Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, there are lots of chores to do, so once the sun is up, we clean our breakfast dishes and go about our chores. As the temperature slowly drops and the days get shorter gathering firewood is becoming part of our daily routine. We rarely build a campfire and in the summer we do most of our cooking on a small camp stove. However, when the temperature dips below freezing we build a small fire in a portable woodstove that heats our tent and, once all the bears are hybernating we will start cooking on the woodstove inside our tent as well.
We always gather our firewood far away from our campsite. Usually we paddle the canoe a short distance from our campsite and walk back in the foods to look for wood. It is usually easy to find plenty of dry, downed trees that we can harvest wood from.
It is much easier to find good firewood if you paddle a short distance from camp. Plus when people gather firewood near campsites it can cause the campsites to expand, trails to form.
Ash is our favorite, but usually we find jack pine or black spruce. We load the wood into our canoe and paddle it back to our campsite. Once we are back at camp we use our small camp saw cut the wood into 10 to 12 inch pieces to feed into our wood stove. This time of year we can easily gather enough wood in an hour to last us for several days, but as the temperature drops we will have to spend more and more time each day gather wood. The pay off is that we get to enjoy heat of the stove and the relaxing crackle of the fire when we wake up in the morning, and while we relax in the tent after dinner. #wildernessyear #bwca #boundarywaters #savethebwca
We always gather our firewood far away from our campsite. Usually we paddle the canoe a short distance from our campsite and walk back in the foods to look for wood. It is usually easy to find plenty of dry, downed trees that we can harvest wood from.
It is much easier to find good firewood if you paddle a short distance from camp. Plus when people gather firewood near campsites it can cause the campsites to expand, trails to form.
Ash is our favorite, but usually we find jack pine or black spruce. We load the wood into our canoe and paddle it back to our campsite. Once we are back at camp we use our small camp saw cut the wood into 10 to 12 inch pieces to feed into our wood stove. This time of year we can easily gather enough wood in an hour to last us for several days, but as the temperature drops we will have to spend more and more time each day gather wood. The pay off is that we get to enjoy heat of the stove and the relaxing crackle of the fire when we wake up in the morning, and while we relax in the tent after dinner. #wildernessyear #bwca #boundarywaters #savethebwca
