Food in the Forest

             I couldn’t sleep.  It was somewhere around 6:30 in the morning as I watched the sun rise from the aisle seat of a bus taking me and 80 other college freshmen to Killarney Provincial Park in Ontario Canada.  We had driven through the night, beginning our journey on the campus of Kalamazoo College, a twelve-hour drive from our destination, and I hadn’t nodded off for even one of them.  We were all signed on for LandSea, a 16-day hiking trip set up as an optional pre-freshman orientation program. 

A few hours later, the two busses pulled into our main camp.  We exited the bus and were divided into our patrols, the group of people we would be living with for the next two weeks.  I was put into patrol C-5 along with Ian, Katrina, Craig, Emilie, Evan, and Faith.  With our two leaders, Jessica and Joanne, there were nine of us total, which made us the smallest group that year.

             I did not sleep well that first night, lying on the hard ground, scrunched between Craig and Ian.  We woke up at five in the morning to rain and I regretted to find the bottom of my sleeping bag was sopping wet.  The day before we had divided up our food for the first five days of hiking, leaving the rest behind at the main camp for when we returned for the canoeing part of our trip.  The rain stopped that morning just long enough for us to spread out our rations and decide who would carry which items.  We had three blocks of cheese, two large and three small sausages, two large bags of dry oatmeal, three jars of peanut butter (two creamy and one crunchy), one small bag of lentils, one bag of assorted spices, two packages of tuna, five carrots, seven potatoes, several apples, one large bag of brown sugar, one bag of chocolate chips, one bag of powdered milk, two bottles of Parkay (a liquid butter substitute), one bag of macaroni noodles, three packages of powdered soup, two packages of tortillas, one bag of beans, one package of bisquick, and our own personal bags of gorp, a mixture of cheerios, peanuts, chocolate chips, dried papaya, prunes, and pretzel sticks.  Added to the group gear of two tarps, two first aid kits, two bottles of fuel, one stove set, two bear bags, two ropes, and all of our own personal gear, it added up to about forty pounds per person.  Sleep deprived, cold, and exhausted after just five minutes of placing my heavy pack on my shoulders, I began Day One and contemplated whether I had made a mistake in signing up. 

            It rained on and off all day.  By the time we reached our campsite after hours of walking my feet were screaming and my shoulders were about ready to give out. Setting up camp was a long and tedious process and when we were done all I wanted to do was crawl into my sleeping bag and never wake up.  The point of LandSea is to help make its participants more self-reliant.  Our leaders are there for guidance, but from making food to figuring out our route, it was supposed to be up to us.  Huddled together under a drooping tarp it began to rain again.  We were all hungry, but the thought of leaving the comfort and warmth of our sleeping bags didn’t seem worth the effort involved in feeding ourselves.

Joanne mercifully made dinner for us that night.  It was a bland and flavorless vegetable soup, but I gratefully took it, as it was warm and bore some resemblance to food.  Ian was less accepting, and produced his own personal bottle of extra hot Tabasco hot sauce.  He must have emptied half the bottle into his small helping of broth and it soon became apparent that his dinner was inedible.  Jessica feared he was suffering from hypothermia when she heard him complain about his lips being numb, but it was just the hot sauce.  He ate about half a bowl before he started passing it around to others, who used portions of his dinner to spice up their own.   I took a small helping.  My soup went from tasteless broth to a painful attack on my mouth, and mine was a filtered version of the original.  It took me a few moments to recover from the initial shock of that first spoonful, and I seriously contemplated whether or not Ian’s lips would ever regain feeling.

            Everything became easier after Day One.  The sun came out, our clothes dried, our spirits lifted.  I got used to the weight of my pack and I began to bond with my patrol-mates.  And never again did I suffer a tasteless meal.  Evan and Ian turned out to be talented cooks.  They knew how to add spices to bring out the flavors in each meal.  Katrina and Faith managed to make a half decent apple strudel for us twice.  One morning our leaders even surprised us and made us pancakes for breakfast.  Even our simple lunch of cheese and sausage was phenomenal after hours of hiking or canoeing.  I loved the spicy meat and the creamy cheese and embraced the two flavors that elegantly mixed together so well when I popped them both in my mouth at once.  I never got sick of it.   

