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The facilities for my toilette at both of my campsites deserve some going into. Perhaps I should rephrase that. My bain naturel, let us say. At the first site, the weather was warm enough to allow me to bathe in the open, assuming the local mosquitoes weren’t overly aggressive that evening—and often I did have to wait until after dark before I could wash, simply to avoid the attentions of the little parasites. Bathing at night is not as much of a problem as it sounds. I seldom used the flashlight, though you’d think it would be indispensable. It isn’t. Bathing is so habitual that anybody can do it in the dark. Most people, I suspect, close their eyes in the shower, do they not? It’s only necessary to abandon your fear of the dark. That, for most people, would be the hard part; as with the silence, it took me three months, in a very benign place, to adjust to it. For my ablutions, the requisite equipment consists of nothing more than a five-gallon water-bag, standing erect, with its upper edge tied very firmly to a tree (I inserted a small section of twig under a roll at the edge of the bag, to create a lump that the tie-cord could grip). Also needed were a pot that would fit down into the bag, and a soap-dish that stayed where I put it, usually on the ground, between the roots of the tree. Shower shoes, too, made the whole experience far more comfortable, as did a good layer of conifer needles on the ground, rather than simply soil, which quickly becomes mud. A ground-cloth of some kind is nice, of course, but only if it’s not slippery, and drains completely; I don’t enjoy sloshing around in my own waste water, and I certainly do not wish to fall down in it. The most important consideration of all, in summer, may surprise you: using the water as soon as possible after it is collected, rather than waiting ’til morning, when it is typically ten to fifteen degrees colder. The reason for this is that the river seldom drops below the local temperature of the earth’s surface, which in summer is not warm, but tolerable to the hardy woodsman. Approximately 55-70° F, depending upon the source of the stream. Overnight, however, in the plastic bag, the water will be exposed to air that, even at the latitude of Toronto, often drops into the forties, even thirties, Fahrenheit. This produces a crisp and sparkling fluid that is no fun to bathe in. The mist often seen over northern lakes and streams in the morning is due to this thermal difference. I was once camped with a friend on a small river in the Haliburtons in mid-August of 1986, and awoke one glorious morning before dawn to see an uncommon cloud of mist over the water. I could scarcely see to the other shore, barely 100 yards away. Peeking at the thermometer, I saw that it was slyly dipping down to 27° F—five degrees below freezing.
Campers take warning: draw your bath-water when the residual heat of the sun is still with you in the late afternoon. I have just read Water: a Natural History, by Alice Outwater—which I highly recommend— who says that the temperature of a typical stream itself will vary as much fifteen degrees Fahrenheit over the course of 24 hours. I know from experience that the stream will be at its warmest in the middle of the afternoon, after the sun has been out for several hours. By the time you finish such a bath, the air will be comfortably cool, and you can enjoy the delights of the evening with a pristine feeling of youthful purity. (Speaking of purity, I always poured bleach into my bathwater and stirred it up vigorously—one never knows what may come down that river. But I could never get it right; I was forever putting in too much, like a housewife in a laundromat, and the smell of chlorine will long remind me of that time.) The manner of bathing is as simple as the materiel: dip a potful of water from the bag and pour it over your head to wet your body, then drop the pail back into the bag (upright, so it floats), soap yourself down, as thoroughly as necessary, then rinse. Done. Drying is a breeze, usually faster and cooler than you would want, but there’s no better preparation for crawling into a sleeping-bag. |
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