{"id":4175,"date":"2014-08-06T13:37:00","date_gmt":"2014-08-06T13:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/?p=4175"},"modified":"2026-01-15T17:56:02","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T17:56:02","slug":"lessons-learned-in-the-wilds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/?p=4175","title":{"rendered":"Lessons learned in the wilds….."},"content":{"rendered":"
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I didn’t post about it at the time, however, I did learn a lot by being away from the city and all its amenities. (I may have learned a lot of these lessons before as a Girl Guide, but I’d forgotten many.) By accident or by design (not mine) I learned that….<\/p>\n

1. You can live without coffee especially if you have forgotten to pack it (it was on the list) and buying it up north means that what costs $4.00 or $5.00 in the city costs $8.00 or $10.00 up north and you may have to actually pay $15.00 for a huge tin of Maxwell House which could last you a whole year at home.<\/p>\n

2. A bundle of band aids held together with an elastic is essential. We never needed the band aids (good thing), however the elastic band was used inventively more than once!<\/p>\n

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3. You can wash ziplock sandwich bags and re-use them, especially if you have forgotten to bring a box of sandwich bags.<\/p>\n

4. Fires don’t like rain.<\/p>\n

5. Small ants live in little cottages in the country all the time. Large ants live in the city and come into houses on rare occasions.<\/p>\n

6. Matches don’t like wind.<\/p>\n

7. If the current is with you, the wind is against you and you may never arrive, if both are against you \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

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\n8. All BBQs are not created equal. Some take 30 – 40 minutes to cook a chicken breast or two.<\/p>\n

9. You can still hike without hiking poles – I forgot mine and my husband doesn’t have any to lend.<\/p>\n

10. There is always a kind stranger on the dock to help you in and\/or out of your kayak. They haven’t invented winches for that purpose yet – maybe they should.<\/p>\n

11. Wine is an essential and should be part of every car’s safety kit.<\/p>\n

12. Loons are tricky creatures. We either saw one Loon pop his head up 12 times or twelve Loons pop their heads up once, but not all at once.<\/p>\n

13. Butter Tarts are Canadian. This isn’t really a wilderness “thing”….or is it ?<\/p>\n

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14. You could wear goose down all year round – just sayin’.<\/p>\n

15. There are no poisonous snakes in Algonquin Park, however, it is black bear country. Never “play dead” if confronted by a bear. You should, however, try talking to it, very loudly!!<\/p>\n

16. People from Oshawa are very friendly – semi wilderness lesson \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

17. There is such a thing as single ply toilet paper!!<\/p>\n

18. Given a choice between margarine or butter, pack butter.<\/p>\n

19. Whatever coffee filters you pack will be the wrong size and shape and will never work, especially if you forget to bring the coffee.<\/p>\n

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20. Pack either paper towels or paper napkins. One will be redundant.<\/p>\n

21. Bug spray left at the cottage does not repel bugs found on the trail.<\/p>\n

22. A two seater Kayak is cheaper than two single kayaks to rent, however, the cost of the ensuing divorce negates the savings!!<\/p>\n

23. There are some inanimate objects that actually have minds of their own. 1. smouldering fires – they burst into flame when everyone has gone to bed. 2. tandem kayaks – they tend to steer themselves and blame it on the occupants. 3. keys – they are actually inhabited by spirits that like to hide in mysterious places \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Someone else’s cottage<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\n24. Thick “German” bread also gets mushy in a warm backpack.<\/p>\n

25. Mosquitos rule!<\/p>\n

Have an awesome day!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I didn’t post about it at the time, however, I did learn a lot by being away from the city and all its amenities. (I may have learned a lot of these lessons before as a Girl Guide, but I’d forgotten many.) By accident or by design (not mine) I learned that…. 1. You can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4176,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hiking","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4175"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4179,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4175\/revisions\/4179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}