After three weeks sleeping in sub-zero temperatures, we’re getting a warming trend. I had plenty of insulation (2 sleeping bags), so I haven’t been cold at night. I have, however, had to deal with frost. Living and sleeping in subzero temperatures is an exercise in moisture management. The moisture expelled by your skin ends up as frost in the insulation of your sleeping gear, as well as in your boot liners. These must be dried daily, or they soon begin to lose the ability to keep you warm. In temperatures above about 10 degrees F, I’ve never had moisture build up from frost become an issue.

For sleeping bags, this will build up even if you aren’t breathing into your bag (which you shouldn’t do because your moist breath speeds the rate of icing).

As I was busy running a course, I wasn’t always able to get everything dry that I needed to. On two nights there was enough ice buildup in my sleeping bag where it was noticably cold when I got in. It soon warmed up from my body heat, and I took the time to dry it out the next day.

The challenges presented by extended stays in bitter cold must be met with a well-reasoned approach to maintaining the viability of insulation by managing moisture. When this is done well, living out in the cold is a much more enjoyable experience.

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Check out the amazing program my friend Jeff Giallombardo is running at Nokomis High School in Newport, Maine (see below). It’s exciting to see bushcraft making inroads into the classroom.

“Ultimate Outdoors” is a program recently developedat Nokomis Regional High School in an effort to better serve our “at risk”young adult students and our general student population.

“Ultimate Outdoors” will serve our entire studentpopulation, but will specifically target students deemed at risk for academicfailure and dropout. The purposeof the program is to provide students who have had limited success academicallywith literacy skills, problem solving skills, self-confidence, and a sense ofschool pride and personal identity. The program will specifically emphasize theimportance literacy and academic achievement play in the pursuit of “outdoor” related fields. For example, careers in wildlife biology, forestry, professional hunting, fishing orrecreational guiding and game warden will be promoted among others.

Subjects will include hunting, fishing, trapping,camping, bushcraft, wildlife biology, botany, wildlife conservation, forestry,ecology and wilderness survival. The program will be split between traditional classroom time and handson field experience. By exposing our students to subjects we know are intrinsicallymotivating we will promote critical thinking skills and raise awareness andinterest in potential “outdoor” career fields. “Ultimate Outdoors” lessons and units will also incorporateelements of all core academic subjects such as English, Science, History,Mathematics and Physical Education.

Since we believe the learning process best occurswhen students are not solely passive recipients of information the class willbe based on experiential learning principals and research. We have developed a “read it, do it,write it” model of instruction for our topics of study.

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