7 CANADIAN CAMPING CONUNDRUMS

CAN YOU RELATE TO ANY ON THIS LIST?

Canadians are sadly lacking in outdoor skills. That's the consensus by Scouts Canada, thanks to a recent survey by the group.

According to Scouts Canada, the country's leading co-ed youth organization, the average Canadian may be surprisingly stumped by camping basics.

Outdoor and camping skills are good for more than just a fun weekend in nature; adventure-based play outside leads to betterdeveloped motor skills, social behaviour, independence, and conflict resolution skills that support physical and mental wellbeing in youth development.

The recent national survey of 1,000 Canadians uncovered the following:

Key Findings (national):

1) 'BEAR'LY READY: Asked what they would do if they encountered a black bear in the woods, a total of 23.2 per cent of Canadians would do the wrong thing, such as: 'Run' (8.6 per cent), 'Play Metallica on iPhone and live stream ' (5.6 per cent), 'stare directly into their eyes to scare them' (5.5 per cent) or (an extremely bad idea) 'attack first' (3.2 per cent); 14.9 per cent of Canadians simply said that they don't know.

2) DON'T EAT THAT!: Asked which plants from a list of wild plants were safe to eat, 46.7 per cent of Canadians flat-out admitted they had "no idea." A total of 26.4 per cent of Canadians incorrectly identified wild plants such as winterberry and buckthorn as "safe to eat," however, they are not.

3) CANADIANS ADMIT THAT THEY'RE PRETTY "MEH" AT CAMPING: Asked to rate the camping competence of most Canadians

respondents of the survey were generally positive with 61.7 per cent answering "OK." Twelve per cent optimistically said "high," and 14.7 per cent said "poor." The survey showed that 6.4 per cent said "bad" and 5.2 per cent said "dangerous."

4) CANADIANS QUESTION THEIR OWN CAMPING COMPETENCE: Asked to rate their own level of camping competence, only 36.3 per cent of Canadians said "OK," while 39 per cent admitted their skills are poor at best, if not outright dangerous (as in, burn down the tent kind, drink from a puddle, couldn't make it through the night kind of "dangerous").

5) WET AND WILD: Asked how to properly dry wet clothing and gear: Almost half of Canadians (46.9 per cent) said "they don't know." Of that, 7.2 per cent would make the bad choice

of "placing items three inches from a fire."

Of the respondents, 4.5 per cent said they would (inefficiently) choose to "flap until dry." There were 3.2 per cent who would "blow on them until dry," (this is not advised) and 2.2 per cent would "wrap in a jacket to absorb moisture."

On the plus side, 36 per cent correctly responded "wring out and drape."

6) "TENTS" SITUATION: Canadians generally don't seem confident in their ability to set up a tent. Asked how long they thought pitching a tent would take them, 35.7 per cent said "they have no idea" (suggesting that it might take a while.) Conveniently, the average Scout can set up their own tent in 15 minutes.

There were 15.2 per cent of the respondents who said "30 minutes," while 10 per cent said more than 45 minutes; 11.4 per cent optimistically said "five minutes or less," and 27.7 per cent said "10 to 25 minutes."

7) BONUS FINDINGS, WORST CAMPING MISTAKES: Asked what Canadians considered to be their biggest camping mistakes, respondents had a variety of colourful anecdotes:

a) "Sleeping in a tent and cougars were mating in the middle of the night ... claws through the tent." b) "Eating moss." c) "Forgot glasses." d) "Going to outhouse in the dark."

e) Flooding-related issues including: "Set up tent facing rain so filled with water."