Personal Narrative: My Water Canoeing Trip

The story begins in the summer of 1984. My ROTC group and I had decided to take a Boundary Water canoeing trip through upper Minnesota. When I say upper Minnesota, it means that we are right on the border of Canada, and even though it’s summer it’s still cold. There were ten people on this trip eight boys and two girls. My best friend Terry and I being the only girls. Now one thing to know about canoe trips is you must have everything you need in your backpack that you take with you. By the time this story takes place we are about five days into our camping trip. That’s when things get interesting.

My group and I have decided around 5 o’clock that it was time to stop and set up camp. Everything was going as usual, we set up our two tents and made our dinner. Anybody who has been camping before has probably heard that you always need to tie your food up in a tree when you’re not using it. Everyone in the group had heard the rule before. So, we placed all our food into the garbage bags we had brought with us and tied them high up into the trees. Assuming that everything was secure, we all headed to our tents to

We are all throwing ourselves against the back of the tent trying to bust through the back all while still tangled in our sleeping bags. My heart is pounding out of my chest, my head is throbbing with my fight or flight instincts on red alert. The bear tramples over our packs trying to find what he is hunting for. He is just a couple feet from us, and all I can think about is this is how I’m going to die. However, thank god one of my friends manages to remember that there is a zipper at the bottom of the tent that detaches the floor from the top. Now with an escape hatch we all begin as fast as possible to roll out of the slit all the while still fully cocooned in our sleeping bags. Once outside mass panic begins to ensue, we are screaming as loud