Warning: This column may send chills up your spine. Reader discretion is advised.

Baby, it's cold out there, or so they tell us it will be late this week just in time for activities at Wasaga's Snowman Mania and New Lowell's Sunnidale Winterama.

The reports of a -47-degree wind chill in Alberta brought on an episode of post traumatic freeze disorder the likes of which I have not seen in decades.

A chill ran down the back of my neck and I turned my collar up before checking the wireless outdoor thermometer for the third time. I tapped on the glass and wondered if the battery had died - two degrees, plus two degrees!

Yet it was about 30 years ago this week that I senselessly considered winter camping an adventure.

These are the memories that have haunted me ever since. Although apparently I survived with no gangrenous appendages removed.

The planning was intensive and the lessons learned in surviving that weekend have stayed with me.

We were a group of about 36 high school voyagers. Our snowshoes were freshly varnished. The toboggans were laden down with hundreds of pounds of gear not the least of which were the double-walled canvas tents.

After what seemed like weeks of lectures, the plan was clear: Layers of clothing. Absolutely no sweating, no matter how hard the slugging.  The tents were dug in and snow piled part way up the walls for insulation.

The meals, apart from the endless vat of hot chocolate, were confined to a single pot over an open fire. Chunky, hearty soups; stews, freeze-dried pastas and, at the insistence of the leader who said it would make the tents more comfortable for everyone, pork and beans. (Enough said.)

The five-man tents were intentionally stacked with six occupants in double sleeping bags. There were no heaters and the mercury dipped to -23. We were certainly more comfortable there than when trying to get out of bed in the morning and change into dry but very cold clothing to rekindle the fire.

The mornings were insufferable. The daytimes scouring for wood were manageable. The evening bonfires were two-sided; hot-as-blazes facing the fire and cold up the back.

Everything moved slowing and intentionally, except when it came to the call of nature where speed was of the essence.

And the lessons that remain, even if I never camp out in the winter again:
-The head casts off, it is said, 40 per cent of your body heat. If your feet or body are cold, put on a hat. Remove it if you are warm.
-Technology has intervened with new products now but wool against the skin is still an excellent insulator and allows moisture to escape. It may drive your skin crazy but it works.
-When you think you've collected enough firewood to last, go and collect the same amount again.
-You can live without a lot of things but water isn't one of them.

That glimpse of survivalism was a great reality check for me.

Today, when I watch my kids tip-toe through ankle deep snow in skateboard shoes and a light jacket and I see them with no hat or mitts for a 45-minute winter driving expedition, I find myself running through a mental checklist of how we would survive stranded on the side of the road.

It was our last night at the winter camp. A bit of moonlight peaked through cloud cover and four of us snowshoed back from another site to our own across the small Algonquin Lake.

The sound of the wolves and our laughter carried on the cold air.

And churning along through the 20-inch snow cover, the laughter subsided and we all fell silent at the magnificence of the scene before us. The dancing flames of the home fire were still a speck in the distance. The lake was a smooth uninterrupted expanse of snow with a set of four tracks guiding us home to the dark tree line on the far shore.

A shiver ran up my spine.

It was a good shiver.

And I can't remember another good one since.

Stay warm, put on your hat.