Alright, let's get to it then.

So, I arrived at the Toronto airport without incident, 'round about noon on Saturday. As I stepped outside, I just stood for a long moment, and reflected. Ah, Canada - the air smells freer here! ;)

Made my way via taxi to the big mall where our bus pickup was to be. After wandering around for a little while, I soon located our group. (there is just no mistaking a bunch of furs milling around, it don't matter where or who you are ^.^ ) Dyne Wolf was there, though he was just about the only fur that I knew before from real life. A few others that I'd known from online did recognize me though, and so soon I'm just chatting it up with folks, perfectly at home. Uncle Kage soon appeared, and he and I went off in search of some wine suitable to take up on the trip. In the course of this, we ran into Tempest, a local Canadian fur who was still searching for the group. By the time we got back, he, myself, and a few others there had gotten a good camraderie going, and this became a fair portion of the group that I mostly hung out with for the weekend.

Anyway, we all finally got on the bus, and were on our way up.

So now, it has been said before that Feral is, basically, just like one huge summer camp trip for adults, and this was very much the experience that I got from the whole trip, right from the start of the bus and everything. We're all just singing, talking, and laughing the whole way, while this increasingly beautiful forested country is rolling along by us outside.

We stopped only once along the way for some, ah... "authentic" NYC poutine ;) Now... I've never fucking heard of poutine in my entire life before, but it is apparently all the rage up there, when one would like to invoke the feeling of strolling along the streets of Times Square. To be fair, it is rather similar to our "Disco Fries", which is french fries, smothered in brown gravey, and melted mozzarella cheese. ("Real" poutine, I'm told however, is supposed to be with actual cheese curds in it - which, I assure you, we do not have down here.) Anyway though, to my new Canadian friends, if you're every in NYC, you may freely ask for Disco Fries at most any diner, or, better yet, just simply cheese fries with gravey, and you will get something reasonably similar to your poutine. Try to order the actual P word, however, and you will simply get back blank stares of puzzlement. Or, possibly even some miffed protestations that this is a respectable establishment, and that there's plenty of ladies walking around the back alleys you can chase after, if that's really what you're lookin' for. In any case though, I have found that authentic Canadian Authentic New York poutine was quite tasty! ;)

So anyway, we finally get to camp in the evening, and the place is just... absolutely gorgeous beyond belief. The whole thing really is, again, a fully functional kids summer camp, and all of the buildings are pretty much these bare bones log cabins. There was electricty and plumbing, but otherwise, it's just logs and wooden planks piled together all the way. There is an enourmous lake out front by the main cabin. Earthen trails wind every which way into the woods to various cabin groupings, and you totally do need your flashlight with you at night that they tell you to bring, or you absolutely would not be able to find your way anywhere. I am in fact, dork that I am, very much reminded of the feeling invoked by the game Psychonauts in this place, except that we're a bunch of furries running around, instead of psychic kids.

So anyway, there I am milling around the main lodge with everyone, waiting to be told what to do next. Now, the way it works, see, is that everyone will be dived up into individual cabins of about 8 people or so each. This is to be your 'Tribe' for the weekend, and also, everyone as a whole is assigned to one of four Clans (Earth, Wind, Fire, Water). Through the course of the weekend, every event that you participate in will earn you points for your Clan (really, it's just a way to encourage you to go out and do stuff, rather than just sit around. It works well, I think, and was a lot of fun). In addition, each cabin has a Cabin Leader - supposedly someone who's been to Feral before, and who's job it is to help all the newbies out, get everyone to know each other, answer questions, etc. In addition, the Cabin Leader is responsible for organizing the "Cabin Skit", which each cabin will peform in front of the whole camp at then end of the weekend. (Basically this is, I finally realize during the thing, Feral's version of a 'forced' masqureade. It did end up being a lot of fun, but it's apparently something that everyone traditionally dreads and groans and moan about.)

But so anyway, like I said, there I am, totally clueless and wondering what to do, right? I don't really know anyone, and I have no idea what's supposed to happen next. But, I'm really excited! And I know that it will all be just fine, they're going to call the big opening meeting any minute, and all will be explained.

Then all of a sudden, the next thing I know is, potoroo (the chairman of the con) comes up to me, shoves a stack of papers in my hands and goes, "Here Quentin, you're going to be a Cabin Leader."

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEE! WHAT WHAT WTF?????????????!!!1111ONE!!

