Camping With The Family

There was a time when almost everyone in Minnesota lived in a tent. The equipment in those days was pretty basic stuff: buffalo hide shelter, wicker backpacks, wooden utensils and maybe a clay vessel for crock-pot stew.

In those days, the big treat was NOT camping with the family.

One can imagine an Ojibwa dad coming home after a hard day in the woods five hundred years ago. It is Thursday night and the weekend is approaching. He winks at mom and she nods back. She is grinning at the surprise they have planned since early spring.

Dad proudly announces "Guess where we are going next week?"

The kids swarm him, tugging at his deer-skin work pants, their little eyes full of questions.

"We rented a cave for the entire week down by the Mississippi and you know what that means - no camping, no fishing, no hunting and no hiking in the woods!!"

The kids bounce with glee, "Yippee!!"

"And guess what else?", he adds slyly, holding the best for last.

"What?", inquiring minds want to know.

"The place is crowded with people! So crowded the paths run four lanes in each direction! And", he says catching the eyes of his teens, "people gather there to trade at places called MALLS!!"

"Oooooo", the kids exhale in wonder. When they finally catch their breath, they scream "Yiiiiippee!!"

Now fast-forward a few hundred years - technology has changed everything dramatically. People are putting canvas tents on wooden wagons. They do this so they can roll around and save the trouble of taking their shelter down in one place and putting it up in another. These tents-on-wheels are extremely expensive, so expensive that people make a big deal out of who has the biggest tent with the most stuff.

Imagine a family of pioneers jolting across the prairie. Mom is driving the wagon, dad and the kids are sweating behind in their heavy and decidedly unstylish clothes. They have not seen a mall in a month nor a tree in two weeks and the kids are getting restless.

"Are we there yet? Are we there yet?," they pester.

Mom halts the wagon in disgust. "Yes," she says with a finality that dad knows not to question.

"So where are we going to live?," the kids moan, "We are not going to CAMP, are we?"

"NO WAY!" mom assures them.

"Yippee!!"

Despite all the high-tech outdoor improvements, the family is still so desperate to avoid camping that they build a snug little house out of sod and live contentedly despite the odd snake slithering through the roof.

Then in a few generations, everything changes again. People trade in the snug little sod houses for stylish Victorians with roofs impervious to slithering snakes and convenient access to shopping.

Everyone is content for awhile, until one night after weeks of moping, dad drags the family into the backyard.

"Look," he says pointing into the night sky.

"What we suppose to be looking at?" the kids pout.

"My point exactly," says dad, "you can't see the stars around here because of all those new fangled street lamps."

"Sad," mom laments.

"I got an idea" he suggests - pensively, "Let's go camping."

The kids bounce with glee, "Yippee!!"

It starts out simple: canvas tent, cloth backpack, metal cooking utensils and a cast iron frying pan. They go deep into the woods where they camp, fish, hunt, and hike to their hearts content.

There they are astonished at the beauty and bounty of nature. Tall white pines grow out of lichen stained granite. The lakes reflect the color of the sky and the night is lit by stars. And even though the woods are just as pristine as the afternoon when the Ojibwa dad made his big announcement - there are still problems in paradise.

The woods are, and always have been, full of annoying creatures like over-friendly black-flies, ravenous mosquitoes, vicious no-see-ums, surly black-bears and large moose with no concept whatsoever of simple etiquette or basic sanitation.

When families journey deep into the wilderness, they spend precisely half their time astonished at the beauty and bounty of nature, the other half they spend counting down the seconds until they can order pancakes at the Perkins in Duluth.

With this realization in mind we come upon the solution.

Several decades ago a genius in Winnebago County Iowa came up with the brilliant notion of making tents out of aluminum and putting them on wheels. This solved the age-old challenge of camping with the family. When the flies get too friendly, the mosquitoes too ravenous or the moose too inconsiderate, families can swing the camper back out onto I35 and consult the Internet to locate the KOA nearest to the Mall of America in Bloomington Minnesota.

And so it goes....

© Greg Schiller, 2008

Author: Greg Schiller