How To Poop In The Woods In Winter

I’m SURE you’ve been wondering how we "did our business" in the woods during our winter trek. Believe it or not, Dave actually gave a little lesson on how to responsibly poop in nature in the winter, and we did adhere precisely to the protocol, even when it was an urgent matter that needed immediate attention. (Not that anyone was following us around to check.)

The first thing you needed to do when “nature called” (and I”m talking number 2 here) was locate one of the two orange bags. You see, the orange bag contained all necessary items for taking care of business - toilet paper in a ziplock bag, matches in a second ziplock, and a little container of hand sanitizer. With the bright orange bag in hand, you then had to find and don your snowshoes. You certainly didn’t want to risk post-holing before, during or after pooping. 

With "the bag" in hand and snowshoes secured, the next step was to locate or make a path that would take you into the woods, away from camp. This step sounds daunting, but due to camp set up, often a path or two would be created to get fire wood. So you’d follow along the path, trudging away from camp until you felt safely secured from view. You’d turn and walk at a 90 degree angle to the path. Never, do you ever, no matter how urgent it is, consider pooping on trail!

In the calm of my spot, I’d tramp down the snow and create a little or big (depending on last night’s supper) hole for my deposit. Then I readied my supplies: sheets of toilet paper, match box, and some twigs upon which I’d burn my tp. Yup, you read that correctly. We were instructed to burn our toilet paper after. 

With a quick unbutton and unzip, I was ready. Snowshoes apart, squat, balance, shiver, breathe, done. Without dilly dallying (remember, Canadian winters are cold and bare bums don’t do well with exposure), I quickly used the tp and set it on my bed of twigs. Careful maneuvering was required to zip and button, and cover my business with snow - WHILE WEARING SHOWSHOES. With the main work done, I could breathe again. 

Now it was time to burn baby burn. Admittedly, my first attempt at burning my toilet paper was a dismal failure that required FOUR matches, but as I gained experience, my fires became award winning infernos. I’m proud to say that once my twigs even caught on fire.

You’d think with all of this completed, I was ready to head back to camp. Nope, not yet. I developed my own ritual of a snow handwash (cold but satisfying), followed by a healthy squeeze and spread of hand sanitizer. I put my mittens back on, and feeling somewhat lighter and carefree, I carefully stepped out of my spot, back onto the trail. My last task was to mark my side path with two sticks in an x-pattern, signifying, “Treasure Chest Buried Here”.

As you can see, there are several steps to executing this protocol. There was only one issue with the protocol. We were drinking cedar tea each day, and cedar tea is traditionally used as a gentle, natural aid for digestive issues, including mild constipation. For me, the tea was not so gentle and when I went looking for the orange bag, I NEEDED it, and hoped like heck one was available!

Honestly, your biggest take away here is that when you are show shoeing in the woods and you are following, even the faintest of trails and you take a 90 degree turn onto another trail and you see an X marked with twigs - TURN AROUND.

Note: The term "number two" for defecation likely originated from schoolroom hand signals, where children raised one finger to urinate (#1) and two fingers to defecate (#2). This polite, non-disruptive method allowed teachers to understand how long a student would be gone without requiring explicit, embarrassing language. 

LOTN Lingo

As with any novel experience, there is often new lingo to learn so that you can actually survive, and with any luck, thrive in the new environment. Here are a few of the terms, acronyms and just plain slang that surfaced during our Lure of the North Heaven’s Gate LaCloche 9-day trek.

LOTN: Don't be mistaken. That is not LOT N, as in a specific location of a property with a cardinal direction. Noper, that stands for Lure of the North, Dave and Kie’s business!

Tump: the leather part of the (sled) rope harness used for pulling the sled. It can be positioned fashionably either over the shoulder or across the hips, depending on user preference.

Tank: the canvas material that forms a coffin around your gear on the sled. Packing your frozen and snow covered tank each morning was tough, as it was kinda like a snowy or icy game of Tetris (including a few curses under the breath). No mitts, and a lot of brute force required. Extra fun on the icy-cold mornings.

Anorak: a traditional winter coat made of canvas, with a big ass hood rimmed with animal fur. Put this baby on to break the wind (not fart) and pull the hood up to provide a serene warmth and calm in the worst winter conditions.

Tingleys: not sure if I’ve spelled this correctly, but this refers to the fancy rubber boots worn in possible slushy snow conditions. They fit nicely into snow shoes, and with wool liners, provide warmth even when wet. Watch out for post holing, as these boots are mid-calf height.

Post Holing: What happens in snow when you are not wearing your snowshoes and should be. Envision it - foot step, sink to your crotch, grumble something about should have my snow shoes, and try to lift your foot out of the hole and hope like heck your boot comes with it while keeping your other foot from post holing.

Icers: Can be worn with any footwear to provide more traction. These were essential for the uphill climbs. Also known as ice spikes.

Ass slushing: An extremely unfortunate fall backwards on your ass in slush. It’s like a foot soaker, but 100 times worse. Not cool. Witnessed it, and thanked God it didn’t happen to me.