Dude! What are you crazy??!! I don't know anything, I don't the first thing that's going on, I can't be a cabin leader!!

Roo has, of course, already run off by this point.

So, I'm just standing there dumbstruck, totally panicking, and now things are starting - the opening meeting is gearing up, people are all lining up to get settled in. I start frantically reading through the papers he gave me, trying figure it all out, and listen to all the announcements at the same time. They've even now starting calling out the names of who's assigned to what cabin. People are going to start comming up to me any second looking for direction, and I'm just going to have to go scurry off whimpering into a corner, or something.

Finally, I get a hold of myself, figure out who my cabin people are, get them all together, and just tell them to sit tight a minute, while I go talk to Potoroo. Anyway, the long story short is, I find out that there were a bunch of other new people to Feral, myself included, who didn't really know anyone there at all, and who it was not really clear what to do with, when the staff was trying to come up with all the cabin assignments some weeks back. Well, apparently, there was a meeting over this, in which Potoroo mentioned all the furmeets of which he was aware that I do here in NYC, and it was decided that I would be the one best suited to take a bunch of strangers, and get them to all come together. So thus, I was nominated. Once he explained this to me, I felt greatly complimented, and much more at ease with the situation. It is true that I pride myself on that ability, and dare I say responsibility, that I feel around here. So, I went back, gathered everyone up, got us headed out to our cabin, and from there pretty much did just treat the whole thing like an NYC furmeet with a bunch of new people, talking to everybody, and getting them to talk to each other. It all worked out just fine in the end.

***

Anyway, lest I continue on like this and write a whole book here, here's just a small sample of everything I did over the course of the weekend:

- rockclimbing. They had this big wooden rockclimbing tower set up out there. I'd never done that before, but it was the first thing I set out to look for the next morning. I'd figured that I wouldn't even make it up half way, but I felt quite full of vigor when it came down to it, and totally made it all the way up to the top, in brisk time. lol. I felt so manly :-P I actually went up for it a second time the next day. That was a bit more difficult, cause now like every muscle in my entire body was starting to ache from all the running and jumping around everywhere that I'd been doing. But, I made it once again.

- Canoeing.

- Kyaking.

- dodgeball.

- swimming, diving, jumping all around on the big trampoline buoy (that they had floating out in the lake!)

- Predator/Prey. This thing was really cool. This was one of the main camp-wide events they had planned, which works as follows: Everyone is assigned a particular role. There's a whole bunch of Herbivores (green ribbons), a smaller number of Omnivores (yellow ribbons), and an even smaller number of carnivores (red ribbons.) There's also two trucks, fire, disease, The Wind, Mother Nature, and The Hunter.

The herbivores' job is to go searching around the entire camp, looking for all these little wooden posts that represent either food or water. Each of theses has a little unique-patter hole punch, with which you can stamp this paper card you're carrying around. At the end of the game, all the herbivores have to count up how much food and water they collected, to see if they 'survived'.

Next up, the omnivores can do the same kind of collecting at the herbivores. However, they can also chase after and catch the herbivores! If they do, the herbivore has to give up one of several bead they are carrying. This represents the number of "lives" that the herbivore has. If they run out, they die, and are removed from the game. For the omnivores, each bead they collect from a herbivore goes towards the tally of 'food' they have collected.

The Carnivores do not do any forraging - they just hunt down both herbivores and omnivores.

Everyone can be killed in the above 'tag' manner, by fire and disease. As for the trucks, they just go back and forth the whole time along these two dirt roads that run through the camp. If they see any animals in front of them on the road (on the side of the road doesn't count), they say "bam, you're dead!" and you have to give them one of your life beads. To make it fair though, the trucks can't just whip around the whole time killing every thing. If they want to turn around, they have to go "BEEP BEEP BEEP!", back up, and make a three point turn.

The wind just goes around, looking at everything that is happening. Any animal can go up to him, and ask him where stuff is. Such as, food/water posts, or other animals to hunt. If you do that, however, then the wind of course knows where you are as well, and will likely tattle on you to the next person.

If you die, you can find mother nature, who will ask you one trivia question, and if you get it right, you may be resurrected with one bead.

Finally, near the end of the game, the hunter comes out, and just kills every animal he can see, so at that point, it was a good idea for everyone to just hide as best they can.

Anyway, this was just tons of fun. Everyone was running around all over the place, chasing, hiding, stalking. Totally wiping out in various mud puddles while chasing or fleeing other people.

