(Belated) overnight trip report – March 21st/22nd

Toward the end of March, I spent a weekend exploring the old farm woods and the surrounding area, finally locating all the boundary markers of the property and discovering some other interesting features of the “neighborhood” as well. At that time, there was still a good bit of snow on the ground, most of which has since melted, and the temperatures were a lot lower, too, with about -5ºC/+23ºF during the day and -12ºC/+10ºF at night.

Before choosing a new campsite and setting up camp, I wandered around looking for the back property markers, taking some pictures as I went along.

I found a nice, reasonably flat spot at a far corner of the property and set up the MIL-TEC tarp in my beloved Holden tent configuration. So far, I’ve been very pleased with this tarp, which I bought a little over a year ago.

Once my camp was set up, I located some potential firewood nearby. Besides a few smaller dead pine saplings, I found a nice larger dead pine which had partially fallen over some time ago. Getting a hung-up tree like this unstuck can be very dangerous, so I’m not going to give instructions on that there. All I will say is that it’s a good idea to read up on the subject and have an experienced tree feller go out into the field with you to show you how to do it. In general, though, the idea is to first cut the tree at the base and then carefully move up the trunk, cutting section by section, until it can be freed from the other tree.

I cut the trunk into campfire-sized pieces and also collected the dry branches from the top of the tree.

To ignite the dry branches, I would need something finer and easily flammable, so I went back to an area where I had remembered seeing lots of birch bark on the ground. This bark had been stripped off some trees when the loggers came through to thin out the forest last year.

After splitting up some of the sections of the pine tree I had dislodged and sectioned, I laid down some lower-quality, partially rotten pieces of wood in the spot I had chosen for the campfire. On this I placed a piece of birch bark, which I scraped with my BushProwler knife from Ilkka Seikku to create a fine pile of paper-thin shavings to ignite with my ferrocerium rod. I then added progressively bigger pieces of wood until the fire was ready for me to start heating up some food.

Once I had eaten and relaxed a bit, I decided to spend the evening exploring the area some more.

Plenty of animal sign:

Curiosity led me to climb some of the higher hills in the area, which rewarded me with a really nice view. First, looking down at my campsite:

This was followed by a short hike down to the lake, where I plan to do some fishing this season.

After hiking around, I sat by the fire for a long while, ate some dinner and watched the stars appear one-by-one as the sky darkened to night. I slipped into my nested sleeping bags in my poncho bivy and continued watching the sky through the doorway of my tent until I drifted off. After a good night’s rest, I arose in the morning, shook off the sleep and started the morning fire. Once again, I dined on Finnish rice pies (riisipiirakka) and a meat pie (lihapiirakka). I also boiled up some water for instant coffee in my Swedish mess kit lid.

Wanting to take advantage of being in the neighborhood, I packed up camp and hiked back to the cabin site, where I spent the rest of the afternoon working on the future homestead.

Hope you enjoyed this quick overnight trip report. Stay tuned for more!

Kampin’ in a kota

Hey dudes and dudettes! It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here at The Weekend Woodsman, but it’s not because of a lack of interest. First we had the holidays, then I got swamped with work and then soon after that the Woodsboy got the chicken pox and our whole family came down with a nasty drawn-out flu (possibly swine flu) right after that. The unseasonably warm winter we’ve been experiencing is another reason why I haven’t been getting out much. While some of you were (and are again) experiencing a polar vortex, we’ve had more of a “tropical vortex” up here in Finland. So far this winter, we’ve only had about 3 weeks of real winter temperatures (and of course it had to be during the time when I was busy/sick). As I write this in mid-February, the temperature is about 1°C/34°F. During a normal winter, it would not be unusual at all to be seeing temperatures around -40°C/-40°F right now. Anyhoo, the warm temperatures, coupled with being busy, sick and occupied with a few other things had not been very conducive to doing anything outdoors-related.