Lymph clearing: according to Jamie, slapping yourself to activate your lymph. Jim would say a series of exercises (arm swinging, body twisting, hand patting) to get lymph moving around your body. A great ritual to come together and start the day, and laugh at how silly you look doing it.

PBB: The best peanut butter balls I’ve ever tasted. These were part of the morning cedar or spruce tea ritual. As an aside, I’m convinced cedar and spruce tea have laxative properties. Just saying.

Appies: Looked like "apples" on the cooking instruction card perhaps because I didn’t have access to my reading glasses. To be honest, I wasn’t sure where those suckers got to the entire trip. In fact, appies were perogies and meatball snacks enjoyed before dinner after camp set up. 

Meat Up: This is NOT a typo, but in fact a clever double entendre. Mid-trek our two groups met and set up camp together. Supper was a treat that night when Kie rolled in on her snowmachine, towing a bbq on skis! The spread was incredible, complete with bbq’d sausages, toasted buns, salads, veggies, and a sip of maple whiskey to finish off an amazing meal. It didn't get any more Canadian than that!

Stoker: a camp job that involved making sure the fire kept burning all night. Depending on the type of wood being burned, this meant setting an alarm every 2.5 hours, wiggling out of your sleeping bag that was sandwiched between two others, crawling up to a hot stove, finding the gloves and re-loading it while half asleep. Danger pay was not included.

Splitter: a very satisfying camp job that involved splitting logs with an axe. Thank gosh we camped two nights in a cedar marsh because splitting cedar can make anyone feel like an Olympic Champion Splitter!

Skulking: We'll it's actually Skull King, but when Dave says it, it sure sounds a lot like "skulking". This is a fun card game we played often after dinner where tricks were taken, hearts were broken and Jim mumbled under his breath a lot!

The learning curve for these terms was steep, much like the day 4 hills, but once mastered, instructions became very clear. Imagine that!

Snowshoeing in the North

We have been very excited for the opportunity to do a trip with Dave and Kielyn of Lure of The North in February. This would be our first big adventure this Spring.

It all started several years ago when we were gearing up to watch Season 7 of Alone. (For those that haven't seen the show, it's a reality TV show where 10 contestants are dropped in remote areas with no food, a few essential items and cameras to film their life in the wilderness. The person who lasts the longest is award a big cash prize.) At the start of Season 7, I was checking out the contestant bios for Alone on the History Channel website and found Kielyn from Espanola, Ontario. Contestants come from all over the world, so having someone from Ontario is rare and was worth investigating. I read about Kielyn and it mentioned her husband Dave - I check the last name - Marrone - **SUDDEN REALIZATION** I taught Dave - one of my best students ever! Turns out that Kielyn was a superstar on the show. After watching Season 7, we drew the conclusion that Team Dave and Kielyn were obviously something special. 

 Together they operate Lure of the North, a company that provides traditional winter experiences (among many other things). We committed ourselves to doing a trip with them "one day".  For a little over a year, we've known that Gayle would be taking some time off, so we signed up for the LOTH newsletter and watched the website until the bookings for 2026 opened up. We jumped at the chance to book the 9-Day LaCloche Heaven's Gate Loop.

Dave greeted us with about 13 other campers at noon the parking area. The Base Camp is their off-grid home south of Espanola and a 8 km walk on trails and an old mining road from the highway. After gear prep, dinner and a night at the base camp we loaded our toboggans, put on show shoes and hoisted the toboggan tumps over our shoulders at 9 am on Sunday morning and the trek began.

Our group consisted of 9 people in total - 

• Dave our amazing guide. 
• Jaime a Colonel in the Army who had some experience with LOTN before and was a good mentor for us all
• Vladimir - a recent immigrant from Ukraine who lives in Alberta with his wife and daughter
• William - a young guy who works to support "whistle blowers" in the US. 
• Carone - an educator from Wolfe Island
• Jim - a retired teacher from Madison Wisconsin and his partner
• Sandra - a recently retired psychologist.

A second group of 8 was guided by Nero doing the same loop in the opposite direction.

Over the next week we got to know each other very well as we trekked and shared the space of 2 small tents for just about everything. Typically each day started at 6 am with packing our gear, cooking and eating breakfast then packing the tents, stoves, all the group gear onto our toboggans. Once packed, Sandra brilliantly lead a short yoga session then it was "tumps on" by 9 am. We'd hike across lakes, maneuver over portages (usually with 2 pulling one sled over the hills and riding on the down hills!). We'd stop on the way for snack and lunch (hot soup and warm sandwiches) and arrive early afternoon at the next site to set up camp. Dinner was served around 5:30 and after we'd play a game (mostly Skull King) and then lights out. The first night most of us were in bed by 7pm - we got a little more accustomed to the routine and stayed up till after 9 on night 5!

