Ty Ewup

I actually WASN'T in Winnipeg. No I was in a place that made Winnipeg look like heaven.

I was in springer lake...basically 100kms from anything substantial. Well a moose is a pretty substantial creatur, but a moose is no mall, or heated building for that matter.

So there we were, in the middle of a fucking muskeg...which is code for treey swamp. Its also situated on the Canadian Shield, which is fucking rocky. So anything that wasn't wet submerged in water was rocky covered in slippery moss.

A perfect place to learn survival. Thankfully it never got TOO cold, nothing below -10 I don't think.

No indoor plumbing, No running Water, and real food no where to be had.

First two nights we spent in a sort of a hunter's cabin, with a wood stove and a single electrical light (wow, such extravagence, I felt spoiled) and we learned how to build shelters and fire when it was REALLY wet (which it always is in Springer Lake)

When on the third night, we lost the luxury that was the cabin, and moved into tents, little 4 man jobbies that we easily constructed. this would have been great if anywhere on that god forsaken rock was flat to sleep on. Needless to say I learned to sleep with a root in my back. We learned more interesting things, like spotting a guy in a gillie (spelling?) suit. A gillie suit is something a sniper wears, and its fucking scary how blended into the background they can get. On the 5th night we slept in a large improvised shelter made out of logs and a parachute that we made ourselves (we fit 6 people into this thing, it was FAR more comfortable than the tents).

All the time, they'd been giving us 2 meals a day, about 2200-2400 cal a day (most people need atleast 3000, with more active people needing 4000+, and we were quite active). well after the 5th night, they gave us 3 meals, we knew something was up. Turns out, we were right, an entire day of navigation. Trekking across that god forsaken swamp, crossing streams, and climbing up fucking slippery rock "contours". We definately needed 3 meals that day, and I ate everything they gave me. It took me 2 hours to get dry infront of the fire. By this time, I thought being warm and fed were things pretty damn close to perfect.

The next day we only received breakfast, this was sunday, practical day. On this day, we would eat a beautiful white furred red eyed bunny. Practical day was a full day, we started at 7 building our lean-to, and maintaining a fire. For lunch we learned how to kill and skin a rabbit. After that, we cooked and ate them (2 people per rabbit).

Now I know a lot of you don't like the fact that I did away with the bunny. I only skinned it...well I did something else as well.

If you have a weak stomach don't read on.

I'm not really sure why I did it, but it seemed like a good learning experiance.

You see the instructor ate his skinned rabbit's eyeball...and rabbits have two...well I ate the other one.

For the rest of the course I was refered to "eye-guy" or something like that. I won a lot of infamy that day, and some of my course mates were throughly disgusted.

In a survial situation you have to stare hunger in the eye...and eat it (boo- bad joke)

Carol is reading this and is really grossed out, oh well she'll get over it.

The two days after that were on my own, left to my own devices to survive. I had 6 ju-jubes, 4 chiklets, and 4 packets of juice, it was supposed to last me 48 hours.

It did, but I was a tired boy on the trip home. I now know I can survive with a saw.knife, and some rope. My life is better if I have a tarp of some kind, but its not entirely necessary.

More details to follow if required.