The #Outdoors

Gould Lake

It's not too often that I get outside. I'm a suburban girl at heart (one who sometimes touts herself as a city girl, ha) whose view of the Great Outdoors is the conservation area across the street, when I'm not commuting to the city for work. It's something, but I could definitely use getting out more.

Growing up, my family made a point of going outdoors on occasion. Starting in my mid-teens, we made annual camping trips (which I've since stopped going to) and, when I was 9, went on a landmark cottage week in Blind River where I learned to catch frogs and fish fish. It was great.

This resembles a photo from my early-2000s MySpace page.

Two weeks ago, a friend invited me up to Kingston for a canoe trip. Besides the weekend being a refreshing break from Toronto, it was a great way to reconnect with some forest, do some birdwatching (one of those hobbies, y'know) and lie around eating blueberries while complaining about overzealous boaters. 

Getting outside gets you healthy. Millennials, which The Atlantic can't seem to stop writing about, then face a tough divide - do we escape the suburbs to live in the cities, where work is, or remain in close proximity to our parents' backyards and conservation areas, all for a bit of the outdoors? The grey concrete and muted colours of the city always feel suffocating after my morning walk by the woods (yes, actual woods), if you ask me.

So, though it appears that there's nothing terribly wrong with heading outside, why are so many people disinclined to do it?

Trying to chill beer in the lake. It didn't really work.

There are a few reasons (laziness, "too much" busy work, etc.) but accessibility is one of the biggest ones. I'm incredibly lucky that my parents could afford to get us three kids away. Camping equipment (along with fees, gas, food and other supplies) can be costly. 

For a lot of families, heading to a local park is the only option. And, even then, seeing a few trees thisclose to a parking lot can hardly compare to hearing a loon call for the first time.

That's why there are many great programs that help bring inner city youth (who often don't have a way otherwise) to the outdoors. It helps with education, beyond a multitude of other things. And it's something that some of us never realize we're lucky to have.

Okay. I'll end this here before it sounds like a love note to living in the suburbs (for now), not that it isn't already.