SCA events

Greetings all you SCA re-enactors.

Summer is here (woooohooo as far as I'm concerned) and the beginning of all those wonderful SCA CAMPING EVENTS. Personally, I am happy to be back in Ottawa as this will give me a great oportunity to do some medieval events of my choice.

What to do, and what not to do. Was a question that bounced in my brain today. So I thought that I would give a couple of tips.

*Do bring sunscreen!!!

The sun today is way stronger than it was for our ancesters hundreds of years ago. I will never forget one of my first SCA camping events. I choose to wear a beacon file, great kilt, for the day. It was aproximatle 40*C and found myself sheading layers in short order and by noon was wearing only the great kilt with all the extra wool tucked in and or otherwise wrapped arround my waist and was naked from the waist up and the knees down. That nights drumming circle was the most painful I had ever attended. SUNBURN! I have much French blood in me and in past years enjoyed the resistence to sunburn. This apparently is no longer. Please bring sunscreen, or at the very least when someone else offers to share theirs... don't be to macho to except.

*Do bring extra garb in water tight containers.

On the second event that I went to, I discovered that my tent was not waterproof. It rained all night, and I meen it rained. I woke at something like 4AM on my air mattress floating on a pond in my tent. When I rolled over to investigate fell off said mattress and nearly drowned. (OK, I exagerate) but there is nothing pleasant about sitting by the fire at 4:30Am alone, cold and wet. Pack extra in a water tight container. I have a spare cooler that I use for this purpose. For those who feel that this is not period. Your right! Cover it in fabric or wood, but bring some imposible to get wet cloths.

Last for this list, bring along your good sence of humor and desire for adventure. Hopefully we will meet in a feild somewhere.

Happy costumming

Daniel