CAMPING IN COMFORT
Yes, purists, this does count
When I was a kid in the early 1980s, my family’s camping structure of choice was a tent trailer, also called a pop-up camper.
For those of us who’ve grown up with the idea that this is a normal thing to haul into the woods — that tent-trailering is a legitimate wilderness experience as an expression of Canadian values as they were fixed in stone when we patriated the Constitution and mark us as more authentic Canadians than people who “glamp” or use Wi-Fi in parks or sleep in yurts — let’s take a moment to step back and look at the tent trailer through fresh eyes.
These big plastic and vinyl boxes, winched up and popped out, did not blend in to nature. In fact, articles about them in the 1960s and 1970s were full of praise for how they made camping more like being at home.
“This seems to be the year that the tent trailer people discovered that wives camp, too,” declared Better Camping magazine in 1972. “They’ve made many subtle changes in the looks, comfort and convenience of their units, inside, where the little things mean a lot — so enjoy it, ladies!”
The only conveniences I remember were an electric light and a fold-down table. Because I was the younger of two sisters in one bunk, I was always next to the fabric walls with insufficient fastenings. I rolled out more than once, waking up as I hit the damp ground.
These contraptions are still ubiquitous in campgrounds, although presumably with better wall fasteners. That’s great! Whatever works for families is good and useful.
Those articles from the 1960s and 1970s about tent trailers are remarkably absent of the puritanical sniffing that so often accompanies discussions about newfangled camping accommodations today. There’s no hand-wringing about whether this counts as “real” camping, whether the new generation is too soft. It’s all about how wonderful it is that camping families had more options.
The baby boomers who adopted that technology, though, now look back at it with the nostalgia that turns every notion of the era of Trudeau père into a defining Canadian characteristic. And I have to admit that as the child of boomers who took their paddle strokes seriously, I have to fight my own tendency to camping snobbery. I’ve been known to roll my eyes at dining tents with patio lanterns. There is no feeling like pitching a tent on the edge of a lake with no one else in sight.
But there is more than one way to camp.
For a few years, campers have been able to try an oTENTik, which Parks Canada describes as “a cross between a rustic cabin and a tent.” For the 2016 season, Parks Canada added a few pilot projects: a tiny home on wheels at Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta; a water-droplet-shaped capsule at Fundy National Park in New Brunswick; a cocoon tree bed in Cape Breton Highlands National Park; a tent-within-atent at Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba; and a wooden cube in Riding Mountain and in Forillon National Park in Quebec.
“Certainly there are people who say ‘I wouldn’t want to do that,’ and that’s great. We understand it’s not for everyone,” says Ed Jager, director of visitor experience for Parks Canada.
He says Parks Canada has been thoughtful about how it incorporates the new accommodations into its environments. The project is meant as an additional option, not a replacement. What Parks Canada has been hearing most from traditional campers, he says, is that they’re eager to try these out.
The season for these projects ends Oct. 10. In the next few weeks, Parks Canada will study feedback about how campers and park staff liked the accommodations: which ones held up well, and what pros and cons come with each. There could be more of these, in more parks, in the coming years.
Purists can sniff all they want. I can’t wait to sleep in a tree cocoon.