No kids allowed! How to build a fort for grown-ups

By Trevor Dineen, co-host of Now or Never

Do you remember building forts as a kid?

There was a pure joy that came with attaching one corner of a bed sheet to a dresser drawer, shoving another end in between two books on a shelf, and then tucking the remaining side into the cushions of a couch. Within minutes, a whole new world was created; a world where no adults were allowed and only your friends knew the secret password to get in. 

The other day, I met a woman named Sandra Schmidtke who filled out our Now or Never list. She said she wanted to relive her childhood by building an epic outdoor fort.

You see, growing up, Sandra had the perfect fort-building tree in her front yard. She and her family called it the climbing tree. It even had a lookout tower where you could see the whole neighbourhood. But it's what was inside the fort that mattered most: imagination. 

"A fort was somewhere you could be whatever you wanted to be," Sandra told me. "You could be a princess or a captain. The grown-ups got the house and they got to say what happens there. But in a fort, you made all the decisions."

Sandra's childhood forts had some rules:

1. No wussies.
2. You can't tell parents what you're doing.
3. You might have to pay a nickel to get inside.

Her memories were so vivid about her childhood that I decided to help recreate them for her.

So I did what any adult nearing 40 would do, I took her to the children's garden in Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park to build the best darn fort she had ever seen.

It took us a while to find the "fort building area," because to be honest, it's a bit of a secret. Only one person I know had ever seen the area but when we did happen upon it, it was glorious. 

Tucked behind all the swings and slides was a forested spot with a small walking path covered in branches and tree trunks of different sizes. Sandra called it a "fort Mecca" because of all the prime logs that were just lying about.

But what would we build? A tent? A spaceship? A high-priced modern log condo?

We settled on a pirate ship and, in turn, came up with our pirate nicknames.

I became Bushy Beard Dineen, the most feared pirate this side of Brandon, and Sandra became Morgana Muckbucket, the ruthless captain of our dreaded ship. 

We tossed the landlubbers aside, ran a shot across the bow of an oncoming vessel, and readied the plank for a few scallywags to walk.

Sandra rightly said, "It feels like I'm getting away with something. I'm out in the woods building a fort in the middle of the day. What other grown-up is doing that? No one!"

When our fort was complete, I think we managed to accomplish what we had set sail to do. We brought out the kid in us.

But I think Sandra summed it up best: "I think being a kid makes you a happier grown-up."