Gear

Dusk at forty below in northern Quebec

The old loggers who spent their lives in the woods wore suspenders to keep their pants up in cold weather. They were practical people, and as such there was a reason they did so. Tight clothing was always avoided, as it is uncomfortable and doesn’t insulate nearly as well as loose clothing. Having your pants tight around your waist, either by the nature of how they fit or the use of a belt, stops the warm air generated by your legs from rising to warm your upper body. In warmer weather this warm, moist air contributes to overheating and sweating, which can be uncomfortable or worse on a long trip. Using suspenders and a loose waist allows it to rise and escape through an unbuttoned shirt. In bitter cold conditions it helps to keep you warmer by allowing the warm air generated by your legs to rise and warm your upper body.

Suspenders usually come with button holes, which fit around buttons on the pants, or clips, which clip onto the fabric of the pants. Extended use of the clips has chewed through pants I’ve owned, so I’ve gone to sewing buttons onto some of my wool pants or putting metal suspender buttons on them.

It may be a fashion faux-pas in the era of skinny jeans, but I’ve always been of the belief that fashion comes after function in selecting clothes.

Photo: Sewing a mukluk out of braintanned buckskin.

Most of the winter footwear on the market is heavy and doesn’t keep your feet warm. Pac boots, for example, seem to always leak in wet conditions and trap moisture and become cold in frigid conditions. Most of the big companies market their footwear by insisting that it is both waterproof and breathable (for some illuminating information from an industry insider that disputes the ability of any material to be both, see the online newsletter of Wiggy’s Sleeping Bags). In the real world, there is no one type of winter footwear that does it all.

For dry-cold conditions, or conditions below about 20 degrees Farenheit, you want footwear that is 100% breathable. Water-proof and water resistant footwear traps moisture at these temperatures, resulting in cold feet in just a few hours. It is important to remember that in normal conditions, without sweat, the average foot gives off 1/4 cup of moisture per day. Breathable footwear allows this moisture to escape, keeping the feet dry and warm. Due to the cold temperatures, the snow is dry, without excessive moisture to wet your footwear from the outside. The amount of insulation, in the form of liners and wool socks, should be such that the warmth generated by the feet will not melt the snow in that comes in contact with the footwear. Mukluks fit the bill perfectly for dry-cold footwear, being 100% breathable and extremely light. I have worn them for days on end in bitter cold conditions with my feet being warm and dry the entire time.

The best way to get a pair of braintan and canvas mukluks is to make them yourself. There are several places you can learn to do this, including with us in one of our mukluk-making workshops.

In snow with temperatures above 20 degrees farenheit, footwear should be 100% waterproof. Many boots, including the popular pac-style boots consisting of a rubber bottom sewn onto a leather upper, claim to achieve this level of water resistance, but those I have worn have all leaked around the seams sooner or later. I have found that the goal of being 100% waterproof is achieved only by boots made of rubber, top to bottom. Rubber boots, with a felt liner and some sort of insole, are my choice for wet-cold conditions. Such boots will trap the moisture emitted by the feet, and thus must be dried regularly, but they keep the water out. The Tingley rubber boots are a thin rubber overboot, designed to be worn over regular footwear. A pair of Tingleys, fitted with a felt liner and insole, weighs only ounces. They can be found at many farm and feed type stores. On winter trips, I take dry-cold and wet-cold footwear and two pairs of liners, and am prepared for whatever the weather might bring.

Tingley rubber boots can be ordered from the Lyman’s Farm Store in Fairfield, Maine. They will ship anywhere.

The US military overboots for wet, cold weather are a bit thicker than Tingleys, but don’t come in the taller heights. I’ve seen these range in price from $5 to $19. There’re available from many military surplus stores.

Felted-wool boot liners used to be available at shoe and hardware stores throughout the north, but have been replaced by thinner liners made of synthetic materials. They are still available from in regular and wide widths from Steger Mukluks in Minnesota.  You can also learn how to make your own.

