Walk softly, and carry an axe
That’s the first commandment of the woods
Paul Smith: You should never go into the woods without an axe. My father taught me this as one of his 10 outdoor commandments. I was just a wee boy at the time, eager to learn stuff about hunting, fishing, and camping. I soaked it all in.
You should never go into the woods without an axe. My father taught me this as one of his 10 outdoor commandments. I was just a wee boy at the time, eager to learn stuff about hunting, fishing, and camping. I soaked it all in.
Other commandments speak of matches, long johns and other stuff appropriate to the season. But Dad put his axe above all else. And although I break the first commandment now and then in summer, I know very well that my father was absolutely right.
I’m writing on Feb. 1 and the temperature outside is 5 C, with water dripping off my roof. Tomorrow night the mercury is predicted to fall to -4 C. Last week we had a couple of bitter cold days with highs well below zero, -8 C, if memory serves.
Our weather here on the Avalon Peninsula is nearly always in a yo-yo pattern, freezing one day, mild the next, snow turning to rain. I really don’t like it, but what can you do? I enjoy living here in Spaniard’s Bay with property adjacent to the ocean. So, like I wrote about last week, I’m embracing what the gods dish out and making the best of it. But I rather have cold and snow when it is in season. I hate plowing slush.
What has all this weather talk to do with toting an axe into the woods? Lots, and I’m sure I’ve preached this message before in my five years writing this column, but it’s so important that it deserves repetition. In this neck of the woods it is near impossible to get a fire going and maintained without the benefit of an axe. My father knew this, and so do most of the folks who roam our hills and forests. A knife just doesn’t cut it, unless it’s one of those huge varieties, capable of batoning billets.
Notwithstanding, batoning is nowhere near as efficient for splitting wood as an axe, and those big hefty knives are nearly as heavy as a small hatchet, so there’s little to be gained.
The crux of the matter is that you must split wood to start and sustain a campfire. It rained this past weekend. It is predicted to freeze tonight and tomorrow. The water that’s soaked into the surface of dead standing wood will be trapped as ice. Dead and standing wood is the best for winter fires. Living green wood will not burn, and dry limbs might do for a quick boil up, but to sustain life in the woods you need substantial fuel.
You must cut down dead trees, buck them into shorter billets, and then split them in quarter or half. All this can be achieved most efficiently with even a belt axe. A knife, no matter how beefy, will be a tough go.
To get the fire started you need thin, dry splits. Simply take one of your quarters and split it further into skinny pieces no more than an inch in thickness. It’s the dry, inner wood that you need to get at. The fibre around the outside of the log is often soaked with water, ice or frost.
You’ll need 20 or so splits from the dry core of your firewood to get the blaze crackling and popping. It’s a wonderful sound, sweet music when your fingers are tingling and your toes numb with cold. And there might be a crisis in the woods when fire means life over death.
Even dry splits will not ignite directly from the flame of a match. Some folks carry tinder in their packs while some purists go totally natural. Even the hardy voyageurs carried tinder, so there’s no shame in it. Birch rind is as good as anything short of kerosene but it isn’t always available.
Here’s what I often do to help the process along, even with tinder. With your knife, or by using an axe like a knife, cut thin shavings from the driest splits that you have. Sometimes I leave them attached at one end to make a sort of fire-starter stick. If the wood is bone dry, this will ignite even without tinder.
For my part, I nearly always carry some kind of fire-starter material with me in winter. For the sake of bushcraft I’ll try not to use it, but it’s always in my bag for emergencies, right next to my first aid kit.
Paul Smith, a native of Spaniard’s Bay, fishes and wanders the outdoors at every opportunity. He can be contacted at flyfishtherock@hotmail.com or follow him on twitter at @flyfishtherock