catapult magazine

i know i’ve been talking a lot on this thread but i’d like to say one more thing about the idea of ‘no trace camping’ when we look at it in big perspective.
CAMPING AS WE KNOW IT IS BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT even if you leave no trace at your campsite. Here are some examples:
you usually need a car to get to your camping area. In order to enjoy the wilderness you are contributing to climate change. Staying at home and reading a book is better for the earth.
-outdoor enthusiasts buy extraordinary amounts of gear (tents, stoves, backpacks, boats, tarps, specialty clothing and shoes, etc) the production of which is often harmful to the environment (usually in a place like China which is now taking the brunt of our ‘post-industrial’ hypocrisy-our rivers and air are cleaner now because their rivers and air are dirtier). Plus, the stuff gets outdated and fills up landfills with plastic, nylon, fibreglass…

I myself very much enjoy hiking, canoeing, and camping and I find that these activities are good for my soul. But like most aspects of my energy-intensive existence, my pleasure comes at a cost to the earth. (and thanks to the low wages of those who make my clothes and gear in China)

Finally, I’d like to share with you a translated portion of Friedensreich Hundertwasser’s "The Sacred Shit Manifesto":

Shit turns into earth which is put on the roof
it becomes lawn, forest, garden
shit becomes gold.
The circle is closed,
there is no more waste
Shit is our soul

So when you relieve yourself in the forest, think of it as a gift.

What do you all think of the way we camp nowadays?

Some are getting on board with the idea of low impact or No-impact camping which is like leave nothing but footprints . . . if even those . . . no toothpaste spit, no TP .. . what about crapping in a running river? is that considered no impact? you dont have to use TP and it gets flushed away like a ever-flushing toilet . . . what does one think?

did you say pooping in a river?
hmmmmmmmmmmm…………..

as far as low impact camping goes, pooping in a river does have an impact….on the family of asians camping down river tring to catch undersized fish for there dinner…..

on the other hand the shit could have a positive impact if it hit a group of stereotyping buffoons downstream.

now, that made me laugh, dan. and made me laugh a lot. tears in the eyes, streaming down. stereo-typing buffoons. nice.

and ricky bobby, i hope it made you laugh too. you seem like someone who has a glint in your eye, an everenduring laugh in your belly, both willing to give offense and take it all in stride. i hope dan doesn’t shut you down too often, though.

but as to the issue…low to no impact camping. i’m in favour. it’s way too easy to trash the world. i’ve seen a good bit of that – bottles of heineken broken around the campsite, i’ve found porn mags strewn about the area, and even once, it looked like somebody had opened a huge bag of something orange (maybe cheezies) in the lake where I was canoeing.

it seems to me that the least impact we can leave, the better.

all that said, i suppose a lot of the procedures to lessen the impact are debatable. my wife says i need to ‘spray’ my toothpaste after brushing, not spit. but i wonder, is it really lower impact when i have to wipe my now toothpasty-face with a tissue and toss that tissue in the trash?

or let’s take pooping. my wife (yes, she’s a no-impact fanatic) makes me bring along a shovel and a plastic baggy for backpacking. to bury the poop. and to pack out the used toilet paper in a baggy. yes, low to no impact. but it just plain grosses me out to be carrying my tp for the next 6 days in a little ziploc (which I cover with duct tape for visual purposes). pooping in a river sounds much more pleasurable – on many levels.

Off-hand, eddie, does it really work that well? have you tried it?

any other no-low impact camping tips out there? this is attached to the ‘camping is not opional’ website afterall.

i would like to know who the stereo-typing buffoons are.

and yet again dan takes the high road. bravo, dan, bravo.

insert steady applause here . . .

I do think it is nice to try not to leave a trace when camping but I don’t think it’s an important environmental issue. A piece of toilet paper and a beer bottle left behind won’t cause climate change even if the act is repeated a million times. Shit floating down the river is gross and makes the water unsafe to drink, but shit has been floating down rivers since Adam did it in the garden of Eden. The areas in which we tend to go camping are not usually important agricultural areas, so littering there won’t cause any drop in food production. Even animals don’t seem to mind garbage. In fact, many of them like hanging out at dumps. To me it’s mostly an aesthetic issue, a matter of etiquette, like chewing with your mouth closed so that others don’t have to see what’s in there.

The question I would like to ask is what is the most stewardly approach to camping?

Working under the belief that the world belongs to God, what toothpaste and excriment practices will best respect and care for God’s world? Any thoughts on the steward angle anyone?

My own answer to that question starts by putting myself in God’s shoes. What if I made and owned the world, how would i want people to treat what I made? As I begin to ponder this I realize that the answer is subjective, and so, i believe the answer to how to treat God’s world as campers can only be answered by God, whose opinion is also subjective, all be it authoritative and omniscient, it is also subjective.

So, how did God intend us to poop is the question. (as a side note I am curious about how poop and farts fit into a perfect, un-fallen eden, or did they?) Are rivers an acceptable receptacle for our refuse? Taking the liberty of an opinion despite the fact that only God knows, I say yes to river poops. It has to go somewhere. If you dig a hole for an out house, or if your wife makes you burry your poop, either way they will end up in the ground water, well filtered on the way down. If you poop in a river it will get broken up by the flow of water and sift to the bottom, again, in the water supply, and filtered by the sediment on the bottom. 6 of one and a half dozen of the other.

Or perhaps the best way to care for the earth is to get constipated and wait till you get home to poop, and let the city’s sewage treatment plants take care of it.

As for porn, beer and toothpaste, all three are clearly unecessary luxeries, so to them I say obstain! (Tongue in cheek)

And I too am curious if you have tried pooping in a river Eddie. Are you willing to share that info?

Richard Out.

Long time CINO reader here and never really felt the need to post my thoughts until this no-low impact camping post came along. I am an avid camper and simply could not believe what i was reading.

Wow. Apparently, culture IS optional… because this is a new low.

Firstly, it takes alot of social ineptitude to bring oneself to pooping in a river while camping. Did it ever cross your mind that there are other people in the vacinity who may not enjoy your offensive addition to the local watershed? If you are going to go camping, go to a campground that provides toilets… that’s where poop goes. Please take the time to be considerate to those of us who enjoy nature WITHOUT seeing other people’s discharge. Let’s try and keep God’s creation wholesome and pure as best we possibly can.

Secondly, I also take offense to dan’s comment that all people who believe that asians go fishing for their meals are "stereotyping buffoons". I think that YOU dan, are the stereotyping buffoon for lumping me in with all racist asian haters because i happen to acknowledge that they eat the fish they catch… that’s like saying "if you believe that Americans enjoy baseball, than you’re a stereotyping buffoon."

Anyways, I look forward to hearing how many people actually bring themselves to going to the washroom in a river because it may determine whether or not I continue camping.

Curious as ever…

Wow, obviously not many asians post here. Perhaps it’s because they’re busy fishing for dinner and don’t have computers. Oh but hang on, asians are all really good with computers and are too bookish to spend much time outside. Ahhhhh, the clash of stereotypes is undermining my racist generalizations!