Ow, my aching wallet!

In anticipation of our upcoming canoe/camping trip, Neil and I went out this past weekend to stock up on supplies.

We’ve both done our fair-share of camping, though it’s all been car-camping – the backpacking thing is pretty new to us. Of course, that meant we have gotten away with owning bulky, heavy camping stuff and reappropriating household goods to see us through the trip.

Luckily, we’re going with a pretty large group (Neil’s family), so we didn’t have to equip ourselves with an entire backpacker’s arsenal of necessities. His parents are taking care of food, and have all the cooking tools, plates, utensils and dehydrated foodstuffs we’ll need for sustinence over the five days. We have all the cool camping gadgets like a foldable shovel and a solar shower.

It also helps that we aren’t strictly backpacking, we’re canoeing, so things that would normally be a very bad idea (a regular-sized tent and sleeping bags) aren’t really that big a deal.

The big “areas” we’ve taken responsibility for, for the group, are clean water, first-aid, and ropes (this whole hanging food from trees thing should be interesting).

And between equipping ourselves with that, the necessary technical clothing (I may be okay with not showering, but I am NOT okay with not having dry socks or clean underwear) and a few other convenience accessories – holy crap it starts to add up.

And so, to lessen the burning feeling as funds leech away from our bank accounts, I figured I’d at least get some joy out of it by opening up a wee contest for my entertainment and yours!

Guess how much all the stuff in the picture cost!

If you click through to the flickr photo, there are notes on the details and quantity of each item.

All goods were purchased at either 3Vets or MEC. I can also tell you that the most we paid for any item on there was $75.

Leave your guess in the comments. All guesses must be in Canadian dollars. Winner goes Price is Right style – closest without going over.

The prize will be either a $10 MEC card (locals only, and you must give me your mailing address) or a $10 online gift certificate to Amazon (.ca or .com – depending on where you are).

I’ll post the winner when we return, on August 16th.

Happy guessing!

UPDATE: And the winner is Yvonne with a guess of $900, closest to our astronomical total of $987.50 (after tax). I couldn’t believe it either – everything we purchased fit into a single laundry hamper – but I think Neil’s $41-per-pair fancy-schmancy underwear might’ve had something to do with it…

Thanks for playing along – and it all did come in pretty handy on the trip, which I’ll get to in the next post.