Our house is a bit of a tip right now. Bags and barrels spilling their contents on every floor, canoe upturned in the yard to avoid the rain, midway through repairs/upgrades, and the dehydrator is going full-time. The Paull River trip is just a week away! The cats are definitely aware of the coming change, and I'm being careful to keep anything suseptible to peeing-on off the floor, as they are little gits when it comes to telling us off for going on holiday....One thing we decided to change completely for this trip was the way we cook. Normally we'd take a Whisperlite, Dragonfly, or Superfly stove with us, but given that this is a wilderness trip we've opted to reduce the use of petroleum products, and trying cooking only on wood stoves. This has several advantages beyond making a miniscule change to the world's fossil fuel consumption (compared to even just the gas we burn driving 2,500 km round trip to Missinipe, it's really nothing). The main advantages are:
- Not having to carry potentially leaky containers of aviation fuel. Better for everyone!
- Not having to constantly ration the fuel, and worry about running out.
- Not having to pay for the aviation fuel.
- Not having to find space in the boat and use energy portaging several kg of fuel.
We've bought a new stove and made use of an old one. The new stove is a Littlbug, which burns wood up to half an inch in diameter. The old one is a Kelly Kettle that my old friend Frank gave to me many years ago. Back in the UK it had little more than novelty value, since 60 million people sharing a tiny island tend to get through the available wood pretty quickly, and what's left is either on private land or in protected parks. Over here, though it may well be in its element....or whatever you'd call the heating part of the stove.
We ran some tests in the yard this morning. The Littlbug was amazing - it forms a great wind tunnel for the fire, and I got a litre of water boiled in less than six minutes (possibly quite a bit less - I wasn't watching the pan, and then it boiled over). We tested the kettle using a Trangia meths burner (we're taking two litres of meths as emergency fuel). It worked really well, but unfortunately the inside of the kettle has gone a bit lumpy over the years - strange because it hasn't been used, but I contacted the company and got a great reply from Patrick, the director. Hopefully I can resolve the issue, but he'll replace the kettle if not - even though it's seven or maybe even ten years since the purchase.
