Winter Camping

          Alright so today was our first day back from winter camping! On Monday we left at 8 am and went to Sparrow Lake. After we snow shoed to the cafeteria cabin, and took a tour of the campground, we began to pile snow for our quinzhees (or as Christy would say: Quinz). It took a lot of teamwork and heavy lifting, but eventually we all came through to build 6 of them. After letting the Quinzhee's set for an hour or so, we began to dig them out, which I found very fun. Next we all changed into our dry clothes and began to make our "one pot wonders" for dinner. We then warmed up by the fireplace for a bit then went out to make a bonfire. It was really cool to see everyone participating in the songs and leading some of the games and just going with it! Playing "Man hunt" after that was actually so fun! We then went back to the lodge and did the talent show! Simms made a quite excellent dessert and Allyson sang and played T-swift <3 on guitar. We ended with a rose and thorn of the day! There were so many more good things to say because it was such a fun day! As the night went on people started to go to their quinzhees except for the three people who stayed the whole night! I woke up on Tuesday when Simms walked into the building at 8am full of energy having no idea how that is even possible. Many others started to trickle in after, and we cooked our breakfasts. Everyone was still tired and we slowly began to pack our bags and clean up. The bus ride back was very quiet but warm; I'm sure that just about everyone passed out as soon as they got home! However, with 2 assignments due today, and a lot of procrastination, we had to start our projects and get them done! I came to school late and we started the travel fair assignment; there were some amazing places and good presentations. After that, we presented our natural disaster presentations and I learned some pretty cool things! We broke for lunch, and came back to do the job shadowing for a teacher at Barrie North. I shadowed Mrs. Maslen with Christy and Allyson and it was pretty fun. We did a few notes and games with them. Last period we did a NCCP activity in the gym, and learned about leadership, good qualities, and how we could deal with situations. It has been a really cool week so far and snowboarding at Horseshoe Valley will be really fun tomorrow.

-Alex Dunlop