But the most loved and prized snack was peanut butter.  Sweet and smooth and absolutely delicious, it was exactly what I needed to fill the sugar void that plagued me throughout the entire trip.  I longed for candy bars, ice cream, just one wholesome Oreo, I was desperate for the sweet kiss of sugar on my tongue.  We horded our peanut butter, conserved it, we made sure we never took too much, careful to leave enough for each day of our trip.  We ate it straight out of the jar; my spork leaving grated trails behind in its delectable, delicate surface.  Slathered on papaya, it neutralized the less than desirable flavor of the dried fruit, leaving only the taste of pure joy in my mouth.  One day Faith suggested I add chocolate chips from my gorp bag into my spoonful of peanut butter and it became godly.

            From day one my patrol-mates and I had taken turns carrying around our group science experiment.  We had been told that at one point later in the trip, we would be testing the levels of something-or-another in the water using some device packaged neatly in duct tape.

            On our last day together, our leaders gathered us around the waters edge.  Jessica handed Ian the package and told him to open it fast, that the device was “light sensitive” and needed to go in the water immediately or the results would be botched.  Everyone waited in anticipation, Ian feeling the pressure as he slit his knife across the tape and pulled it apart.  Before we could see what the device looked like, he looked up at us confused and asked, “Starbursts?” 

            Everyone simultaneously leaned in, and then jumped back in surprise.  Jessica and Joanna began laughing hysterically, Evan’s booming voice echoed across the lake, and Faith ran away and I’m pretty sure started crying.  Our “science experiment” was a package of Starbursts, a Crunch Bar, a Butterfinger, and a Snickers.  The thing I had missed most, the one food item I had been craving: candy.  Delicious sugary chocolate, and I had been carrying it with me the entire time.

            Every bar was cut into even sized portions.  Those doing the cutting passed each precious piece of chocolate to the rest of the patrol before taking their own.  There were twelve Starbursts in the package.  We each got a whole one, and then cut the last three pieces into thirds.  No one thought this was ridiculous.  We each took our thin sliver of gummy chewy candy with gratitude, and enjoyed every delicious second.

We were given this treat because the next morning marked the start of solo, a two-day ordeal in which we were left alone in the woods with no food or human companionship.  My stomach was already growling by the time my leaders pulled away in their canoe, leaving me to my lonely little plot of land where I would spend two days and nights in solitude. 

When the sun set, I was surprised by my sense of calm.  I was sure the darkness and strange little noises the woods like to make at night would be sending shivers up my spine the entire night.  But I was perfectly comfortable by myself, sleeping under the stars on what I considered to be a very comfortable rock.  All day I had been thinking about what I was going to eat when solo ended.  I made a list of the candy I’d buy at the first pit stop we made on our way back to Michigan.  I dreamed about a McDonalds cheeseburger with a chocolate milk shake.  When I woke up the next morning though, I didn’t even notice I was hungry anymore.  My stomach stopped growling, like it was tired of trying.  I had never gone that long without food, but I was surprisingly content. 

After another day and night alone, I woke up to the sound of paddles hitting water as my leaders came to pick me up.  I smiled at Faith and crawled into the canoe, happy to be reunited.  And then, from behind her back, Jessica pulled forth the most beautiful, perfect looking green apple I had ever seen in my life.  I cradled the fruit in my hands for a moment, taking in its elegance.  Just as I was about to take a glorious bite, Jessica asked if I wouldn’t mind paddling in the front of the canoe while we picked up the rest of my patrol.  Around the lake we went, gathering my patrol-mates who gratefully devoured their apples while mine remained sitting in my lap, its smooth inviting surface taunting me while I desperately paddled as fast as I could towards shore. 

And then my moment finally came. An apple has never tasted so good since.  Back home, where I am surrounded by all the food I could want, I often forget about that moment when I made contact with the apple’s smooth skin, its crisp crunch, its sour juice.  I sometimes forget there was a time when an apple could be something extraordinary.  I devoured all of it, even ate the cyanide infused seeds.  The stem was all that remained.      

Hiking on the first day.  We covered our packs with trash bags to keep them dry.  

Our first night in the rain.  Dinner tasted like hot sauce and sadness.  

Faith and Katrina make dinner.

Ian prepares our usual lunch of cheese, sausage and peanut butter.