Regardless of the type of footwear you have, you’ll want to outfit them with insoles for maximum warmth. I have a pair of Canadian military mukluk mesh insoles which do an amazing job of keeping my feet warm and dry. They are made of numerous layers of plastic mesh sewn together around the edge. Thus they form a barrier between my feet and the ground. Also, since they’re plastic they don’t absorb water, so they can be quickly dried by knocking the moisture out.  These are difficult to find online the last time I checked.  I bought 5 pairs at a small surplus store the last time I was in Montreal.

Having warm and dry feet in the winter takes knowledge and planning.  An understanding of the science behind what you need is worth more than a $500 gift certificate from a gear shop.

There is no shortage of advice on the weight an axe head should be and how long (and what shape) the handle should be. Today I wanted to inject a my opinion into the discussion, as well as describe my favorite axes.

An axe with a longer handle is safer than one with a shorter handle. The longer handle allows the user to position himself further from the impact point. The further this distance is, the greater the safety buffer.  There’s much more to using an axe safely than handle length, but it is an important consideration.

I think that it’s best for people to learn the skills of using an axe with a full-size axe; a 3-3.5 pound head and a 30-35″ handle. Once they’ve learned how to safely fell, limb, section and split using this tool, they can choose whatever size axe they like because they’ve learned how to use it.

Whatever size axe you learn with and spend a significant amount of time using will probably always feel like the right size to you. This is because you build familiarity and muscle memory with it, and these aren’t easily gotten rid of.

The two axes in the photo are my favorites. They were both made in Oakland, Maine more than 60 years ago. The top is an Emerson & Stevens head, the bottom is a John King. They represent an era of great craftsmanship in axe production. The John King has been my every day axe since I convinced Don Merchant to sell it to me. It’s a 3 1/4 pound head on a straight, 29″ white ash handle.  I would much rather have it, and it alone, than a pack full of modern survival gear for a month in the forest.  Someone asked me if I’d sell it for $100. I told them even if they offered $5000, it’s not for sale.

I’ve also got two great old Snow And Neally axes that hold an edge amazingly well, and a few ugly, unmarked and unnamed axes that hold their own with the best and most expensive.

If you’re new to using an axe, never lose sight of the fact that it’s the tool user, not the tool, that gets the job done. The best axe in the hands of a novice will be far less effective than a marginal axe in the hands of an experienced user. Your time is better spent using the axe you’ve got than pining over the one you don’t.

The axe is the most versatile and useful tool to have with you in the forest. It can help you build a first-class shelter, put up a sizable pile of firewood, drive tent pegs, split logs, etc., etc., etc. As with all tools, when looking for an axe you should try and get the best one that you can. The best axes made in the world were made in the northeast before the crosscut saw came into wide use. These were hand-forged of two pieces of steel; a harder, well-tempered piece for the bit and a softer piece that was hammered around the eye. The axes were the best because they were used all day, every day in the woods and the men who used them demanded quality. The single-bit axe, or poll axe, was the standard until the double-bit came along and began replacing it. Not too long after, the crosscut saw became widely used, then the chain saw. With the proliferation of the chain saw the axe was no longer used on a daily basis, and as such there was no longer a market for well-made axes. The modern axes made in the USA are usually poured into a mold and tempered one hardness throughout. They’re often too soft to hold a decent edge, or too hard to sharpen with a file. In either case, they’re not good for much except splitting kindling or cutting roots in the ground. There are still good axes available new from Scandinavia, where the axe is still widely used. There are also many great axe heads to be found at antique stores, used tool stores, and flea markets that represent the highest echelon of the axe-maker’s craft. A good test for these is to run a new, sharp file along the edge to sharpen it. If it’s too soft, the file will push the edge over. If it’s too hard, the file will skip. If it’s just right, grab onto the axe with both hands and don’t let go until you pay for it and get it home.

