So much has changed since my last column two weeks ago.
We are now in COVID-19 Alert Level 5 and it looks like life will be locked down for likely the rest of this winter.
Oh well, we’ll make the best of it like always.
Rod Hale and I have been planning a winter camping trip into the backcountry. We figured on pulking our canvas Labrador tent about 10 km and setting up proper for a few days.
In January of 2020 we bought a new lightweight woodstove specifically for the adventure. The trip was delayed by Snowmageddon, and then cancelled by the onset of the pandemic. We thought this winter might be a go. The stove remains shiny new and without black smoky soot.
Looking forward to winter overnight trekking 2022 and adding some character to that stove.
Turre and duck hunting with buddies is also cancelled.
Friday nights at the cabin are done for a while.
We are praying once again that lockdown ends before salmon fishing season. Remember my kayak fishing story and the new solo fishing kayak I bought. I’m happy with that decision. Spring trouting is just around the corner. I love trouting alone.
There is much I can do in my bubble or alone.
I’ve been getting in plenty of hiking. That a good thing, and right now we have some decent snowshoeing conditions here on the unpredictable Avalon. Predictably unpredictable I suppose, because its been cold of late, yet tomorrow afternoon at low tide it will be 9-degrees. I’m going on the sea trout hunt.
Odd isn’t it, snowshoeing in the frigid cold one day, and fly fishing without freezing to death the next. That’s the Avalon Peninsula.
I’ve been doing quite a bit of carpentry lately, getting the ceiling insulated and finished in that new building I’ve mentioned now and then. That’s the one with the wood furnace that has me cutting firewood again after a long hiatus. I love the furnace, great heat and comfort. I spend too much time gazing into the flames through the glass door. I’d get more work done without it, but hey, what odds? It’s my meditation and thinking time.
A crackling fire soothes the soul.
Regarding fires, have any of you ever tried lighting a fire using the top down technique?
I mean putting the bigger logs on bottom and the kindling on top. That might seem counterintuitive at first, until you think more deeply about it. As the kindling burns the glowing embers collapse downwards into the bigger wood below and ignite it. The technique works fantastic. I first heard of it in a book I bought for Christmas 2019, “Norwegian Wood,” by Lars Mytting. Those Scandinavians certainly have woodsy stuff all figured out.
Here’s exactly how I’ve been lighting my fire lately. I take three hefty split logs and place them split side up and aside each other in the bottom of my furnace’s firebox. Then I take smaller sticks and place them perpendicular to the bigger logs and spaced a few inches apart. I leave enough room to tuck in some tinder, egg cartons, ripped up cardboard, birch rind, or whatever.
On top of that I place my dry splits, from either carpentry scraps or fir logs peeled and dried for the cause. Light her up and forget about it, do some work, or light a pipe and gaze into the flames.
Normally you have to tend a fire until it’s burning well, adding bigger wood as the flames build, and being careful not to cause a catastrophic collapse. You know what I mean.
Did you ever notice how smoke pours out the chimney top during the lighting process? There’s none of that with the top down method, nary a puff, and not a chance of collapse. This is a very efficient method both as a time save, if you choose to go do something else, and your initial burn is less prone to creosote production. The wood fuel combusts cleaner and hotter more quickly.
I’m very impressed.
Of course you need dry seasoned wood. Nothing else will do. Never burn green or unseasoned firewood. It is inefficient, dangerous, and a carbon production calamity. Ever notice smoke continuously bellowing from chimneys? Might look photogenic and all, but not good. Dry wood and a well-designed stove produce very little smoke. Carbon emission is minimum.
Speaking of carbon and green energy, I wonder is burning wood “green” in the ecological sense. I think yes, based on what I have read. Or it can be, but maybe not for us, considering the way we manage domestic wood cutting here in Newfoundland.
I think we need to do better. Here’s how.
Studies in Norway have shown that when firewood is harvested selectively, properly seasoned, and burned in a modern high efficiency furnace or stove, it adds less carbon to the atmosphere than it would if left to rot on the ground. That is amazing. I won’t quote numbers now, but if anyone is interested I can supply references. But you need a high efficiency wood burning appliance and dry wood. That’s the secret. And forests need proper management.
Which leads me to the way we manage our forests here on The Rock. In around my cabin where I am not allowed to cut firewood there are enough blow downs and standing dead trees for me to feed my furnace for the rest of my days. The wood will rot and release carbon in the process.
Why should I not be permitted to harvest and burn it? We need to embrace selective harvesting as they have in other more progressive countries.
And this is not all on governments. We harvesters need to consider our responsibility to the environment. ecause I have the feeling many would abuse the privilege to selectively harvest with less geographic restriction. Right now the system is in need of adjustment. Woodcutters are restricted to arbitrary areas with depleted wood, while prime firewood falls and rots on the ground all around us. We have to think about this and find a better path forward.
Gathering firewood and burning wood to heat our homes is part of our heritage and culture. Carried out in the right way I think it might also be some measure of our green energy plan as we move forward in the 21st century. That’s the way the Scandinavians are viewing it.
And cutting your own wood is a great save on gym memberships. You won’t need to pump iron after cutting a cord of spruce.
Fresh air and wholesome manual labour, the buzz of a chainsaw, there’s nothing like it.
Paul Smith, a native of Spaniard’s Bay, fishes and wanders the outdoors at every opportunity.
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