An Escape from Screens
Photo by Adam Filipowicz
We’re a screen family. As much as I try to limit my children’s tv and computer time (and I’ll admit I don’t try very hard) a normal day involves my six-year old surfing YouTube and playing Minecraft, while my four-year old absorbs herself in iPad games and Netflix cartoons. Going outside is optional and often the result of coercion. How can I blame them when I have a similar addiction, with days spent browsing the same old Facebook posts, and evenings spent curled up in front of the TV? And yet, I love the outdoors. I love to go on hikes in the wilderness, letting the sights and smells of the forest fill me with awe. I love swimming in lakes, pure and unsullied by chlorine. I love glimpsing moose grazing along the highway, and how they wait while several cars park to take their pictures. I love cooking meals over the campfire and camp stove and even how our culinary and cleanliness standards drop when living in a tent. I love sharing all this with my family.
The best kept secret of Algonquin park is the back-country sites. Sure, it’s well-known that you can canoe trip into the wilderness. What isn’t so known is that these sites are nicer than car camping sites. I car camped for years in full view of my neighbours’ campers, listening to their music and drunken goings on, sharing a bug-ridden “comfort station”, and waiting in line to brush my teeth. In the back-country you get a sizable section of forest all to yourself, along with a private beach to swim in, and your own toilet with a view of the forest as you conduct your business. No, it’s not a flush toilet, but it’s much less gross than the communal flush toilets in car-camping land and, being open to the air, it never achieves that vomit-inducing smell of the pit toilets in the main area. These luxury sites are cheaper too, about half the price of “developed” sites for a family of four. All you need is a canoe, which you can rent, but we borrowed to cut our costs. Our site was a fifteen-minute canoe ride from the main beach so we were able to go back to shore frequently for the classic Logging Museum trail and a trip to the camp store for some ice cream and extra snacks.
We didn’t miss our tv; we had the sun setting over the water each night. We didn’t miss the computer; we were entertained by each others company.
