Michael McKay recieves his AoA
Here are some pictures Signy took at Winter Camping this year (Feb 2002).
Michael McKay recieves his AoA
Fiona recieves her AoA
Birk (snow monster on the left) and his camp, including a skull on a stake (can you find it?)
A tent in the snow
The door to Mac's house with a wild tent in the background
The view from our "front porch" area
Where Signy and I spent the night
Another view of "home"
Niklos and Ragnar getting picture proof that they're cool
Around the campfire
breakfast call Sunday morning. See all the people?
Signy and me in camp
I walk down the path back to the car
The Event Report
We arrived onsite Saturday morning and hiked out to the site. Barely 20 yards along our way, we were accoseted by a man with a wild head of hair, exclaiming "my god!" He was, of course, reffering to Toivo (the fish) who we were returning for his birthday celebration.
The remainder of the (long) quarter mile was uneventful. The path was well-packed, we didn't need snowshoes. There was, hoewver, only 21" of snow on the ground. We demanded our site fee back (free!), but the autocrat clamied that the guarantee of 24" was the weekend average, and we could ask him about it Sunday night.
We dug our hole in the snow to pitch the tent in, sat around the fire and renewed old aquaintances. We discovered that we were not the furthest travelers, as someone from Indiana had also come (Master Eirick I think it's spelled). Pastys (not pasties) were sledded in for lunch.
Dinner was very late. There was a huge influx of daytrippers shortly after court was scheduled to start (but hadn't because of a lack of award recipients). Some well deserved and some surprising awards were given out. The proto-incipient Shire of Skerrstrand begged His Imperial Governor (Prince) to be allowed into Northshield, he seemed excited to expand NS's borders at the expense of Pentamere (yeah!).
After court, a wonderful feast of hot stew and bread was served. The court-trippers ate and left. Then we sauna-ed. The Imperial Governor wanted his champion to accompany him, and was "reassured" by "Don't worry, we'll all be naked too." He had apparently never sauna-ed before, but he took it well and let his champion stay and tend the fire.
In the sauna, many inspiring tales were told (and "Best Court Flubs"). Snow-Celts (and Romans, and Icelanders, and Saxonx) were made (yes, I'm telling you we jumped naked into almost two feet of snow).
The Indianan, Signy and I made our way back to camp (in winter storm weather, at midnight. On foot we could only see like three feet in front of us). The path to camp was... invisible. We could only tell when we had wandered off it by the snow suddenly getting a foot deeper. The whole world was grey, the ground was only slightly lighter than the sky, and the trees were indistinct black blobs. It was hard to remember that modern conveniences existed. Wow. We made it back to camp, and found of first campsite covered with a clausterphobic 4" of new snow, so we rearranged.
After setting up camp (again), we crawled in and put on extra socks and pulled cloaks around our heads. We woke in the morning warm and dry! Really! There was a few more inches of snow on the tent, and the bottom layer of sleepingbags was wet, but we were warm and dry. It was not nearly as bad as I had been lead to believe and expect.
We did not stay for fighter practice Sunday afternoon.
Yes, I know it's a long drive. But you will never find an event like this anywhere else. It's a lot of fun, even if you don't know anyone when you get there, you'll have friends by the time you leave. I highly recommend this event to anyone who wants bragging points, likes to sauna, or wants to test their period camping gear. It's not as bad as you think!
If this looks like fun to you, check out the Winter Camping website
A little poem I wrote about this event
Copyright 2002 (images and text)