eating. Ottar showed up 
with his Norse pancake making things and made us all bacon and scrambled 
eggs. A small spit was set up with a hunk of beef and a pork loin set to 
roast. Wulfric and his Nephew Frank hiked out and started digging their 
holes. (19-year-old Frank was known as “Nephew Frank” for the entire 
weekend. Poor guy, it wasn’t his fault how he was introduced. He did 
rather well with all of us, I think.) Margit and her grandson Damon 
arrived with cookies and homemade coffee cream liqueur. Arianwen and 
Elspeth made their annual appearance, bearing bread and cheese. Elspeth 
pretty much doesn’t do SCA anymore except a few hours at this event, but 
I like talking to her. Lucius Kingslayer was there briefly, and we 
didn’t get to talk nearly as much as I would have liked. Signy heard 
that Denis’ girlfriend and her mother were at the house knitting, and 
disappeared. She had to negotiate wool purchasing.

By afternoon, it was getting crowded around the fire. I’d been talking 
to Ragnar for a while, when he said that he should put his snowshoes on 
and take a walk. Signy and I had been planning on doing that, but since 
there was wool and knitting going on, I didn’t expect her back, and 
asked Ragnar if he would mind company. He would like that, so we 
finished eating the chunks of meat we were working on and strapped on 
our snowshoes.

Ulfin had said that we could follow the logging trail, even though it 
went onto his neighbor’s land. So we left camp into the woods through 
pristine snow. As the camp vanished into the snow, I had a very brief 
medieval moment. The two of us side by side in the 
silent-but-for-our-footsteps woods, I felt that I should have an arrow 
knocked and be looking for rabbits and squirrels.

We followed the trail until there was no trail. Then we guessed. We had 
a very good time tromping through the snow and talking. Eventually, we 
came to a ravine. Of course we went to see what was at the bottom! Going 
down was pretty easy. We explored the valley a bit, and tried to get to 
a hut we could see on the opposite hillside. Then we discovered a small 
creek blocking our way. We had both been winter camping often enough 
that open water was properly terrifying. However, there were some snow 
covered logs, and we made a good attempt to cross on them until the snow 
let loose and Ragnar almost fell into the water. I saw rocks at a 
shallow spot and had to get some. I mean, these are rocks! Ragnar has 
picture proof of me being an idiot, one snowshoe in the water, picking 
rocks out of the ice-skimmed creek.

After a few more minutes of random walking, we decided to go back up the 
side of the ravine. That was much easier said than done. Where walking 
on foot it is easier to go up than down, the same is not true on 
snowshoes in deep snow. The slope was steep enough that if we tried to 
go straight up the side, we could walk and not get anywhere. The snow 
was powdery and even cutting a switchback involved a lot of sliding.  My 
snowshoes aren’t very wide, so I could at least stand on the edges. 
Ragnar has wider snowshoes and couldn’t get his edges dug in at all. If 
we are that stupid in the future, we will cut walking poles before 
trying to go up! After much sliding and some falling on both our parts, 
we made it back to flat land, brushed off the snow as best we could, and 
caught our breaths.

The sky was starting to get less bright as we got back into camp. Ragnar 
collapsed on the straw-covered benches around the fire. I knew that if I 
did the same, I would be stiff when I tried to get up, so I stayed 
standing while I made some cocoa and ate a cereal bar.

After re-fueling, I decided to go fetch Signy from the house. I missed 
her, and I was ready for dinner, and I didn’t want to eat all the last 
sausage without her. I was assured that the trail was packed well enough 
to go back without snowshoes, and it was, which was very nice after my 
recent adventure.

Signy was sitting on the couch with Hester and Ruth and a huge bag of 
fleece. I sat down and thawed and chatted. When it was time to go, Signy 
sent me to the car for money to pay for the fleece. (Fleece from Denis’ 
Icelandic sheep!) While carrying the bag down the three stairs, I 
mis-stepped and made a huge boom, apparently landing entirely on my left 
forearm. I’ve got a better bruise from that than from fighting in the 
past two months. Fleece bought, we put on our gear and hiked back to 
camp in the dark.

