A traveller to Durotar might well ask “where does the wood come from for all these palisades and delightful covered bridges (which are a part of our Horde’s heritage)? There don’t seem to be a lot of trees in Durotar.”

Well, Jimmy – let’s pretend this visitor’s name is Jimmy – well, Jimmy, the story of Durotar’s wood starts far to the north, in the forests of Ashenvale. First, a seed is planted by wind and nourished by rain. Then, for hundreds of years, the growing tree is tended by elves, dryads and other spirits of the forest, reaching high up to join the great canopy of its elders. Then an orc comes along with a big axe and cuts it down.

And do you know what that makes elves, Jimmy?

Too slow, say the orcs.

Then they and the elves run back and forth, carrying flags to decide who gets to cut down (or gaze lovingly at) the trees.

And that’s how capture the flag was invented. Wait, what was the question again?

I’m a little disoriented, you see. I thought I’d go up north a ways to beat the heat and write to you, my dear readers, about some of the arboreal recreations of the orcs. See, when I was in Orgrimmar people always used to talk about going to “camp”, and “camp” is a powerfully nostalgic word for most Tauren. Going to “camp” is what happens when the herds are far away, there’s nothing to do, and your parents are sick of having you around the house. You and your friends get booted out into the prairie with tents on your backs and some vague mumbling about “rites of passage”, but basically they just want you to go off a ways and let them have some peace and quiet. Probably this is when our parents got some snogging done.

Lord knows it was when we got some snogging done. “This one time, at camp…” is the opening to many a bawdy reminiscence, round about where I’m from.

So, I was pretty excited to get out there in the woods, drink beer, sing songs in a sing-a-long., and fart. Only it turns out that when orcs say “camp”, what they mean is “lumber camp”.

There are no sing-a-longs at lumber camp.

If Orgrimmar is a big delicious sausage, Warsong Lumber Camp is the sausage factory, and I would only recommend it as a touring destination for those travellers who savour blackflies, ambushes and depression. It spreads over several hillsides in the interior of Ashenvale forest, the sunlight still obscured by the oblique shade of the remaining canopy, but the ground is stripped of topsoil and bogged down with undrunk mist and rain. The shattered stumps of massive Ashenvale trees list here and there, like a graveyard of shipwrecks still half-afloat on a dark and frozen sea. Battle-ready warriors slog here and there through the muck and breezeless air, wary for night-elf raids and bored because they seldom come. Goblins fuss over the tree-cutting machines, massive suits of bronze armour with steam-powered servos and broad steel blades affixed to their arms, constantly leaking oil and breaking down.

Despite the openness relative to the forest, you have a powerful sense of directionless moving through Warsong, oppressed by both the distant walls of the forest – always trying to reclaim the shattered land – and the still languour of the camp itself. Not much seems to ever happen here, I can’t imagine how they meet their production quotas. In any case, Warsong fails badly in all respects as a vacation spot. The swimming holes are shallow and surrounded by mosquitos, the cabins are non-existent, and you may be shot by an elf.

Perhaps we won’t know whether the camp is expanding or not until we capture more flags. Between the ever-broken machines, demons harrassing the workers to the north, and the possibility that rapid harvesting will lead to all-out war with the Alliance, Warsong is a place where hilarious travel diary entries go to die.

It makes the Barrens look like a barrel of laughs, which is good, because we’re on our way back south, downriver and then across, to the Crossroads. Until then, take my advice and stick to the northern shore of the Southfury to cool off.

Anyway, let me tell you about this one time in camp when we invented a game called “beat the bushes”…

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