Ozark Trail Scout Junior Dome Tent, my review

The Ozark Trail Scout Junior Dome Tent has undergone a couple of tests this past week.  I took it for camping at the Fundy National Park in New Brunswick and at the Cape Breton Highlands National Park in Nova Scotia.

The Fundy National Park was a real challenge for any tent.  It was obvious though that this tent would have gotten me into a lot of trouble had it not been for a tarp I set up right over the tent.  Even with a tarp over it, the tent allowed water in.  I noticed that water was getting in at the seams where the product label and the mesh pouch were stitched to the tent.  Water was dripping in slowly, enough to get my sleeping bag all wet if it were not for the foam pad I used under the sleeping bag.  (It would really suck if my sleeping bag did get wet!)

Now, the tarp did not protect the entire tent.  That was my mistake.  I let one side of the tarp to droop over the side of the tent that leaked water in.  The depression in the tarp allowed water to collect and drop onto that side of the tent.  It was just too much water.  I eventually realized the mistake and fixed it but still, there was enough moisture in the air that water was still building on the wall of the tent and eventually seeps in through the seams.

The Cape Breton Highlands National Park presented a different challenge to the tent.  This time, it was brute force wind.  I had no idea how strong the winds were but in the middle of the night, the wind was so strong it felt like the tent was going to collapse onto me.  I did not get much sleep that night.  I do not know whether it was because the wind was so loud it kept on interrupting my sleep or that I woke up whenever the sides of the tents were closing in on me.  Well, the tent held up quite well.  The poles were flexible and strong enough to hold up to what I think was probably 60 km/h winds.  I was camping on a cliff of the Corney Brook campground in the park, so we were getting the full force of the wind out there.

In terms of the size of the tent, although one side is six feet long and I am 5'7", it's too short for me.  I had to sleep in a diagonal.  This tent is really a one-person tent for me then.  The smaller size of the tent allows for easy setup and tear-down.  It can easily be set up in 5 minutes.  Tear-down was equally quick.

Thus, would I take this tent on another trip?  Maybe.  I will have to think about sealing the seams.  The rain fly covers only the top so there is only one layer between you and the rain.  I would have to bring a tarp along, so I actually pack the tarp in the same carrying bag as the tent now.  The tarp is easy to set up in a wooded area but in the open space of the Corney Brook campground, I had to fashion a couple of pegs out of tree branches and staked in the ground.