Following Queen’s Prize, in November, I complained at length to Finn about the general apathy in the area towards historicity, and the dearth of winter activities by a kingdom populated with people in norse or pseudo-norse garb.  This led to a discussion about doing a winter camping event, to be spent huddled for a night behind some windbreak, getting buried in snow. Though I had figured it would just be another conversation that didn’t really lead to anything concrete, Finn was hooked immediately.  

Lesson #1: Having someone else who is excited makes follow-though easier.

 

In early December we started talking with others about the idea and picked a January date.  We came up with a small group of interested individuals with a range of experience, only getting a final count the week before the mid-January trip.  The background experience ranged both on familiarity with winter camping and time in the SCA.

Lesson #2: Get people interested, but stick to those who make a commitment early and firmly.

 

Over the end of December and beginning of January we individually worked on getting gear together.  I elected to predominantly use the clothing I already had, hoping to stick to the same goods and quantities provided in an early 13th century Rule.  I had spent the summer in the kit and they had spent winters in it, so I figured I’d be able to manage the same. I ended up with 3 layers of linen and 2 layers of wool, plus a cloak and a faux-fur-lined over-cloak. I planned to wear in lighter linen layers while working to set up camp and then swap out wet laters and add heavier wool layers in the evening.

Lesson #3: Finding a single historical source adds an additional challenge and adds value.

 

Most of my preparatory time was then spent on wood-working projects for the group. I made 2 sets of skis, a box (to be given as a gift), a sledge (to carry the box), pack frames, and a pair of shovels. For the skis, I broke several initial attempts until I learned what I was doing wrong and eventually ended up with two workable pairs. I gave myself a couple weeks to work on the box and it turned out well. The sledge was a problem both in planning and execution and will make a good bonfire this summer. The next iteration will be done entirely differently. In the process of researching the trip, I found a great resource in the Norwegian http://www.unimus.no site.  The pack frames and shovels were both borne out of a hope to replace some planned modern items for the trip and were started too late and undertaken hastily.  Quit happily though, both ended up proving to be more functional than expected.

Lesson #4: Plan out group gear early and divide up responsibility for both research and execution.

 

Finn scouted sites in the days before the trip, around mid-January.  We had previously identified two potential locations and settled late on the Bernard Lake Recreation Area at the recommendation of a park ranger.  There hadn’t been much snow, but there was snow in the forecast for the weekend. It was also possible that there would be rain and we didn’t think we were prepared to deal with rain going into a cold overnight and the contingency was to cancel the trip.

Lesson #5: The trip is very much at the mercy of weather.

 

We met on Saturday morning, loading up gear and packing cars.  One of the group had gone directly to the site. Once loaded and moving, we arrived at the parking lot around 1p.  As we had not settled on a specific location, we left most of the gear in the cars and walked out a loop trail to identify a place to make camp. After another 45 min, we decided on a place along the Sourdough trail a little less than a quarter mile from the parking lot.  We went back to the cars, where we finally found our other group member. We then loaded up gear on the two sleds that Finn and I had made, and started shuttling equipment to the campsite. A combination of poor design and improper usage damaged my sled almost immediately, though it was able to make 2 trips and move a large percentage of our heavier gear before finally breaking completely.  Some of the group worked on shuttling gear, while the others worked on clearing snow for a place to set up the two tents. There was about a half an hour of daylight remaining once we had the two tents set up.

Lesson #6: Start early.  Make sure you have a set location that everyone can find or a timetable / method for communication with all group members.

 

Once the sleeping tents were up, we started a fire and started cooking as soon as possible. I cleared additional snow and set up the day shade that I had also brought, to give us a place to store everything overnight.  By the time that was done the sun had gone down. I changed out of my work layers and into my evening layers. Most people had been drinking for a while by that point, so it seemed a good time to start playing with the fire and testing out something of a pine-tar torch.

Lesson #7: Make it a point to have food planned for the daytime. Main meals are not enough, especially if you only plan for one. Drink water.

 

Food was ready soon after and the next few hours were spent in joy eating, drinking, telling stories, and occasionally singing.  About the time the snow started falling in earnest, we shuffled off to the tents, tossing most things under the shade and setting that down to cover everything.  We had set a modern tarp over the snow in the tent, with a canvas sheet and an ox hide over that. I slept on a reindeer hide and a sheepskin for a pad. The temperature was cold and the snow fell deep, but I was warm enough in just my layers.  To my surprise waking early in the morning I found that my legs had slid out of the door of the tent and were covered by an inch or two of snow, but were not wet. Clearly the insulating layers had done their job.

Lesson #8: You don’t really need a sleeping bag.

 

In the morning, we found that more than half a foot of snow had fallen since we went to bed, coating the camp in a beautiful blanket – and entombing anything that wasn’t in a tent or under the shade.  In the process of packing up we lost only a few items.

Lesson #9: If it might snow, make sure you collect everything and stash it in one place, with a cover.

 

We woke slowly, packed slowly, and grumbled quietly in the haze of hangovers as the snow continued to fall.  By 11a we had packed up the camp and made our way back to the cars, taking rather more trips than we did making our way in with the sledges. We parted company and headed home.

Lesson #10: See #7  

 

The trip proved a success as we all spent the night safe, had a camp that made a pretty reasonable effort to look period, and did something that we don’t typically do in the SCA. In no particular order, here are a few additional lessons I think I learned from this trip:

• Pit toilets are fantastic in winter and really make that aspect easier.
• Sticking to expectations is hard. Cheating is easy (side-eyes the sleeping bag while hiding his waterproofed bear paws in shame).
• Perfect weather and no one shirking work or complaining made things way nicer than they might have been.
• Managing a small group isn’t that bad, but figuring out how to scale this idea will be tough.
• A big part of what made this joyful was working on the projects ahead of time.  Having a need makes the weird project (skis? shovels?) much more enticing, and a timetable that threatens frostbite provides great motivation.
• Pictures make for great documentation, but I still wish we didn’t need cameras.  Need to find a better way to hide them.
• Organizing roles for aspects of setting up camp may be helpful, in case they don’t organically arise. Wasn’t too much of an issue based on who was in this particular group.
• There is value in a 30% solution over zero. We ended up bringing both modern glass alcohol containers and plastic water jugs without using anything to cover them. Certainly for the alcohol, the contents should have been put in a different container or covered to look less conspicuous. Water jugs could have been left under a cloth under the day shade.  
• One overnight provided a certain set of tests and a pretty safe proof-of-concept. Spending a longer time will present more opportunity for down-time and the activities of daily life.