Eskimo camping at Lake Erie: Greg Evans

JOHNSON CITY, Tennessee — I sat in a parked car and looked out across the water of beautiful Lake Erie; behind me, the glittering city of Cleveland. It was quiet. The sun was shining and the water, only gentle, frigid ripples. There wasn’t much of a breeze, though when it hit you, it cut straight to the bone. There were no boats on the water, and far off in the distance, just gliding birds. I looked at the shoreline and a thin strip of snow-covered beach leading to a dock.

Here in Cleveland, when it gets cold enough, you can camp out on frozen Lake Erie, in a tent — or why not in an igloo, like an Eskimo. I have never been camping. Not in a tent, anyway, nor an igloo. I don’t know if that is weird or not, but I find most people are shocked. I guess I come across as a rugged outdoors kind of guy. The quintessential mountain man; hardly. The thought of sleeping on the cold, wet or frozen ground, in the middle of mosquito- and bear-infested woods, or on an iced-over lake, having to use the restroom two trees over, or in a hole in the ice, was never appealing to me.