I love sleeping in a tent. Around this time every year I get the urge to sleep in a tent. There is something very relaxing about sleeping in a tent. You are inside but not really because the sound damping capability of a tent wall in pretty well nil. You know without seeing what is going on around you. I remember on memorable night camped on the shore of Thieving Bear Lake. Val and I manged to erect our tent smack in the middle of a major mouse travel route and they spent all night going over the tent instead of around. The scratching of tiny claws on the nylon drove us crazy. A moose wandering through the campsite in the early morning hours sounds like a Mac Truck. The possibilty of a black bear dropping by the graze the picnic basket is always a possibilty. You are much more aware of the weather: the wind in the trees, those first few drops of rain and what the temperature is as you climb out of the sleeping bag. Oh ya and the buzz of mosquitoes. Those nasty little brutes know you are on the inside and they aren’t. It drives them crazy.
The story of an incredibly uncomfortable night in Klotz Lake PP has to be included. We went to this quite remote park along Hwy 11 between Hearst and Longlac with our friends Wendy and Charlie for a weekend of fishing and some beer and relaxing. . The first thing I did was rip a hole in the tent by misplacing a pole as I set up. Did I mention that this was May24th weekend , the height of blackfly and mosquito season in our part of the world. This was also long before I routinely carried duct tape while camping. How bad can it be I thought and tried to convince Val. By about 11pm it was bad, in fact there were more damned mosquiotes inside the tent then there were outside. It was also a very hot weekend so as soon as you pulled your sleeping bag up over your head you broke into a major sweat and started to suffer early stage heat prostration. Die of heat stroke or have every single drop of blood sucked from your body. Not a pretty choice. Oh ya and Val was very uncomfortable and mumbling about taking the car back to Hearst and leaving me there- FOREVER. Around midnight feeling faint from loss of blood it seemed that the bugs were satiated and heading to bed when all of a sudden I heard the sound of an outboard motor chugging across the lake toward the park. A few minutes later the motor was shutoff, a generator started up and some asshole fired up a boom box to a volume that was loud eneough to be heard over his generator. AC-DC, Def Leppard or some other crap of the same ilk. Was I angry! I put up with it for about 2 minutes and then decided that I had to go and kill whoever was responsible. I jumped up and in my underwear and running shoes and cradling my favourite enforcement flashlight (club with a small light in the end) I headed for the noise. I was angry beyond belief and prepared to do someone bodily injury if that is what it took. Halfway through the campground I heard footsteps behind me and there came Charlie determined to see that I did not end up in jail. I didn’t slow down or wait for him to catch up. When I got the shore of the lake there was a good sized house boat beached in the day use area. The generator was going on the main deck and the boombox and the partyers up top with large speakers hooked and the music blasting. I got their attention by using some very unprofessional language louder than the music. Suddenly one of them realized that I was there. The music stopped, then the generator stopped. In the silence I continued to swear up the top of my lungs, informing them that they were in the park illegally, I was a Conservation Officer and that if they did not leave 5 minutes ago I was going to come on board beat each and very one of them to death and then burn their houseboat to the water line. Charlie arrived just in time to hear the last bit and to point out that I was in only my underwear and that I might get arrested. Fortunately this bunch had the common sense, often lacking in half pissed teenagers, to realize that I might be serious and quickly started the motor and slunk back across the lake. I went back to my tent with my heart still punding and sleep poorly until the mosquito day shift came on duty just before dawn and started in on us again.
I spent lots of nights in tents while I was working as part of a fire crew or on many wildlife management and enforcement projects. When I worked at Moosonee my partner and I had a complete kit which we could pick up and go with that included an 8′X10′ prospector tent. 
It was great. With a stove and a propane fueled tent heater we spent several winter nights along the James Bay coast and were very comfortable. We had lots of cups of tea and pieces of bannock in Cree hunting camps that always centered around a big canvas sidewall tent. I spent parts of three summers living in a tent on Cape Henrietta Maria while banding snow geese.
When the boys were small we went camping a few times. One memorable trip to Tidewater Provincial Park with a large group of friends on a May 24th weekend was cut short by a nasty snowfall! The summer before we moved out of Moosonee we went on a camping trip around southern Ontario and one great memory is of the tent pitched under the bridge to the US near Gananoque in a St. Lawrence Parks Commission campground.
In 2002 Val and I took a major holiday to the east coast and Newfoundland. We camped to save some money and had a great time. We bought an inflatable queen-sized mattress and an electric air pump and were very comfortable. The provincial parks in NF were great and inexpensive. We also hit one of the hottest sunniest summers in Newfoundland history which added to the experience. We got very efficient at setting up and taking down the tent and cooking supper on our propane stove. From the park near L’Anse Aux Meadows at the tip of the Great Northern Penninsula to Pippy Park in downtown St. John’s we had a great holiday.
Early last week I gave in to the wish to sleep in a tent and set ours up in the backyard and for the last week have spent very relaxing nights sleeping peacefully like a kid. We are planning to go camping for a few days over the Canada Day weekend. I sure hope that it doesn’t rain and bugs take the weekeknd off.