For most of the winter, though, mi amigo Alejandro from Spain and I had been looking forward to a winter campout, but because of the reasons mentioned above, it just wasn’t happening. When the second weekend of February rolled around, everything fell into place and we were able to get out for a “winter” (and I use that term loosely) overnighter.  After a little planning the week prior, I picked Alex up on Saturday morning and then drove out to my mother-in-law’s country property. We took the car as far as we could without getting stuck in the snow and then hiked to our destination. Here’s a back road along the way:

Because of the melt/thaw/melt/thaw cycles we’ve experienced this winter, there was a lot more standing water/ice than years past.

Moose tracks along the way:

Once we reached the site, we started getting our shelter materials together. I had slept in a kota (tipi-like shelter) a few years ago and figured it would be a good experience for Alex. This kind of shelter is a lot different from a typical camping tent, as it allows you to have a full campfire inside. The poles and tarp for the shelter were located nearby where I had left them. We first set up a tripod upon which we’d lean the remaining shelter poles.

Remaining poles in place:

Then the real battle started. In order to put the 6 m x 8 m tarp on the frame, we had to get it unstuck from the ground, and itself. After smashing lots of ice and carefully peeling the tarp from the forest floor, we managed to get it set up on the frame. It may not qualify as a dictionary-definition kota, but precise historical accuracy is not what we were aiming for. 😉

Now that our house was up, we could make it a home. Alex cut a bunch of spruce branches to use as bedding material and laid them out on the left side of the kota (and yes, that is a small spruce tree inside our shelter).

I set up my stuff on the right-hand side. For this trip, I used the Swedish SK-70 rucksack because its large capacity makes carrying extra winter gear easier.

Next on the agenda was making a fire for heating and cooking, as we were both getting hungry. We spent time gathering up and preparing materials for our fire and tried to get it started, but to no avail. Try as we might, we just couldn’t get a self-sustaining fire going, and ended up burning up all our fire prep. The reason? I had forgotten an important lesson from several years earlier. In order to have a fire burn properly in a shelter like this, there has to be sufficient intake of air from around the bottom and outlet of air and smoke at the top. There simply wasn’t enough open space at the bottom, and the hole at the top was too small as well. I kicked myself for letting this happen, because it was something that I had already experienced (and solved) before. Anyway, here’s hoping I remember for the next time around. 😉 We took the tarp off the poles and then hiked away from the campsite to get some dry birch wood and bark which had been laid up in a different location. After returning to the campsite and refitting the shelter cover for better air flow, we got a nice hot fire started. It was pretty much smooth sailing for the rest of the evening.

The temperature overnight probably didn’t even drop below freezing, and I distinctly remember rain or freezing rain pitter-pattering on the shelter during the night. In the morning, we got to work preparing a fire for our breakfast. Alex used my Skrama knife to split some birch wood into kindling, and I used my BushProwler. Then we both made a mess of shavings.

We shuffled around the remnants from the previous night’s fire in the fire pit and then set up our fire lay.

Breakfast for both of us would be oatmeal/porridge. I brought instant stuff, while Alex went traditional. He started by melting some snow in his pot.

By the time his snow was melted, I was almost ready to eat. 🙂

Having used up all my water during breakfast, I went to collect some more. The method I used was to squeeze snow into long pellets and then slip them into my metal water bottle. After I fit in as many as I could, I’d put it near the fire until the snow melted.

A few shots of our temporary abode:

A while later we made ourselves some lunch, let our fire die down and then started to pack up. We took the tarp off the shelter and placed it nearby after folding it up. We left the poles standing for next time. Come spring, I’ll cut that tarp to size so it fits perfectly on the frame, which will also prevent the ventilation issues we experienced. Speaking of spring, the way things are going, it’ll be here before we know it. I’m really hoping that we somehow get a nice cold spell for a while before the usual start of spring so I can get out there and do some more winter bushcrafting! We’ll see what happens. I’ll leave you with a picture of the dim winter sun as Alex and I hiked back to the car.

First hiking and bushcraft trip to the cabin woods

On Sunday afternoon, I drove out to the property with the old cabin we’ve been working on restoring. Instead of doing work on the building, though, I wanted to explore the area around it. Fortunately (for me), we got our first snow of the season the day before, so I was able to enjoy a little early taste of winter. Also fortunately for me, the weather played along nicely!

