Vancouver Island - Nanaimo - Camping - Part 2

This was our first camping experience ! We never really camped back in India, and ofcourse, to do so, one needed to travel thousands of kilometers to northern hills of India to find peace & tranquility in the woods. Camping is such a big thing here in B.C. and campsites get booked like airline tickets the moment the season begins. 

I was so eager to experience this, so was my husband. I think he was waaayy more excited than me 😁 that he even booked a session with local camping guild for beginners lessons. With zero camping experience, we started researching what we need to buy and be aware of. Bears, cougars, downloading "How to react when you face them" training material - that is a thing here, absolutely, not a joke. But i'll talk about it at the end of this post. 

I feel if we got introduced to camping with other friends, it would have been easier. But, there is nothing we can't do using Google ! We were too afraid to share a campsite with anyone in the wake of ongoing pandemic while travelling here in summer 2020. Vaccines were nowhere heard off, so we did not accept any invitations to join in group camping.

Internet, is your best friend. Canadian Tire, is my second best friend. Every single thing I could need, you'd find it here at great rates ! It's not a cheap setup.. Very economical, durable & latest with tons of choices to spoil you. We quickly got a 6 person tent, some nice campsite folding chairs, and one by one the list grew. Here are some tips on things we bought:

• 2 Camping chairs - spend a little more, buy good sturdy ones that you are going to be comfortable in, cheap ones don't come with comfort

• 6 person tent - know that a tent, has very little space for you to move around with sleeping bags set in. Go for a few larger sizes than intended. 6 is good for 2-3 people

• Large tarp for covering the base - absolute must for all weathers, it can rain anytime

• Sleeping bags - I know that the temperature on the bag says 0 to 10 degree C, but trust me, if you know BC, these bags perform least optimal at 0 degree. So for 0 degree, buy a -10 to 0 degree bag. More warmer is better than less. Most of the summer nights are usually quite chilly.

• Floor mats - to support the sleeping bags and my delicate spine from the gravel + keeping your body off the cold floor. 

• Additional floor mats: Can be yoga mat too. Having additional spread throughout your tent is a great idea. The gravel hurts your feet big time if you are someone like me who doesn't wear shoes inside the tent ! Some people also opt for a folding bed that is raised above the ground.

• Mattress - We also got an air mattress that went between the floor mat & sleeping bag. This does sure give a good night's sleep. If you don't mind some exercise (real muscle building session) 💪, buy a hand air pump. But, that sure is not something we are cut out for. The battery operated air pump is a life savior !

• Some battery operated fun Lanterns & Head lamps - for everything post sunset. Cooking, walking to the washroom, getting water from common tap, for use inside your tent, it's a must. Make sure to carry extra batteries as well.

• Tent setup kit - this is an awesome thing to keep handy for setup and teardown. Most kits sold are very cheap and not so strong hammers. Its best to purchase a good hammer separately.

• Never to forget, a Bug spray - this is so essential, you should get a DEET free spray and use it on your skin and clothes to keep bugs away. Don't wait for them to bite you, in the woods, someplaces, it happens in daylight too. The black flies can leave skin bumps as big as a bowl on your body

We were exhausted with buying all this and it was already quite overwhelming. Watching tent setup video, researching on best tent video, shopping for best tent and so on. It was funny, but we decided that on our first camp experience, let's not push the envelope too far and did not bring any exotic cooking gear or utensils. We carried with us:

• A gas stove
• Two propane tanks
• A flame lighter is must
• One pan for making tea or boiling milk/coffee
• A small cooler to store food

Building your own tent is an experience, not to heavy given the easy setup tents we get these days. For the first time camper, some more things to note:

1. Bring a wide mouth bucket to do your dishes. You should also not throw solid waste around your campsite to avoid attracting animals or bears.

2. Some campsites have individual water taps on site, some have it at central location. Plan ahead to carry a buggy of some sort to carry water back and forth as it can be heavy.

3. Most important, stash away all food inside bear safe containers at night or anything that will prevent strong smells to be omitted. We generally kept it in the cooler and left it inside the locked car 

So if you are planning to go camping, at least what I know of BC, there are hundreds of Black Bears, Grizzly Bears, Cougars, Coyotes & sometimes Sea wolves. You should equip yourself with "How to react when you face them" & diligently embed that in your mindspace, never knowing when it can come handy. One can come across these beautiful & dangerous animals at the campground, campsite if too remote, on hikes, even sometimes on the road they could follow you. 

No matter how many times you try to remember it, the day the encounter will happen, only your instinct will work, but some mental training will help you to not panic and run, as running is the wrong thing to do in each case to begin with. There are other solutions like Bear spray, but you don't get to apply same solution to each animal attack and those are extreme scenarios when you need to use one. You should follow the guide on how to step away and so the animals and us hoomans can both exist without conflict.

Vancouver island is well known for the largest concentration of Cougars. Stanley Park in Vancouver, was notoriously famous in 2020 - 2021 when 250+ incidents of coyote attacks happened on just joggers and morning/evening/daylight passerby's in the park. So as strange as it may seem, but if you plan to live here or visit the wild, go camping, learn this as well along with basic survival training. 

At the end of the day, I learnt so much new in just a matter of few days. My first camp setup, admiring human progress to make life easy with such quick setup items, how to manage a camp cooking, staying alert for wild animals, being a good camp-izen (camp citizen) to ensure nothing at all is thrown as garbage, sewage outside in the camp ground & just chilling with nature !