By Jim Baird

It’s great to go on a multi-day - wilderness expedition. You see so much of the land and you get to camp in a new spot every night. The only problem is that it can be a pain to make and break camp every day. A few key things that make breaking camp quicker can get you on the water or on the trail much faster every day and will make your style of travel more efficient, and more enjoyable.

Stuff It - In the video you see me roll the tent—a must when you have a canvas tent like we had. But when using your other tents, just stuff them; don’t bother rolling. It takes way too long. Stuff your sleeping bag, to. Seriously, what is the point of fussing with rolling a sleeping bag? It’s a pain.
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By Jim Baird

Two days before I saw this bird, I got a couple ptarmigans for the pot. My gun worked with out incident. This bird in the video got away because my firing pin was frozen. Once the trip was done, I told the story to my friend Pat in Ulukhaktok, and he showed me what he uses to lube his gun in extreme cold.

He uses a fast-drying graphite spray made for aviation applications that can handle extreme cold. Oil-based lubricants get very slow and sticky at low temperatures. In the deep cold, the heat created from firing your gun creates condensation that can freeze your pin. In these conditions, it’s better to use no lube at all if you don’t have a dry lubricant, wiping all the oil-based lube from your gun. I would also consider putting a stronger spring in my gun in future situations like this.

Moral of the story: If your gun freezes up when your ptarmigan hunting, you’ll go hungry. If your gun is freezes up when you’re being charged by a bear, the bear doesn’t go hungry.

Graphite spray it is. [ Read Full Post ]

By David Maccar

With the list of grizzly and black bear attacks this year steadily growing, we can add polar bears to the mix. While on a British Schools Exploring Society trip in the Norwegian Island of Svalbard, 17-year-old Horatio Chappie of the UK was mauled to death by a polar bear. The bear injured four others in the 12-person party before one of the group members shot and killed it.

From this story on BBCNews:
The four who were hurt - two severely - included two leaders of the trip. They have been flown to Tromsoe in Norway where their condition is stable. BSES chairman Edward Watson described Mr Chapple as a "fine young man".

Mr Watson said the society had been in touch with his family - who live near Salisbury - and had offered "our utmost sympathy".

He said: "Horatio was a fine young man, hoping to go on to read medicine after school. By all accounts he would've made an excellent doctor."

He said the society's executive director was travelling to Svalbard, adding: "We are continuing to gather information on this tragedy."  Mr Chapple was studying at Eton College in Berkshire. Geoff Riley, head of teaching and learning technologies at the school paid tribute on Twitter, saying his thoughts and prayers were with his family. The attack, near the Von Post glacier about 25 miles (40km) from Longyearbyen, took place early on Friday.

The group contacted the Svalbard authorities using a satellite phone and a helicopter was sent to rescue them. The bear was shot dead by a member of the group. [ Read Full Post ]

By Jim Baird

There is nothing like having some fresh, hot bread in the bush. Have you ever tried to bring a loaf of bread on a camping trip? It doesn’t end well. Your bread will be smashed and moldy in no time. Pita works and will save for three weeks if vacuumed sealed, but it’s hard to beat a steaming-hot piece of fluffy bush bread coated with margarine, peanut butter, and jam. Honey, maple syrup, or molasses are also great. When I get to frying it up, I like to build a little inventory so I’ll have some for the next day or two. It keeps for about five days depending on the temperature.

Bush bread is more commonly known as bannock, but I’ve also heard it being called trail bread, grease bread, or Indian bread. It has been a popular food throughout the north for hundreds of years. There are many different recipes for it, each one a little different. Here’s the recipe I used in the Arctic. For my summer trips I bring margarine instead of butter because it doesn’t go bad. Any type of fat will do, the voyagers often used bacon grease.
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By Chad Love

As the drought afflicting the southern part of the nation deepens, wildlife is moving out of the woods and into our yards in search of what little food and water is available.

From this story in the Houston Chronicle: 
The rat looked dead. It was face down, arms splayed, in the big shallow pan of water placed near the fence as succor for the wildlife suffering in adjacent woods left blistering hot and deadly dry by Texas' ongoing drought. Every morning, we'd fill the pan with clean, cool water and then watch as a steady parade of wildlife trickled from the woods to slake their obviously considerable thirst or nibble at the mix of millet, sunflowers, shelled corn and other food we scattered for them. There were cat squirrels, swamp rabbits, possums, coons and all manner of birds. It was an all-day procession, a sure sign the deepening drought was causing wildlife that normally survived by living wary and crepuscular lives to do something they normally would not do - abandon the cover of the forest and expose themselves in a wide-open yard during the middle of the day to get a drink of water or a bite of food...The rat, it turned out, wasn't dead at all. It was simply floating in the water, trying to keep cool and hydrated. [ Read Full Post ]

By Editors

As a natural pessimist who assumes everything could go south at any given moment, this video piqued my interest. Take a look at the LifeCube emergency shelter, a tent system with an integrated hard floor that serves as its own heavy plastic shipping container when not deployed. The cube has detachable hoop wheels so it can be moved over uneven terrain. Once the whole thing unfolds, it forms a raised 144-square-foot platform.

Check out the video of it’s 5-minute deployment, and try to ignore the corny music if you can.

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