I parked the car near the cabin, took some pictures of the fields and woods on the property and then explored the woods adjacent to the property.

There’s a small cliff at the back edge of the property and a stream at the bottom.

I spotted these (probably fox) tracks nearby.

Frozen moose dumplings:

Bunny tracks:

Being that it’s moose-hunting season, I wore my blaze orange vest for safety’s sake. At this time of year, I usually wear either an orange hat or vest like this in potential hunting areas (though I make a conscious effort to NOT disturb hunters’ hunts with my doings).

After hiking around with my pack for about 2 hours, I returned to the property and picked out a nice level and open spot to set up a tarp shelter (more on this shelter type in an upcoming post). For a ground cloth, I used a heavy-duty garbage bag, and on top of that I put my pack and a small foam pad. The woods nearby provided a dead standing pine sapling, which I chopped up into firewood.

As a side note on the shelter, I added a loop at the middle of the long side of the tarp because there were no grommets there. As you can see, I reinforced the tarp in that area with black repair tape and stitching.

The temperature at the site was about -1ºC (30ºF) at the time, and by the evening had dropped to -3ºC (26.5ºF).

Not having my grill with me, but needing some way to keep my pot over the fire, I found a small sapling and made a stick with a fork on one end and a point on the other.

Then I cut down a larger and heavier sapling, stripped off its branches, carved a notch near the end (for the pot bail) and laid it on the forked stick stuck in the ground. The weight of the far end of the sapling meant that I didn’t need to do anything else to keep the “pot end” up.

Now that my cooking rig was ready, I needed to gather some tinder and split some of the pine for the fire. I found a birch tree nearby with some great bark peeling off it. It was like paper and had a nice feel to it.

Dinner for the evening was pasta in cheese sauce, which is a nice way to say “mac n’ cheese” ;)…

…and bannock, aka stickbread. After I added water to the dry mix, I put the dough ball down for a minute or two to do something and then found that it had already started to harden because of the below-freezing temperature outside!

It took longer than normal, but I managed to squeeze the dough into a strip and wrap it around a stick to bake near the fire.

As it started to get dark, I ate the bannock and drank some water and then packed up most of my gear. Here’s one last shot of the tarp tent at dusk. Normally, I put the fire a little closer to the shelter if I’m going to use it for warmth on an overnight stay.

Finally, I’d like to talk a little bit about “bushcraft gear”, specifically the price of said gear. Almost every item you see in this post was either a discount store item, military surplus item, consignment shop fixer-upper or recycled. The only exception is my BushProwler knife, which was hand made to my specifications (though cheaper Mora-type knives etc. would certainly also suffice). Here’s a little rundown:

• Shelter: 2 Euro ($2.60 USD) tarp from hardware store, pole and pegs from old tent
• Pack: 25 Euro ($32.50 USD, cheaper in the US) Swedish LK-35 military surplus
• Axe: 10 Euro ($13 USD) from consignment shop, rehafted and fixed up by me
• Pot: 5 Euro ($6.50 USD) from discount store
• Spoon: Taken from a cutlery set from my cub scout days
• Kuksa cup: 4 Euro ($5.20 USD) from consignment shop (boiled before use)
• 1 liter aluminum water bottle: 1 Euro ($1.30 USD) from consignment shop
• Sitting pad: 1 Euro ($1.30 USD) from discount store
• Garbage bag ground cloth: A few cents
• Matches: A few cents a box, housed in a birch bark container I made
• Knife: Let’s say I used a Mora instead: 10 Euros ($13 USD)
• TOTAL: 58 Euro ($75 USD)

My suggestion when looking for gear is to shop around, see what you can make using things you have at home, trade with other people, recycle things other people are planning on throwing away etc. Outdoor gear does NOT necessarily have to be expensive!

