Coping Strategies from the Northern Woods: A Thread

When I was 20 through 22 I spent each summer in northern Alberta planting trees in a remote bush camp.
When I say remote, I mean it - usually we were dropped there by helicopter and picked up a few weeks later. 1/?

We were a crew of about 40 tree planters, 2 cooks, 3 foremen, 2 quality checkers, 1 camp attendant, 1 guy who drove a quad around to drop off trees to all the "blocks" (work sites), and 3 helicopter pilots.
We were the only people we'd see for 2 to 6 weeks. 2/?

At the time there was no cell service (I'm old, maybe there is now).
You got a mail drop once or twice; one phone call home from a satellite phone if you were lucky. No TV or radio or sports or news or society. 3/?

Not the same as today's #SelfIsolation, but similar in that you suddenly had no access to loved ones, and the normal world felt like it was on pause.
What did we do to cope?
Here's where it gets fun... 4/?

We became ourselves.
Our weirdest, most random, most personal, most whimsical selves.
The things we liked? We doubled down on sharing them and talking about them with everyone.
The things we didn't like? We had ironclad reasons to abandon them. 5/?

Someone who liked Archie comics had brought a whole bunch and the entire camp became Archie fans. (Then we used them for toilet paper when we ran out.)
Someone who liked Fleetwood Mac had brought a guitar and we had Fleetwood Mac singalongs by the woodstove many nights. 6/?

Myself, I was reading some 90s feminism, and I joyfully quit shaving my legs and started working topless (it was a really hot summer).
Someone who was a painter brought body paint and painted amazing monsters on everyone's bare arms.
7/?

Right now we're getting a lot of conversation about learning new languages and stuff, and to me it's missing the point a bit. It's great to learn new stuff if you want, but it shouldn't feel like pressure to be productive.
When society falls away, you get to *be you* more. 8/?

In that time in my life, we were still working. Really hard, in fact, 10 hours a day, 6 days a week. But it was amazing to be forcibly removed from society for a bit, and to have space to listen to what I actually wanted. 9/?

I didn't figure it all out then, or now. But I noticed some stuff that's become the bedrock of my life since. I still love trees and hard work and listening to music while I move, and photography, and body painting, and feminism, and bears. 10/?

And I especially still love following my own whims when I notice that I'm interested in something.
You don't have to make sourdough right now, or whatever. But if you're interested? If it gets your attention? *that's* gold.
11/?

I know some people are working harder than ever right now and don't have time to think this way, and I'm sorry.
This thread is for the people who are lonely and worried about how to use their unscheduled time.
There's no wrong answer. 12/?

There are personal answers, and they might surprise you, and I hope you come out of this with a new specialty in Irish mythology or train videos or Norwegian metal or roofing or boy bands or Olympic lifting or whatever else you've already started to find yourself doing. 13/?

Or at least some good stories about the time you cut spirals out of aluminum pie plates to turn your sports bra into a warrior princess costume.
14/14
#treeplanting was great, the end