Winter in the northern forest

The snow is deep. The nights are long and cold. Some days it seems like all that lived here during the hustle and bustle of those long summer days have been suffocated by the thick blanket of snow. Of course many departed for warmer climes with the onset of winter. For those that remain life is hard but the woodsman armed with experience, attitude and a few key items of equipment and clothing can live and work in this extreme environment. The canoe, the transport of choice before the freeze up, has been safely stowed away. When the ice is thick enough to bear weight the waterways once again become the easiest way to travel through the bush.

In these conditions freezing or drowning (or freezing and drowning!) are very real outcomes of even the smallest mistake or misjudgment. An average human’s body temperature is 36.8 °C (98.2 °F). This means that even at minus 20 °C we must overcome a temperature differential of nearly 57 °C. This is no mean feat. Everything we do must be measured and aimed at conserving the energy we fight so hard to gain.

For true mastery of this environment we look to the indigenous peoples of the North. In North America those resident in the northern forests (such as Cree, Ojibway, Mi’kmaq, Algonquin) developed and refined their bushcraft, clothing and equipment to deal with cold conditions over many lifetimes of experience. After experimenting with some of their technology I’m astonished at how it performs.

A great example of this is the mukluk. Mukluks are the traditional winter footwear of the indigenous people of the far North of North America. The design is basically a boot – high enough to keep snow out and roomy enough for plenty of insulation. Exact design and materials vary by region and what was available. More about this later but briefly these things outperform any cold weather footwear I’ve tried before. Light, comfortable, dry, warm. Made by my own fair hand they cost a fraction of the price of the fancy gore lined boots I normally wear.

While there’s much to be said for modern stuff it’s good to step back and weigh up the benefits. If you’re just going out for a couple of hours and are 99% sure you’ll be back in a nice warm house before supper to dry everything off this becomes less important – just use anything that works for a few hours. However, to live and work comfortably outdoors for even a few days in cold weather you need kit you can rely on and that can be repaired easily on the trail. Failure of key items in these conditions could spell big trouble.

Of course it’s difficult to pick some of this stuff up in shops – mukluks don’t tend to be up there on the shelf alongside the rubber pac boots. Some are commercially available but in my experience just don’t match up to your own hand made creations! This becomes a great advantage. Most items are pretty easy to make. Once you’ve made them you have the knowledge to make repairs or even replacements in the field. Before you know it these things are meeting all your needs and turning all you thought about outdoor gear on its head.

Going hand in hand with the mukluk is a good pair of snowshoes. There are many designs ranging from emergency shoes which are basically a plank of wood or bunch of fir strapped to each foot to the modern metal constructed shoe. They all do the same job – stop you from sinking too far in deep snow. As with the mukluk, snow shoes have evolved depending on local conditions and availability of materials. Most are very simple and very efficient. After using snow shoes for a short period you soon gain an understanding of why and where the different designs work. Again, traditional wooden snowshoes can be repaired in the field. Metal ones would prove more difficult.

Snowshoes are also easily made at home. There are a small number of books on the subject but without exception they are aimed at the woodworker using bought timber and a workshop with its tools and measures. This is fine and a good learning experience but once you get into construction you can’t help but think about how it was done for real out in the woods somewhere. Making snowshoes with just an axe and knife is something I’m itching to try. I have a strong feeling it will be easier using and listening to green wood rather than it was relying on measurements and steam bending.

For carrying a load over deep snow a heavy rucksack is pretty impractical as the extra weight just causes us to sink further and expend even more of those precious calories to move along. We adopt the traditional man-hauled toboggan. Beautiful in it’s simplicity (can you see a pattern emerging now?) the toboggan is a very simple device constructed of two or three long planks with a curve at the front to ride over the snow. Walking on snowshoes leaves a packed trail (known as a “float” by those in the know). The toboggan naturally follows the float. Well, it does until you start trying to go up or down hills but that’s one for another time!

In the north toboggans were traditionally made from birch or larch but really any hardy wood which can be bent enough to get a reasonable curve could be employed. Traditionally the planks were bound together using countersunk rawhide but these days wood screws are a more convenient  alternative. The toboggan is something around twelve to sixteen inches wide and maybe ten or twelve feet long so you can pack low and long and still fit plenty of gear on it. It’s not uncommon to be hauling a couple of hundred pounds on one of these things. When you think about the clothing, shelter and food needed in these conditions the weight soon stacks up.

Now we have a means of moving about we need to think about maintaining our body temperature. Key to this is a good clothing system and some shelter. Clothing is best layered. If you think about the extremes of pulling a two hundred pound load up a snow slope versus taking a rest stop at minus 25 °C you’ll see that an easily adaptable clothing system makes sense. Clothing is added or removed in order to remain just warm enough to avoid sweating. A build up of moisture in clothing at these low temperatures can be very dangerous –  the rapid loss of heat easily leading to hypothermia.

Clothing should also follow our simplicity ideal. Natural fabrics are a great choice. Manmade underwear and fleece layers are fine but tend to get smelly and are susceptible to melting when using fires and stoves. Wool is relatively heavy but also relatively smell-free. Anyone itching just at the thought of woollen underwear really should try some of the modern merino clothing. Topped off with some sort of windproof layer we can be comfortable in pretty extreme conditions although remembering we need to conserve energy we should start thinking hard about the need to venture out in such conditions.

This is where a decent shelter becomes essential. Ideas of heading up to Alaska and building a lean to for the winter are all well and good in theory. In practice some kind of tent with a wood burning stove provides a more comfortable (and safe!) environment to live, work, cook and sleep. Drying clothing becomes simpler. Being able to take off a few layers for a while becomes possible – in fact with the stove cranked up, layers start coming off like there’s no tomorrow! Life becomes much more pleasant.

Hopefully this rambling journey through some winter basics has whetted your appetite. Over the next couple of weeks I’ll turn a jumble of photos and notes into some articles on each of the key items of equipment and maybe even how to make them. I’m certainly no expert in this environment but know enough to avoid trouble. If you have any comments or suggestions feel free to chip in!

If you want to learn even more the bible for winter snowshoe travel is “Snow Walker’s Companion” by Garrett & Alexandra Conover.* An absolute mine of good information.

* Just for the record I have an affiliate account with Amazon and may even earn enough to buy a curly wurly or something if you happen to buy anything.

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