Northern Woodsmanship and Skills Forum

In the past, I have brought your attention to a number of forums, blogs and YouTube channels focusing on outdoorsmanship, primarily in Finland, but also elsewhere in the boreal region. Today, I’d like to introduce you to a fine forum started by Ron from The Trying Woodsman Blog. He wanted to create a place where folks could discuss woodsmanship, bushcraft, primitive and traditional skills and anything else having to do with outdoor life in the north.

This primarily English-language forum is small, but growing (it has been experiencing a surge in activity lately). So far, there are members from Finland, Sweden, Norway, the northern US, throughout the British Isles, Germany and a host of other countries. As far as I know, this is the only north-centric forum of its type out there!

If you would like to learn from and contribute to a growing knowledge base on woodsmanship in the north in a relaxed and open atmosphere by sharing stories, projects, ideas and experiences and make friends in the process, be sure to visit the Northern Woodsmanship and Skills Forum!

Stomping around the old stomping grounds

Those of you who started reading the blog last summer won’t have seen my old haunt unless you’ve read some of my older blog posts. The location in question is in a forest which has been in the Woodsbabe’s family for generations. I used to visit the place pretty frequently, but the distance from our new home means that my trips there are now few and far between. In fact, my visit last weekend was the first one since we moved last summer. I always considered myself really lucky to be able to spend time there, and last weekend’s trip only confirmed this.

The Woodsbabe and Woodsboy dropped me off as close to the place as we could drive without getting stuck in the snow (which we managed to do anyway :)).

Tracks within tracks:

Looks like a slow-moving bunny:

Moose track:

He/she stopped to nibble on some fresh shoots:

Looks like a fox was here:

Red squirrel:

I was able to hike part of the way without snowshoes, but they were necessary for most of the trek, as the snow in most places was too deep to hike in effectively. So I strapped them on and carried on.

Nearby summer cabin:

Usnea/old man’s beard lichen:

Jackrabbit or kangaroo? You be the judge…

High-traffic area:

I believe a moose bent and broke this sapling to nibble on the tips of the branches:

After about an hour of snowshoeing and picture taking, “my precious” came into view. 😉 The cooking rig OZme and I put together in 2011 is still going strong, but is currently in hibernation.

Besides being handy for hanging pots over a fire, it also serves as a place to throw your pack. 🙂

The temperature that afternoon was hovering around -8*C/17.5*F or so, which I find to be pretty pleasant for winter activities.

Between the dry winter air and snowshoe hike, I was beginning to get mighty thirsty. I checked my “canteen”, aka thermos, and saw that my water was still room temperature despite being left in the car overnight at -15*C/5*F.

For a change, I thought I’d make some pine-needle tea. Although spruce-needle tea has been something I’ve enjoyed for years, somehow I’ve managed to go all this time without trying pine-needle tea (I think?), so it was high time! Both are full of vitamin C and have a very fresh “foresty” taste. 😉 I located my firewood stash under the snow and knocked a few pieces loose with my axe.

They were then split up in preparation for building a fire. The wood prep heated me up too much, so I had to swap the fur hat for a beanie.

While I was splitting the wood, I found three of these little guys. They would be great as ice-fishing bait.

Instead of building a fire right away to boil the water for my tea, I decided to do it a little differently this time. I plopped down one of the pieces of spruce I had split to act as a “mini bar” for making the pine-needle tea with the alcohol stove made for me by OZme.

I chopped up the pine needles:

Added some fuel to the stove:

And lit it up with a match (if you’re not familiar with alcohol stoves, they don’t show much of a visible flame when lit):

Somehow I managed to use just the right amount of fuel, as it burned long and hot enough to bring my cupful of water to the boiling point in about 5 minutes and then dropped off and petered out. I added the hot water to my kuksa and let the needles steep.

Since I was feeling hungry by this time as well, I whipped out a “riisipiirakka” (rice pastry) with butter. The rice pastry is basically rice porridge (special rice cooked with milk and salt) placed in a thin rye half-shell and baked.

This was a nice snack, but it wasn’t quite enough to fill ma’ belly, so I split and shaved the spruce a bit more so I could build a fire to roast a sausage.

