With access to ample campgrounds on the West Shore, camping in a bush next to a busy Langford intersection probably ranks low on a person’s list of options.
But that was the destination of choice for YouTuber Steve Wallis, who has made a name for himself as a ‘stealth camper’, entertaining millions around the world with his exploits.
In a video shared on YouTube on Jan. 23, the vlogger from Alberta documented his night in the undergrowth at the intersection of Millstream and McCallum roads, underneath the Millstream Village sign.
In just four days, the video has racked up almost 1.5 million views.
With his gear packed in unsuspecting shopping bags, Wallis disappears into the greenery “just like Homer [Simpson] disappeared into a hedge,” he says, referencing the popular meme.
“I feel like a sneaky weasel," he says, cracking open a can of lager with the same name.
Out of sight, Wallis hunkers down for the evening, cooking up a storm with his trusty pressure cooker.
His top tip for stealth camping with a pressure cooker? Never pull the quick release.
“Because that steam is going to shoot way up, 10 or 15 feet in the air,” he says. “It will attract some attention.”
After a successful, but rather cold night evading detection, Wallis rewards himself with a breakfast at a nearby branch of A&W.
“Stealth camping is 99 per cent boring unless things go wrong,” says Wallis talking to the camera. “A lot of it is just quietly sitting here waiting for the traffic to die down so I can be a little more comfortable making noise and walking around a bit.”
This is not the first time Wallis has made Langford his temporary home.
In 2022, a video documenting the stealth camper’s night inside the roundabout on Langford Parkway in front of City Centre Park, quickly went viral, with hundreds of thousands of views.
Nearly three years later, the video has attracted over 9.2 million views.
He also spent the night on an island in Langford Lake, paddling out to the spot on an inflatable raft under the guise of a bird photographer.
In an interview with Goldstream Gazette in 2022, Wallis explained he turned to stealth camping when his ‘regular’ camping videos on his YouTube channel, first set up in 2010, began to feel stale.
“I try to come up with the most unique camping locations I can,” he said at the time. “I started my YouTube channel years ago with more regular camping trips and they did fairly well, but all the videos started looking the same, so I knew I needed to spice it up somehow.”
And the 'spicy' formula has proved a success, with 325 videos on his channel and over 1.66 million subscribers.
Prior to his most recent visit to Langford, days before on Jan. 19, Wallis shared his experience camping inside an abandoned water pipe deep inside a Sooke forest.
In just seven days, the video garnered over 2.3 million views.
After a night battling mosquitoes, a fear of bats and a chilly crosswind, Wallis described his night inside the pipe as “one of the most interesting sleeps” he has ever attempted, and definitely a “one-time experience.”
“My curiosity regarding the pipe has been satisfied,” he says in the video, telling viewers he does not recommend they do the same thing.
To follow Wallis’ unique adventures, visit his YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@campingwithsteve.
