A city girl's guide to sleeping in the dirt

Bears shit in the woods. That's why I don't. I hate camping. I detest lying in wait for that first mosquito to begin whining in my ear and me visualizing the 100-metre dash to the bathroom when dawn and bladder break.

I want to be a good sport. The happy camper in my life would gladly sit through chick flicks like Norma Rae, Silkwood, and Erin Brockovich with me. Ergo, I want to be comfortable risking a bear mauling, insect bites, and leg-stubble itch for him. But there's a reason why "empowered woman" films are played out in courtrooms and not pup tents: a woman can't possibly look as competent as Sally, Meryl, and Julia while trying to keep the piss off her shoes.

Joss Penny, special-projects manager for the B.C. Lodging and Campgrounds Association, suggests that if a camping aficionado really likes a woman who's skittish about camping, he should meet her halfway.

"That's what I would do," he said during a call with the Georgia Straight. "If someone doesn't really like dirt or is frightened of the wilderness, I would introduce them [to camping] slowly and not into backcountry right away." Penny said that could mean bunking down in a private campground after a couple of nights spent roughing it in order to take a hot shower and a comfy sit before heading out into the wilderness again. (And women who don't relish death by outhouse asphyxiation yet don't want to pee on their pedicure will find a friend in P-Mate [www.femalefree dom.ca/]. Correctly placed, the shoe-shaped device channels urine away from the body and into the woodlands.)

Penny mentioned Super Camping, his association's annual publication. Available at BCAA and travel-info centres, it identifies those sites with flush toilets and electrical hookups for blow dryers. For some reason, men whose jaws drop appreciatively when a MAC-faced woman strolls past them in Kitsilano can be dismissive of a high- maintenance woman's camping vanity attacks. Still rattled by a backcountry blow-drying incident years earlier, a male friend grew exasperated by my reluctance to go "granola girl" for a weekend. "Men go camping to get drunk!" he roared. "When you're in the tent and it's dark, who gives a shit?" Point taken. But his implication is that when it's light out it does matter.

I'll just be sure to keep my stash of scented toiletries well away from the tent. Rumour has it that the vanilla top notes you dab on to attract sex in the city also act in the wilderness as a come-hither to Mr. Big Furry Critter. Fear of being fresh-scrubbed is one thing. Fear of grizzlies and black bears is nothing to sniff at. I'm terrified. I confide to Rebecca Porte, executive director of B.C.'s nonprofit Coast Mountain Field Institute (www.cmfi.ca/), my fears that Will Ferrell, as Ron Burgundy in Anchorman, might have been right when he told Christina Applegate that bears know when women are menstruating.

"I would take backcountry trips any time of the month myself," Porte reassured in a call to the Straight. "I mean, people have lived out in the bush forever. But I think what's really important is that bears are attracted to scent. And blood smells. So it's really important to treat any disposal of menstrual products as you would treat disposal of food products."

The Gibsons-based CMFI where Porte works is dedicated to helping people connect with and understand the natural world through field-based education. For the past seven years, Porte, a former city girl, has herself spent every summer in the wilderness. She stressed that even if a woman's "other half" has experience, it's "100-percent important" for the Carrie Bradshaws among us to acquire our own backcountry skills before going out. Especially if we're nervous. Read books and watch videos, Porte recommended, suggesting Kathleen Meyer's How to Shit in the Woods (10 Speed Press) and a video entitled Bear Aware.

"I think you're being negligent to your own safety and to the safety of anyone who goes to the same campsite you've just travelled to if you don't. I think [educating yourself is] being responsible. And then you feel safer.

When asked if the distress of straying from one's comfort zone is worth it, Porte urged: "Take the risk. Because for some people it becomes the favourite thing that you do every year. Even if you do it for one night, it'll be a night that you look forward to."

But, I want to know, can being grubby and stuck in a tent in the middle of nowhere truly be romantic? At this, Porte actually sounds like she's begun swooning at the other end of the phone.

"Me and my guy, every summer we do a three-week holiday and we're camping the whole time because it is sooo romantic. You get a lot of time and space together and you get to be on an adventure. There isn't a lot of opportunity for that kind of romantic adventure anymore. And cooking by a little stove? How fun is that?"

As long as it's not a catering job for the teddy bears' picnic, it sounds really fun, even if it isn't as comfy and carefree as a summer evening in your favourite Kits comedy club or Italian restaurant.

Make no mistake: this Vancouver-born-and-raised woman may be with him in the bush, but I'll definitely be thinking of Yew.