Summer Camping

The concept of summer was new to me. When we arrived in Canada, winter was the true shock. In my homeland, summer seemed to stretch across the whole year, warm and familiar, like a song I had always known. It took me a few years to understand why Canadians waited for summer with such longing, why those brief months felt almost sacred. Summer here is a season of festivals, celebrations, barbecues, gardening, civic gatherings, and long afternoons spent outdoors. It is a time to bathe in wild waters, in lakes and rivers, and to travel across this vast country. Road trips become a national pastime. The days are long, the evenings gentle and warm, and Canadians seem to spend the whole year dreaming of these few golden months.

The mother of a friend visiting from Ghana once described the Canadian seasons better than anyone I had ever heard. When someone asked what impressed her most about Canada, she answered, “Well, it is cold, that is for sure.” Then she added, “Autumn is colourful: everyone dresses in colour, both people and trees. In winter, the trees get naked and the people get dressed up. In summer, it is the other way around: the trees get dressed up and the people get naked. And spring—well, spring is wet, cold, and unpredictable. The only beautiful thing about it is the promise that summer is soon arriving.”

Very few people have ever explained the Canadian seasons so clearly, or with such tender humour.

Perhaps my most vivid summer memory is from a camping trip at Sandbanks Provincial Park, that beautiful place along the shores of Lake Ontario, with its pale white beaches, shifting dunes, and quiet wildlife moving through the trees like shadows.

My wife and I were relatively newly married. It was the late 1990s, and with such an integrated family, finding privacy was not always simple. Camping became one of the rare ways we could escape for a little while and have time alone together, away from the noise of children and responsibility.

That summer, we booked an isolated campsite at Sandbanks, close enough to hear the lake calling from beyond the trees, but far enough from the other campsites to feel as if the world had gently stepped aside and left us alone.

Earlier on the day we arrived, a park staff member gave us advice about avoiding problems with wildlife: simple things, such as hanging our garbage from a tree, locking the cooler in the car, and making sure nothing scented was left outside overnight.

On the second night, long after we had gone to bed, something woke me. It was a small noise coming from the direction of the garbage bag, which hung from a tree beside the car. The campsite was dark, still, and full of that deep silence that belongs only to forests at night.

Half asleep, I stuck my head out of the tent and saw what I thought was a child in dark pyjamas trying to reach the garbage. He could not quite get to it, and because I was so sleepy, I did not pay much attention. Still, something about it felt strange. Why would a child be wandering alone through a campsite so late at night? And why did his ears look so strangely large? But sleep was heavy on me, soft and irresistible. I slipped back into the sleeping bag beside my wife and let the darkness take me again.

The next morning, after breakfast, I lowered the garbage bag to drop in the leftovers and noticed that it had been ripped. Again, I did not think much of it. I simply replaced the bag, tied it back up, and allowed the strange little moment from the night before to drift away.

The following day, we broke camp and prepared to return home. Just before leaving, we stopped at the park entrance to thank the staff and return some leftover firewood we had not used. As I unloaded the wood onto the pile, I suddenly remembered the child trying to reach our garbage in the night. A small wave of guilt passed through me. I wondered if he had been all right, and I felt ashamed that I had not been more useful, even if I had been sleepy and perhaps a little drunk.

The young staff member looked at me with a puzzled expression. “There were no families near your campground,” she said. “In fact, there was no one near your campground at all.” Then her eyes widened as she listened to my description. “I am sure there was no one near your site last night,” she said, “and from what you are describing, I am glad you did not intervene. I think what you saw was a black bear cub. And that means the mother bear was probably nearby.” Without missing a beat, she continued, “You were very close to being harmed by a bear. I am glad you were sleepy and did not try to come between a cub and its mother. Have a lovely rest of the summer.”

We camped many times after that, but no camping trip was ever as memorable as those few days at Sandbanks, when, in the blue-black hush of a summer night, I saw what I believed was a small child with big ears in dark pyjamas—and came closer than I knew to meeting the wild heart of the forest.