Kie was masterful at designing so many different and tasty meals for us! Each day's food was packed in a duffle and the cook simply had to follow the directions. To give you some idea, Paul cooked Split Pea Soup with melted cheesy bread for dinner and rice pudding for breakfast. Gayle made burritos for dinner and "Harvesters Breakfast" (Mashed Potatoes, Bacon, Cheese - a big bowl of yum!).

Dave was an excellent guide and taught so much - tree identification, wood cutting, wood splitting, camp setup, take down and cooking. Our group was an awesome team and worked so well to get the camp tasks done efficiently. Gayle and Sandra had to became outstanding wood splitters when Will, Vladimir and I hauled back 4 big trees that needed to be processed!

Dave and Kie are very special people who really made us all feel like members of their family. They took such good care of us, told great stories, adjusted to the needs of the group and planned a fantastic trip for us. We are so grateful for the time we spent with them and our amazing group!

We'll have a few more posts about our trek and camp life coming soon.

Honestly, We're A Little Nervous

So we have this big snow shoeing trip coming up. We've been talking it up for months to anyone who would listen. We are very excited about the experience and challenge.

The reality is we're also both a little nervous about it and for different reasons. We've done lots of hard things like 6 hour adventure races and even hiked carrying backpacks for days. However, a winter hike for nine days on snow shoes pulling a toboggan was new to both of us. 

For Gayle, the key word here is "Winter" and the reality that it might be really cold. In the days and weeks leading up to our trip it's been very cold out. Gayle is not worried about "the cold", it's all about "being cold" and making the right clothing selections. 

So how do you pack when you know it's likely to be somewhere between 5 and -35, we'll be outside and working hard sometimes and inside a warm tent, in a proper sleeping bag? Considering all these factors the best thing to do is SHOP! 

After hours of researching what the best options were we now have an abundance of warm clothing - Wool Long Underwear, lined pants, sweaters and lots of wool socks (Somehow Paul now has 5 new pairs of wool socks - a big increase from the 1 pair that he bought at a thrift shop in New Zealand when we were living in a van.) And as many of you will be aware, Gayle now gets lots of ads for Lined Pants in her social media feeds!

The other factor when packing was that space and weight is limited. Your pack absolutely has to fit on a toboggan and whatever you bring you have to pull. Our trip guides have give us a good list of things to pack so in the end, between the two of us, we should have plenty of options to match the weather conditions.

Paul's anxiety about this trip is all about the physical tasks. Since 2019, he's struggled with a series of health issues that have significantly slowed him down or, a couple of times, stopped him in his tracks. Any of these might just interfere: back issues, nerve damage, arthritis and most recently a torn meniscus. Sometimes just standing or sitting can have a bad outcome. And, if you know Paul at all, he is just a little competitive and can't help himself from wanting to be first or best - often these days he settles for "better than last time". 

Taking on a 9 day trek is a big challenge and he's significantly anxious about slowing the group or, worst case, having to stop. He really doesn't want to cause others to have a bad experience. He's packing lots of Advil and Tylenol and a fold up camp chair. Hopefully that will be enough.

Is Gayle going to be Cold?

Is Paul going to be Slow?

Stay tuned for our post trip wrap up.

Moon Shadows on a Monday

We have a big snow shoeing trip coming up and we've done a bunch of snowshoe treks out into the Haig Road Forest to get "ready". (A few hours of walking on mostly flat trails, will not do that much to help with our upcoming hours of toboggan pulling!)

For those of you who have never been, this is one of the coolest hidden gems in Belleville. There are multiple trails through the woods, over rivers and in wetlands. The trails are maintained by the users and it's open for free use. Every trip we make there is a refreshing and enjoyable experience - no matter what the season.

Today was Gayle's first official day of not working for her semester off. I had worked most of the day and since it was a clear sky an a full moon, we decided to go for a show shoe in the moon light. We figured we'd have the whole place to ourselves and, well, why not?

After dinner we laced our books and strapped on the frames. As we dropped into the woods and crossed the first river, it was still pretty dark heading east along the trail. The path opened into the wetland with tall grasses, shrubs and many expired Aspen trees. We weren't disappointed. The moon shone brightly in the cool sky as the stars started to twinkle. Each step we made broke the silence as the crunchy snow compressed beneath our feet. Shadows of trees and two happy humans turned the hard white snow into an enormous canvas.

We did make sure to stop, look at the shadows and the stars. A "shadow selfie" is always fun.

Being outside, together was a fitting way to kick off our next few months of adventures!

Our 2026 Adventures Begin!

Welcome to our Blog where we'll document stories from our travels and adventures that will occur over the next few months.

You many be familiar with our New Adventures from our 5 month world tour in 2023 or our Edventures in 2015 which recounts our stories from a year living in Trinidad and Tobago.

So far our plans include:

• A snow shoeing trip in Northern Ontario
• Volunteering at an Animal Rescue Zoo in the Amazon Jungle
• Working at a Farm on Vancouver Island
• Working on a Farm in Eastern Newfoundland

We'll try to post regularly with stories and pictures (and maybe even a video or two).  If you want to get an email reminder when we post, please sign up using the form below.