Saturday, March 28, 2015

Ice Walkers

Ice Walkers
By: Conor Mihell
Rating:  *** (Okay)

I read the Ice Walkers article from Explore magazine (December 2014).
The article is about Conor Mihell’s six day hike/snowshoe expedition across Lake Superior in March 2014.  With 15 years of experience kayaking along Lake Superior, Mihell travelled this winter trip with Dave and Kielyn Marrone, two experienced winter travellers and guides. In this article, Mihell describes the experience and the interesting things he saw and felt along the journey.
This article made me think about my recent winter camp out with my Outdoor Education class, where we built and slept in quinzhees. These two quotes from the article describe my winter sleeping experience perfectly: “Canvas walls glow creamy gold in candle light” and “Tent mates fart, snore and toss-and-turn through the night.” Reading this article made me remember some of my camping and canoeing trips with my family where we work together to set up and pack up.  The travellers in the article had to unpack their tents, find and cut firewood and set up a fire quickly, to be sheltered from the harsh wind and snow on Lake Superior. I learned from the article that using layers is what every outdoor person knows. The travelers in this story used traditional winter clothing such as anoraks made out of windproof canvas and coyote fur trim, as alternative shell layers to warm their body temperature.
The article inspired me to go canoeing on the shores of Lake Superior following their path. I would also like to see the red rock cliffs and the paintings on them like Mihell and his travel companions did. Maybe in future winter camp outs remembering this article will help cheer me up because I know others have gone through harder times.

Mihell, C. (2014, December). Ice Walkers. Explore, 57-61.

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