I found a nice forked branch on a sapling nearby, so I prepped it to hold my big, fat “HK sininen” sausage. 😉

The wood I used for the fire turned out to be pretty wet (probably because I didn’t cover it last summer…oops), so I had to coax the fire for a while, but finally it ended up burning well. I roasted and ate most of the sausage and then left the rest for nature’s creatures (they really are quite big).

After checking the time and seeing that the Woodsbabe would soon be back at our designated spot to pick me up, I extinguished the fire, packed up my things and then closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. The silence of the place was something I had forgotten. Only the occasional chirping bird could be heard. Quite a contrast to the noise of the city! I snapped a final picture of the hazy sun before throwing on my pack and heading out.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to do an overnight trip as I had planned a few weeks back, but in the end the 5 hours of “therapy” I got out there turned out being exactly what I needed!

Fresh red squirrel tracks

While on a short hike with the Woodsboy this afternoon we came across these crisp Eurasian red squirrel (sciurus vulgaris) tracks in the snow.

The larger prints on top are from the hind feet, and the smaller ones on the bottom are from the fore feet, similar to rabbit tracks. Red squirrels are native to almost all of Europe and northern Asia. The American red squirrel (tamiasciurus hudsonicus) is a different species.

Eurasian red squirrel (image linked from Wikipedia)

Took a nuu friend to Nuuksio National Park

On Sunday, I had the esteemed pleasure of being accompanied on a hike in the forest by a native Indian living and working in Finland, far from his ancestral home. We went to Nuuksio National Park, the same park recently visited by the Woodsbabe and I. This time around, the weather was colder, -10*C/14*F, but much sunnier. It was determined that a short hike would be a good way to help my friend become accustomed to outdoor activities in the winter, so we did the 2 km/1.2 mi Nahkiaispolku loop trail.

Bunny tracks:

Squirrel tracks?:

Here’s where a bull moose (I believe) rubbed its antlers to shed the velvet from them after they stopped growing:

Tweety bird tracks (There were fox tracks nearby as well, but I forgot to photograph them):

Horse hoof fungi growing on a dead birch tree:

After our short hike, we were both ready to eat, so we started our fire prep. Here’s my native Indian friend splitting some wood. Did I mention he’s a native of Delhi, India? Perhaps you were thinking Cree or Cherokee? 😉 He was a great hiking companion and very keen to learn about Finnish nature and “grilling traditions”. Hopefully he’ll join me again sometime soon.

Our main tinder for the fire would be birch bark.

The other tinder component was birch wood shavings:

You’ll probably recognize this cooking shelter from my last outing. In addition to my friend and I, a father and daughter team showed up after a while and grilled some sausages as well. More about them and their knife mishap later…

My personal favorite way to build a fire is first to lay down the tinder:

Then I like to place a piece of fuel wood on either side of the tinder and then lay on two or three layers of kindling in a grid-like pattern:

Then I light it up:

And finally put on some fuel wood, also in a grid-like pattern. Seems to work every time.

After enjoying the warmth of the fire for a while and letting the birch wood burn down to coals, we threw on some chicken sausages and toasted buns for them as well. I made some white tea after lunch, which is my favorite outdoor drink in the winter. Well, campfire coffee isn’t bad, either.

The father-daughter team which showed up while we were grilling and eating also had the same thing in mind. I watched as the father split some knotty pieces of birch by batoning them with some sort of Mora knife knock-off with a light-blue plastic handle and then…SNAP! A section of the handle broke off and the blade fell out. That’s when I offered him the use of my axe instead, which he readily accepted. Later on, my friend mentioned something about having the right tools for the job. Indeed. I have nothing against batoning wood with a knife to split it, but it’s got to be a good solid knife that can stand up to that kind of use, like the BushProwler knife I’m using above to make the wood shavings.

We said adios to the tool-breakers after finishing our food and drinks and chatting for a while and then headed back to the parking area. Altogether, we covered about 3 km/1.8 mi. As always, I’m already thinking about the next trip out, which will probably be an overnighter or weekend trip soon, so stay tuned!