Broken Knife Blade

Gear breaks or fails.  It happens.  If you’re prepared for it the consequences can be minimized.  I prepare for it by bringing a back-up on trips.  If something is crucial to my well-being in the bush I either have, or am prepared to make, another.  How do you prepare for it?

Duluth Pack #4 Rip On Remote Trip

A guarantee on a piece of gear doesn’t mean it won’t fail. It means that if it does fail, the maker will stand behind it and repair or replace it. This is a good policy, but it doesn’t help you when you’re on a remote trip.

This past spring I guided a 105 mile trip on the St. John River in remote, northwest Maine. We covered the distance in a week. On the third morning my pack ripped. It’s a Duluth Pack heavy duty #4. The canvas under the middle buckle tore as I was closing it.

I use a waterproof liner (heavy-duty trash bag) in my packs, so my gear stayed dry, but it was an annoyance because I couldn’t cinch the bag tight and it took up more space in my boat than I had planned. Not a big annoyance, but big annoyances often result from a combination of small ones.

I’m not writing to malign Duluth Pack and their gear – It’s a canvas pack and can be repaired with a patch. I’m writing to ask you to keep in mind that gear fails, and if you’re totally dependant on it, when it fails life gets much more difficult.

Don’t let a guarantee on a piece of gear give you the idea that it will never fail. Before you depart on a either a short trip or an extended expedition, ask yourself what you’ll do if each piece of gear fails. It’s better to have a plan in advance for these possibilities than to make it up after it fails.

Square Cast Iron Skillet

For a trip of any duration, a good skillet ranks just behind the axe, knife and kettle as an irreplaceable piece of kit.

Ever since fellow Maine guide Bud Farwell turned me on to “The One Eyed Poacher And The Maine Woods” during a fall Allagash trip, I’ve been a big fan of Edward Ware Smith’s writing. In his book “Upriver And Down” is an essay about his favorite frying pan that he named “Old Come And Get It.” It was a stamped steel skillet to which he had a special handle attached that would accept a stick in order to give it a really long handle. He used to to cook all manor of wild game, fry potatoes, mix liquor (during prohibition), and many other backwoods tasks. It’s a great essay, and was mentioned by none other than the incomparable Tomahawk on his blog (of which I’m a big fan).

I’ve used stamped steel and cold handle skillets for years, but my favorite skillet isn’t one of them. If I had to carry only one, and I was only cooking for me and one or two other people (not a large group that is usually the norm on my trips), I’d go with my 10.5″ square cast iron skillet.

I’ve got a number of cast iron skillets of various sizes, but the square one is my favorite for cooking outdoors. It is not as good at home as round skillet because most heating elements or burners on stoves are round. This results in colder corners that can act as a heat sink. In actual use this isn’t a big problem; I’ve used mine on electric elements, gas burners, and even the newer glass stovetops, and it hasn’t been a big issue.

Where the square skillet really comes into its own is over an open fire. The square shape is more stable on fire irons than a round skillet because more of it is in contact with the supports. It can also be propped up on its edge, such as when cooking bannock, much easier than a round skillet. The square sides give you the ability to cook more bacon at once, fit several trout at the same time, and is generally serviceable for camp cooking.

I’m in good company, as this skillet was also a favorite of the late Bill Riviere, Maine guide and author.  He wrote that a skillet was referred to as a spider in the north woods of Maine.

Skillet choice is an individual thing. Which one do you carry?

(Link to Amazon, where you can get a square skillet for about $20.)

The Windpouncer jacket is the premiere wind and rain layering system jacket I’ve ever encountered.  Three layers of ultra-thin imagi-foam stand between you and the elements ensuring you stay warm and dry, and your hands are sure to be warm in two large slash pockets lined with their proprietary “cold-be-gone” spun polyester…

OK, this is a completely fake review, and the reason why most outdoor blogs suck.  They try to be important by talking endlessly about gear.  Maybe I’m in the minority, but I’m not that interested in reading about your gear.  I’m interested in reading about what you do and what you think, not what you’ve got.