A Week in the Woods: Day Five

Nights in the Yukon were fairly cold. Even in the peak of summer temperatures frequently dropped below zero, and by mid-August when I spent my week in the woods, the first chills of autumn were already being felt. As a result, my sleeping bag alone was not enough and I wore all my clothes to bed, five layers all told. This had been alright for the first few days, but on the morning of day five I woke up with my feet hurting from the cold, even with two pairs of my thickest socks on. It was an unpleasantly new feeling, but I suppose it was better than them being completely numb. For the first time, I considered returning to the relative warmth of Squirrel Camp, at least to get extra blankets or something. I would like to think that I wasn't too proud for such an option, but I ultimately decided to try wearing my boots to bed instead. This ended up working well; it was perhaps not the cleanest option for my sleeping bag, but was tolerably warm at least for the rest of my nights in the woods.

Once my feet were safe, I had another slow morning. It was Sunday, so I sang a few hymns and read from my Bible with the spirituality evoked by being in nature and the formality gathered by the habit of doing that sort of thing on Sundays. In the afternoon, I went on another exploratory walk through the forest, but the increasingly cloudy skies combined with the general unease of being away from my shelter drove me back after half an hour or so.

As evening began, it started to rain-- not too hard, but enough to be the first real test of how waterproof my shelter was. I retreated inside with my books and was pleased to find that I stayed dry and, in my sleeping bag boots and all, relatively toasty. Wanting to stay dry while it rains isn't a uniquely human urge, but being under a roof and hearing the rain outside did give me a feeling of primal satisfaction.

I read in bed until I was tired, then I snuggled in for another night of spruce-smelling sleep.