After awhile, I was getting quite tired out, so I ended up just quitely stalking and pouncing on people. That took a bit more time, so in the end, I didn't quite catch enough food to 'survive' the game, but, I had a helluva lot of fun doing it ;o) At one point in fact, me and this one other omnivore girl teamed up, and took turns flushing other herbivores towards each other, muahahahah! ;)

Totally awesome!

***

Another big main game - LARP Capture the Flag. In this one everyone divided into two teams, on this big soccer field kind of area. Within each team, everyone was assigned one of three roled - Warrior, Thief/Medic, or Mage. Warriors were given this longish padded "sword", and if they hit someone from the opposing team on the leg with it, that leg would be "cut off", and the person would have to hop around on their remaning good leg. Get that one chopped off, and you'd have to keen on the ground. (you could still use your own weapon to swing at other people, though.)

The theives carried a shorter sword, and with one touch, they could "assasinate" an opposing player, who would then have to go back to their own side's goal, and wait to 'respawn'. The thieves also carried these red ribbons, which they could tie around the leg of a wounded player, thus healing their legs.

The mages carried theses little bean bags, which they could throw at people, and "magic web" them. If that happened to you, you had to cross your arms, and were no longer able to use your weapon (whether that be short or long sword, or magery yourself). But, you could still run around, assuming your legs were not cut off ;)

Finally, anyone with a sword could go up to a teammate of theirs who had been magic webbed, run around them four times in a circle, and cut them free.

So, you have all these things going on, and, in the end, you are each trying to get somebody over to the opposing side, pick up their flag, and return it to your side to score a point. To keep the game fair, and prevent you from just going crazy slashing and stabbing or whatever though, for whatever your power was, you had to actually yell it out as you were doing it. So, for a mage, you actualy had to scream out "MAGIC WEB!" when you threw the thing, and complete the phrase before launching another one. So, you've got all these' people running around at each other, yelling out MAGIC WEB! DISMEMBER! DISMEMBER! ASSASSINATE! slipping in the mud, feinting, advancing, running back, falling all over the place. It was total chaos, and hella fun! :)

In the beginning, Potoroo had both teams line up accross from each other on the field - two armies facing each other down, all braveheart style. This big fat guy on the other team was wearing a full kilt, and nothing on underneath and totally mooned us all with it.

Then Roo had gone over to the other side, and asked them what their battle cry would be - what were they fighting for? They settled on beer, apparently. So, they're all over there lined up, brandishing their weapons, flashing us all scottish-style, and yelling BEEEEEER! BEEEEER! at us.

So then Roo comes on over to our side, and I know he's going to ask us the same thing. I've got the answer all ready. It's perfect. So, barely the second the question to us is out of his mouth, I yell out, "PORN!"

Everyone loves this.

The cry is taken up instantly: "POOOOOOOOOORN! POOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRNNN!!!"

So, two armies are lined up facing each other, across the field of battle. Swords are brandished. Scottish asses are bared. And all you can hear is the screaming cacaphony in your ears of BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER!!!! POOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORN!!!!!!!! BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRR!!! POOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRNNN!!!

The horn is sounded. We charge into each other. It is all Furry fuckin' Lord of the Rings up in here. It is glorious ^.^

***

Feral... is unlike any other con I have ever been too. And sure, I love all those others, wandering around the hotel room halls meeting new people and partying with my friends. This one has all that too, but, it is also different. It takes a certain caliber person first of all, I think, to actually go up all that way, and partake in the kind of experience that Feral offers. Also, it being a smaller con, you tend to get to know a smaller number of people a lot more deeply.

I loved all of it, and I made a number of very special new friends. I did more on most days before noon, than I might normally do in a week. I loved waking up in the morning, going over to the main lodge, and just sitting down to meals, talking to people. I chickened out every other day, but on the last, I finally steeled myself up, and joined the 7:00 am Polar Bear jump in the lake. I loved the fox that lived in the camp, and so didn't particularly mind us people at all, just perfectly casually wandering around at night, catching bugs in the field, as everyone gathered around him, shining their flashlights on him. We roasted marshmallows, and listened to Uncle Kage's story hour on wooden logs, surrouning the big main bonfire at night.

I spent most of MFM afterwards, a fully blown con in its own right, just resting up and marvelling at all that I had seen. Everyone need to go and experiend Feral, at least once. As for me, I will be going back again every year, from now on. :)

Q.