Bonne Time

And just like that, we are a camping family. We camp. In campgrounds. We get up with the sun, we cook delicious picnic meals over a charcoal bbq and a Coleman stove, we make friends with the forest critters (but don’t feed them), we explore dark pathways by flashlight, we fall into exhausted sleeping-bag sleep shortly after night fall. The three of us spent a beautiful long weekend in Bonnechere Provincial Park, and we’ll do it again. In fact, we’ve already scoped out our favourite sites—close to the comfort station, the beach, the water supply, the additional vehicle parking. Close, but not too close: forest and river in the foreground and amenities just out of sight. Perfect.

I don’t remember much about the planning and the packing and the set-up and the tear-down and the busyness of the this-and-that when thinking back to the summer camping trips of my childhood. Mom and Dad somehow managed all that without catching our notice, calling us in from sandcastles and air mattresses, from card games and random play when it was time to eat or sleep or climb back in the car. I’m not sure how they pulled it off, to be honest. Perhaps they had the routine down pat by the time I was old enough to form memories of our trips to Kilbear, Balsalm Lake and, later, Sable Beach. Or perhaps we didn’t hover at their elbows asking if it was time yet to head to the beach, finally giving up and throwing a casual “meet you there!” over our shoulders as we sauntered down a woodland path at 8:30 in the morning.

More likely it was the “we” that made the difference. Camping takes constant effort, but it’s not just keeping the site ordered and the meals coming; it’s keeping up with the Tasmanian Devil-like energy that bursts forth from an only child. Siblings spin towards one another, each bearing the brunt of the other’s “play with me” force. An excited only child on a camping trip — and a five-year-old boy, to boot — is practically unstoppable. We’d been parked at site 63 for all of two minutes when Sam finished his preliminary inspection and declared, “Yup! These are the right kind of woods! Who’s coming on a ninja hunt with me?” It was tough, but we held him off for long enough to throw up the dining tent in case of rain before tramping through the forest behind him, buying into each improbable sighting of Japanese feudal-era warrior spies in the foliage.

And so it carried on through the weekend. In and out of the cool (okay, cold) water, swimming out to “rescue” the buoys that mark the swim area, Sam riding on our backs for a good deal of the way. Over and back to the playground boat structures, playing Elizabeth and Gibbs to his Will Turner in an ongoing re-enactment of The Pirates of the Caribbean. Following a few strides behind as he scampers along the dark camp road tracking two different kinds of ghosts: the see-through kind and the ones with skeletons showing through their skin. Incidentally, they both leave shiny tracks that resemble bits of granite mixed in pavement.

That’s not to say Sam didn’t find shoreline playmates. He did. I loved watching him walk up to a little boy or girl playing near his or her parents and ask “How old are you?” before swapping names and agreeing to the terms of a game. Their age never actually mattered. He played as happily with two-and-a-half-year-old Janelle as he did with four-and-a-half-year-old Jake. Those interludes would seem to offer up a parent-play break, but instead they required a different kind of attention: overseeing the play from the sidelines, exchanging small-talk and knowing smiles with the other set of parents. We did manage to read maybe a chapter of our novels, but there simply ain’t no “put your feet up and relax” vacations at this stage of the parenting game. We were good and wiped when we got home!

Even still, it was really great to feel the full weekend as it unfolded—to let whim, inclination and appetite direct our movements—rather than to schedule as much as possible into those short days, planning for the moments when Sam would get our time and attention. He felt the difference right away. Snuggling in between us on Friday night, he sighed “What a great day!” and gave us both multiple “Good night, I love you” kisses, adding “you’re the best dad in the world.” Jeremy had gone for the firewood to make the s’mores. That was the title clincher, I’ll bet. In any event, I like to think that despite his privileged perspective from the centre of the universe (the rightful place of all small children), Sam appreciated our efforts to make this a fun family getaway, to indulge his existing interests and introduce him to new experiences.

Myself, I can't wait till next year.