It was cloudy, and the sight of the fire was quite welcome. They had 
built it up quite large for a while, and all the chairs were moved back 
into the snowbank to keep their occupants from being baked. A crew of 
four or five from Skerjastrond said their goodnights and crawled into 
their snowbank. They took the hyperactive, friendly dog with them, but 
she was soon back out playing. I bet their cave was nice and warm from 
body heat. Soon it was Ragnar, Masasugu, Signy and I around the fire. 
Ragnar had acquired a bottle of Brennivin, colloquially known as “Black 
Death schnapps”, on a recent trip to Scandinavia. He had been saving it 
for a special occasion, and decided that this event might be it. Signy 
knew what it was and was excited to try it, so he broke it out. He 
warned us that it tasted like shag carpet and pine resin, poured a shot, 
and handed it to Masasugu. Signy got the second shot, Ragnar had one, 
and I had a half. It was smooth and strong, and I liked it. I also know 
my limits, especially when sleeping in a snowbank, and stopped then. 
Ulfin arrived with Thordis, his younger daughter, and appraised it as 
“like AquaVite.” Signy had a second shot, and I staggered off to my cave 
and went right to sleep. Ragnar had had quite a few shots and was very 
mellow.

Signy waited a while until she felt safe walking back to the house then 
she staggered back. Denis and Ruth were just leaving, except the car 
wouldn’t start, so they had another late night talking.

My bladder woke me up in the light gray pre-dawn. One of the students 
who I didn’t know was awake building up the fire. He said that he’d 
gotten up around 6:30, and that had been at least an hour ago. I didn’t 
feel right going back to sleep considering the long drive ahead, so I 
put on my outer layers and started prepping for breaking my fast and 
leaving the site.

While I was collecting my bowl and cup, Wulfric emerged from his den. We 
negotiated water heating and morning coffee, then he went to his food 
bag. “Hey, who stole the coffee? Hey, where’s all the food??” Wulfric 
had brought a lot of food out, as is his custom. His food bag had a hole 
in it, and apparently everything had fallen out the hole. But instead of 
being kicked around the firepit area, it was gone. Even the Styrofoam 
trays for the meat.

The dog came happily bounding out of the snow to play.

I looked behind it and saw a trail of junk. “Uh, Wulfric, I think I 
found the meat trays.”

He grumbled and went to clean up, wondering what we were going to eat 
for breakfast. Then he found the coffee bag. With tooth holes in it and 
coffee grounds pouring out into the snow. Eating all the food was a 
forgivable sin in a dog that was so unloved it was left loose all night. 
Eating the coffee, however, was a different matter.

The grumblings around the fire turned darker. “Dog ate breakfast, we’ll 
have to eat the dog to get it back.” Eventually the friendly vermin came 
close to me. I tried to lure it closer, then asked somebody to pass me 
the big spit. After that, the dog wouldn’t come within my reach, no 
matter how I lured it.

The seven-year-old was getting increasingly whiney about being hungry. 
Sine she wasn’t actually responsible for bringing her own food, I gave 
her half a Pop-Tart. I rummaged around our freezer niche and found a 
hunk of cheese and some summer sausage to share around.

Signy and Denis came out, and we started seriously breaking camp. 
Garbage was collected into a bag. Food and tools were collected in a 
tub. Bedding was shaken out, folded, and tied into bundles. We borrowed 
another sled and took almost everything out to the car. On the way back 
to camp, I was feeling macho, and told Signy to get into the big cargo 
sled. I could pull her, but not the entire way. We decided to save it 
for our triumphant last entrance. So just out of sight of the camp, she 
sat back down in the sled, pulling our sled behind. Fewer people were 
awake enough to pay attention to our grand entrance, but I still felt 
very macho.

We pulled the tarp off the roof of the ditch and folded it as best we 
could. We said our good-byes, Signy grabbed the shovel, and off we went.

After a normal trip or event, the “stuff” expands, making it much more 
difficult to pack back into the car. Winter Camping “stuff” expands a 
lot more, and we could barely see out of the rear window of the car.

We drove back to the house to change out of garb. After wearing so many 
layers, and long underwear, which I don’t usually wear, I had to revel 
in being naked before I put my jeans and flannel back on. Then I 
screamed, since I had set up camp in my jeans, then left them in the car 
all weekend. With my garb off, I could smell camp smoke on everyone 
else. Ulfin promised that the owners of the dog would have a talking-to.

We made our annual stop at the Keweenaw Co-op for the year’s ration of 
Journey Birch Beer, drink of the gods, and stopped for a very good lunch 
with a very bad waitress, and warmed up. Then we drove and drove and 
drove and drove. Dinner was very fast with an excellent waitress. Ray’s 
Diner just north of Janesville, WI. We pulled into the driveway just 
before 9pm, and were unloaded, starting to dry, and showered by 10:30.

As usual, this is my favorite event (even though it wasn’t an official 
SCA event this year). It had a different feel without the usual 
suspects, but the new regulars are rapidly becoming part of the 
experience. My garb is getting better, my camping and cooking is getting 
better. It’s an extreme test, but one I love.

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Copyright 2006