By Grey Tang, ’26
Stockholm syndrome
noun
feelings of trust of affection felt in many cases of kidnapping or hostage-taking by a victim towards a captor.
Strathcona Park Lodge
noun
a lodge situated amid Strathcona Provincial Park that kids in tenth grade at WPGA stay at for five days for outdoor education each year.
A few weeks ago, WPGA sent all of their tenth graders on a five-hour-long journey to Vancouver Island, where they participated in mortifying outdoor activities such as rock climbing, canoeing, and hiking. These poor unfortunate souls, many of whom were reluctant to go in the first place, were placed into numerous groups that varied in the number of participants and specific activities. Nevertheless, they all had one thing in common: a trip out into the wilderness, during which students would have to sleep on the ground in the forest, vulnerable to the elements. Survivors testified that on various occasions, vermin could be spotted scurrying around their sleeping bags. A mouse even bit one of these unfortunate survivors on the finger, and another found rat droppings in their shoes in the morning.
…
This year, I had the fortune of being one of the forty-nine other students (excluding those in Wilderness Pursuits) who boarded the ferry to Vancouver Island and attended camp at Strathcona Park Lodge. To be frank, I expected the worst. I had never been a fan of camping, much less camping out in the rain under a tarp with nine others, so I was less than enthusiastic to learn that I would be braving the frigid cold and fending off rabid wildlife on the upcoming trip (both very real threats).
On the day my group arrived on Vancouver Island, the mood was unexpectedly high. Despite spending the days preceding the trip in utter dread, a few good games of Uno and 斗地主 (a Chinese card game about fighting landlords) appeased the majority of our complaints. We were still bitter about the trip, don’t get me wrong, but it was a rare opportunity for us to spend some time messing around together. Our good spirits were furthered when our guide for the week, a cheerful and patient nineteen-year-old girl named Emma, was introduced to us. We took an immediate liking to her, and her integration into the group was practically flawless.
The next day, we packed all our things and waterproofed them in preparation for the 7km canoe trip to ‘Rainbow Island’. Our guide warned us about bringing any deodorants, perfumes, or sprays, in fear that they’d attract the mice that lived there- much to our shock and horror. None of us could sleep after that, so we consolidated ourselves by making up scenarios about the loud thumping and giggling we heard periodically from the room above us. I only got a few hours of sleep that day, before we set off in our canoes to Vancouver Island. It rained all the way there. Two hours into the trip, and we were all tired and hungry. What’s more: there was an unexpected current pushing us back each time someone stopped rowing, which was incredibly frustrating. But our exasperation at the situation forced us to look to each other for comfort and camaraderie, and through sheer willpower (plus the added motivation of a competition to see who could get there faster), we made it to the island.
The first thing we noticed about Rainbow Island was the horrendous state its outhouse was in. The smell was atrocious. I have tried to describe it multiple times for the sake of this article, to no avail. Words cannot truly capture the vile essence of that wretched outhouse’s stench, but it was so bad that people chose to do their business on the forest floor just to avoid it. The rest I’ll leave up to imagination.
The second thing–or things–we spotted were no better. Two or three mice darted back and forth between our campground and the wilderness, undoubtedly attracted by the smell of the canned food we’d brought. Throughout the evening, as we set up camp under a plastic blue tarp that could barely fit the ten of us and unrolled our sleeping mats on the wet sludge-covered ground, we could hear them scuttling around, waiting for an opportunity to nibble on our supplies. When we were all set and done, we made dinner (chilli that was slightly burnt) and got ready for bed. As the dusk fell and our flashlights flickered on, we huddled together under the tarp to play one last game of Uno. And although we were wet and uncomfortable, that night, laughter could be heard from miles away.