Winter Camping with Tierney Angus: Bacon, Donuts, Mukluks, Toboggans and Hot Tent Tips

Description

http://myselfreliance.com/hot-tenting-winter-camping-luxury-style-tierney-angus/

Cold camping looks miserable. Sure, tough guys like Shawn James and Joe Robinet can pack up everything they need in a small sled or backpack, fell huge trees blindfolded and with one arm tied behind their backs, start fires with nothing more than some dental floss and pocket lint, and sleep in a snow cave. Good for them for doing so. I, on the other hand, like my creature comforts and warm toes too much.

I don’t ever go minimalist or lightweight, even for summer canoe camping, but all of the gear I do bring serves more than one purpose. I do enjoy being resourceful and using my surroundings to achieve maximum camp vibes, but I also like knowing that the gear I have carefully chosen and brought with me will suffice.

Winter camping is a relatively new activity for me. I’d camped in a foot of snow in my three-season tent, but that was mostly by accident. Last year I decided that it was pretty lame to stay indoors for the whole hard water season, so my partner Andrew and I began researching traditional canvas tents and trail stoves in order to make the most of the snow. I studied Snow Walker’s Companion, by Garett and Alexandra Conover religiously and watched a whole heck of a lot of YouTube videos.

We dithered about the cost of outfitting ourselves for winter, but eventually settled on a 10x10’ Atuk Alaskan all-canvas tent with custom 30” side walls. We chose the Alaskan model because it’s a nice, simple square, and the placement of the stove is next to the door. It cost less because it was made in Canada, unlike other popular canvas tent brands like Snowtrekkers. The Atuk Kanguk model, a pentagon, is extremely popular, but I couldn’t wrap my head around how to arrange the interior of a five-sided living space. We also weren’t too keen on the centre stove placement. I’m a huge klutz, and a stove in the middle of our tent would most likely result in injury, loss of limbs, and a catastrophic tent fire.

Our stove, a Kni-Co Packer model, heats the space easily. The tent is definitely colder at the back, away from the stove, but with so much room to move around inside it’s not a big deal. The stove placement also allows us to build a raised bed at the back of the tent to keep us elevated and in a warmer air space. It’s roomy enough for guests to sleep in as long as we keep the majority of our gear outside.

We built our own 10’ winter freight toboggans and purchased some extra duffel bags from military surplus stores. We purchased an extendable chainsaw pole to use as the centre pole in the tent, as we didn’t want to rely on finding a tree and cutting it to size. Andrew made a heat reflector shield out of thin-gauge aluminum siding and a few hinges, which nests into the same box as our wood stove. He built an ice chisel out of a broom handle and a sharp blade. We also sewed our own winter moccasins this year, following the patterns generously provided by Lure of the North. Andrew is very handy, I am not. These projects weren’t very easy for me.

We ended up making so much of our winter kit for several reasons:

This stuff is EXPENSIVE and I am extremely cheap

There are only a few manufacturers of traditional winter gear, so options are limited

I am extremely cheap

I’m a miserly Scrooge

We weren’t sure if we would love winter camping and didn’t want to fork out thousands of dollars on equipment we didn’t know we would use

We ran out of cash after buying the tent, the stove, and the materials for our toboggans

As it turns out, we do love winter camping. I love sitting by the warmth of the fire in our tent and being able to cook extravagant feasts on the stove. I love the snow and the cold and the absence of biting insects. I love the way the branches cast shadow patterns on the white cotton tent walls. I love weaving a floor for the tent of evergreen boughs which smells like the north and feels like sleeping on a cloud. Winter camping is a lot of hard work, but it’s so rewarding in a cosy hot tent. I think of our canvas tent as a portable cabin… we can bring all the comforts of home and still be outside when the mercury drops to forty below.

About the Author:

Tierney Angus is a journalism student, canoeing enthusiast, backcountry camper, and Friends of Temagami board member. She’s a granola-munching, recycled sandal-wearing, tree-hugging long-haired hippie freak. Tierney is an insufferable beer snob and cooks most everything in bacon fat. If you liked this piece, check out her blog at thehappyadventure.com or on Instagram @tear_knee and @friendsoftemagami.

Tags: bushcraft,camping,gear,winter camping,temagami,atuk,hot tent,woman camping,outdoors,cold camping

Video Transcription

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hey everybody Sean James here for my self-reliance I'm up into Mogami today with tyranny Angus and we are talking with your camping very interested in their camping system so let's go ahead and talk to Tierney and Andrew and see what they have set up here where can people find you well this vlog can be found at the happy adventure comm it's mostly backcountry canoeing but last year we started getting into winter camping too so this is our winter tent let me I should mention that ruff just soaked it - Mogami on the edge of Temagami lake and lake Temagami and it's - uh 20-something because I went up to - 13 I think was - 30 overnight the wind chill so so they have got a really comfortable setup here if you could tell us a little bit about what - what we're in and what your setup is yeah so we have the I took Alaskan model it's 10 by 10 feet the Alaskan model is a square which I found pretty normal and easy to understand and organize the interior of the kanga Caudill which is a Pentagon is really popular everyone is buying the kanga but I couldn't figure out the pentagon shape just a little bit weird so I wanted the square I didn't want the stove right in the middle of the tent either so it's off to the side where I hopefully won't fall into it all that often I still do but less often and if it was in the middle and yeah it's a nice big square we did some custom higher sidewalls here so on the regular ones you can just buy they're about 24 inches so 6 inches shorter than this we went with 30 inches that we have a little bit more space and kind of get out of them way in the middle of the tent some more takes more room Andrews keeping us nice and toasty over there excusing the fire very comfortable and bright in here now it's all my favorite things about it - in when the Sun comes in you can see all the patterns of the branches on the inside or Gambas yeah it's really pretty it's nice but it's great - you're not in like a dark nylon cave like that a lot we're sitting on your bed here so what of advantages here you was talking about with that you have a wide spot here away from the stove so here a couple or three some whatever you argued you get together in one comfortable spot yeah and then you saw at the kitchen area over in that area and then we've got a bunch of gear stashed over there this year yeah plenty of space to move around yeah we were originally looking into getting the tango at twelve by twelve but then we figured out that you only gain an extra two square feet of interior space and you still have to do everything around the very center where the stove would be in the center in the pool so we're under to the floor if you can describe your better and the flooring here so we went pretty traditional

