Back to Camp

I joined what is now known as InscribeChristian Writers Fellowship (ICWF) in the late nineteen hundreds and attended my first annual conference in Edmonton in 2000. If you don’t count participating online, my second conference was two weekends ago, held at Echo Lake Bible Camp near Fort Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan. With only four and a half hours of driving time, no cities to navigate, and the camp setting making it affordable, how could I not go?

I recruited Valerie, a fellow Manitoban and long-time ICWF member, to go with me. We didn’t know each other, but we hit it off easily, getting into below-the-surface conversation before we hit the outskirts of town and not stopping for the rest of the weekend.

I confess nothing, but we may or may not have consumed more coffee than is advisable on a road trip. As a result, we may or may not have driven all over Wapella desperately looking for a public washroom and ended up using one in their laundromat. We may or may not have gotten the giggles while trying to figure out how to pump our gas at the pay-at-the-pump station in Grenfell. We may or may not have temporarily lost our confidence when Google advised us to take a gravel road.

If you’ve never made the drive to Fort Qu’Appelle, I recommend it—especially in the fall. Imagine driving along Crescent Lake for twenty miles but with a lot more curves and hills. The bursts of autumn glory in the five-p.m. sunlight took our breath away.

The campus proved lovely as well, although the cabins were everything you’d expect at a camp founded in 1933. Old. Rustic. Smelly. (In retrospect, not as primitive as the camp of my childhood where the bathroom was an outhouse. And showers? What are those? You simply swam in the pool every day, which was nothing but a large concrete box built into a creek, the icy water flowing in one end and out the other. Compared to that, this place was the Ritz, boasting three whole showers for only 40 women and actual electricity.) Not that it really mattered, since I may or may not have forgotten half my makeup and spent the weekend looking like a flu patient.

The highlights of my weekend? Making a new friend in Valerie, having my heart and soul truly touched by Steve Bell’s music and teaching, eating terrific food I didn’t have to prepare, walking along the shore of the beautiful lake, selling a few books, and finding out both Valerie and I won some writing awards to bring back to Portage!

Photo of award-winners taken from Inscribe Facebook page.

The low light? Fatigue. After two nights of little sleep in our wooden beds with wafer-thin mattresses, we felt like royalty checking into the Best Western in Moosomin on our way home Saturday night. Alas, for some reason I still tossed and turned much of the night and came home exhausted.

I learned how much I depend on my hubby on road trips. Sure, I’ve traveled on my own but always by air and always to cities large enough to have airports with shuttles to and from my hotel. Driving demands far more of you. Navigating, keeping an eye on the gas gauge, the speedometer, road signs, and of course, other traffic. Deciding where to park and where to fuel up. Determining whether to obey or ignore Google. Thank God for my passenger!

Having to be a grown-up was good for me. Now if only I could learn to be a grown-up and not require more naps than an infant.

P.S. Local friends, you're invited to my come-and-go Book Launch for April's Promise at the Portage Library on Saturday, October 21, from 11:00 - 2:00.