Fisheries and wildlife associate professor John Schwartz said he loves getting close to nature. He owns a cabin on an island in the Florida Keys and calls himself an avid hunter. He has traveled to every state in the U.S. and 36 other countries, including student trips he led into Nepal and northern India. When he’s not traveling the globe, he teaches a class about outdoor preparedness. “I teach the class because I enjoy this kind of thing,” he said. “Just getting out into the woods … there’s nothing like being in the mountains after a lightning storm when you can smell the ozone in the air, sunset on a coastal beach, fishing on a nice little river, flats down in the Florida Keys. All beautiful things.”
But Schwartz’s experiences haven’t all gone without a hitch. He once took a limited-equipment trip with his brother on an island in what was then Yugoslavia. Instead of carrying a tent, they built a shelter every night. One night it was supposed to rain, so they found a V-shaped rock ledge and covered the top with sticks and pine boughs. The rain came, and the rock ledge turned out to be a ravine.
“We had a small river, had a waterfall right through our secure little campsite,” Schwartz said. “It was one of those very wet nights.”
In hindsight, Schwartz said he should have followed the ravine to see if it was part of a riverbed. He was young at the time, and he said after years of outdoor experience he has “all kinds of memories” of what not to do, which he shares with his class so his students can learn too.
“Always remember it’s a lot of fun — it’s not really a tricky thing, you just have to have a little equipment and plan to improvise,” Schwartz said. “Get a little closer to nature, be willing to try it.”
Outdoor education
Environmental ethics and philosophy associate professor Michael Nelson is planning his first camping class, a weeklong trip in June with about 10 students to Isle Royale National Park. He previously worked in Oregon, where people from the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, a longtime ecological research site, took professors from different disciplines and had them meet in the forest.
“It was impressive to see how much the place itself formed the conversation,” Nelson said. “So that led me to think more and more about taking courses on the environment and actually having them in the environment.”
As a child, Nelson went on camping trips to state parks with his family. In college, his interests turned toward backpacking. He started taking weeklong backpacking trips to warmer locations.
“It was mostly just to get south, and it was a cheap way to go,” he said.
Lately, he said he’s gotten away from camping and backpacking, but is excited to combine camping with his academic experience this summer.
Tent lifestyle
Zoology graduate student Andy Flies moved to a national reserve in southern Kenya to research spotted hyenas last summer. Part of that experience involved living in a tent for three months.
While he said the experience wasn’t authentically camping — he had a cook and electricity — he did sleep on a cot and bathe in the river.
“I love living in a tent. You can hear hyenas at night and lions roaring,” Flies said. “It seems simple to me, less to worry about — there are no bills to pay, and I didn’t miss TV at all.”
He said he ate an almost vegetarian diet in Kenya, aside from the occasional chicken, as there was no refrigeration. They lived mainly off of storable foods like rice, lentil and chickpeas, and received a shipment of fruit from Nairobi once a week. At night they had to lock the kitchen tent so monkeys wouldn’t steal food.
Flies also has camped in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, a state park in northern Minnesota. It’s a wilderness area with hundreds of lakes and no roads — he parked and carried a canoe in the camp. He would walk the canoe across land and paddle across the water. In some ways, Flies said it was more wild than Kenya.
Hit the trails
Flies said the best way to prepare for camping trips is to gradually accumulate equipment and pack lightly. He recommends shopping at army surplus and thrift stores.
Nelson also said gathering pieces over time works well. He suggested buying equipment from “gear people” who buy newer versions of their equipment regularly and sell old equipment at lower prices.
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Once the equipment is ready, some important things to keep in mind are knowing how much water the filters can handle, staying hydrated, knowing how to deal with potential injuries and being aware of the area’s wildlife.
“For the first time, try to find someone familiar with the area or familiar with camping in general, which is a good way to learn,” Flies said. “If you’re not doing a backpacking trip, bring everything you might need, but if you’re hiking three miles in pack light.”
Schwartz recommended finding books, taking a class or searching the Internet for trip planning guides, packing lists and advice. Clubs based on camping, such as the MSU Outdoors Club, are good places to get to know people with similar interests, which he said is important for the experience.
“In many cases we go outdoors to get away from people, but we take people with us because we want to be with people,” Schwartz said. “A sunset is only so beautiful unless you can share it with someone.”
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