I cut a bunch of boughs we are in a crown land area so that is permissible it's not against the rules also I try to only take one or two bells from a couple mature trees and then they're all kind of woven in I start in the back corner and then I work my way all the way out and I can build up the bed a little bit higher just have some more insulation from the snow and then I leave a space just around the stove area and then we put down a couple float logs to keep the melt back issues to a minimum and it's pretty cozy like I'm sitting on here I can't feel the cold ground coming up at all yeah yeah and even like kind of away from the stove because we're a little bit higher - we're in a little bit of a warmer air space than if we were down at the same level of the stove mm-hmm you have a good point so this Center pole that they have here different so the thing about the canyon tents I don't think any of them come with poles reticles yeah this is a weight savings but then you have to come up with something on site or they've done here I'll zoom and show you a close-up they still use a just an extension pole for painting or something yeah yeah it works really well and also I'm not that good at eyeballing eight feet so if I had to cut a bowl it was eight feet I probably have to bring along a measuring tape and oh yeah the first to become fair with ya yeah so we've got a couple extra holes in the pool too so that it is the correct height

okay we found that if we were setting up the tent to the full eight feet peak or eight and a half foot peak I forget which it kind of raises all the snow skirts a bit so it's not flush to the ground and it pulls the fabric so it's not nice and taut so if you lower it by a few inches - then it's um yeah it kind of makes everything guy out a little bit straighter okay that's good to know - I struggled with that when I'm studying the smaller tank tops trying to figure out that how you yeah I just lower it a little bit it really helped yeah good because otherwise like all of this would be quite puckered Dereham that's up what Tierney's talking about with snow and seeing the snow probably can't see the tarp here so by this little skirts on the outside that you can pile snow off when it's holds the thing down and stops the wind from blowing underneath said difficulty is when you've been here a few days that freezes solid right off the chip fitter yeah yeah now the bottoms of the snow spirits they are I don't know some kind of plasticky stuff so it comes off of that pretty easily um and for this the other day it got pretty icy because it was almost raining a little bit but I just used that car windshield scraper works great yeah you get all the ice chunks right off of that no for you are scraper when you go on it once again car scraper for sure yeah very important and a little brush this has been amazing it's a little shoe polish brush oh yeah and for getting all the snow off of my wool before I come inside good idea yeah oh yeah you know that's a great idea because when you use your hand you melt it as you're touching it tends to just you should do that's just brushes I know yeah actually you need to see you have to see what they've made here these are uh mukluks very cool maybe you can describe those for us so I use the lure the north pattern they are very generous in putting their patterns online for free and yeah they didn't they took about two full days of work I guess yeah they're super cozy I always have cold feet and my feet have not been cold and cyclic meson and inside there felt packed but you can put yeah they're wool felt liners I bought them from the failed store calm yeah apparently that exists and yeah you can't buy boot liners but aren't full of that weird reflective material anymore to them yeah so you go to Canadian Tire or even we went to TSC we went to everywhere you can't buy them they're not natural but he wants the full wool traditional stuff and then that way put all the moisture through so even if you're feeding it a lot it will just evaporate right right yeah you might be able to find those that no use clothing store do them but I probably got 15 pairs since every time a boot where is that I keep the felt liners but and then what up do you bring extra liners on the trip yeah yeah we've got another pair liners because we also have our Sorel - okay so those have the liners in them but my feet fries in westeros they're supposed to be good to minus-40 I can't wear them anything less than minus 10 I agree my feet are actually cold right now I think the rubber yeah plastic and nylon and stuff is just transfers they via cold yeah yeah these are great and your feet can move which is really important you can wiggle your toes around these are quite generously oversized we chose the boat there you stuff them full of oh yeah I've got three pairs of socks on yeah well the front here is that you open up yeah they're just so much either drinking I meant to you here well so I do have plans to change these straps this is an old apron strap but we ordered lamp-wick and it didn't arrive in time so I really wanted to bring these on this trip so they just wrap over it you can add a button to to kind of keep it closed social easier oh yeah that's a little liner there than my very bulky socks just all wrapped up with that that's cool that's they're flexible like that you can change the cup tight you do them yeah yeah that's the problem with boot so guys normally I don't wear these Cyril jury often I wear more like a hiking boot

you can't bulk up when it gets cold you can put four pair of socks owner oh yeah pack it for something else if you want yeah exactly yeah they're nice Tosi Nussbaum sound like that very nice and they look cool yeah they were cool thank you this one I had a bad piece of buckskin so I had to patch it already huh but again you can do that a man my first pair yeah not bad very good very cool he'll refine them eventually tyranny mentioned her vlog but I know she's also on Instagram it's so we follow along and I think yet Andy said he's not online but I think even we like Alicia yeah doesn't say my wife they didn't say thank you comments are like say odd yeah yeah you like my photos which is very nicest so Tierney has a good Instagram account account check that it as well yes dear underscoring me my name's you made that clear yes also on some of the forms whatever yeah my CC are on my CPR canoe tripping net winter trekking calm I think that's it and your blog one more time the happy adventure calm

it's named after a canoe our canoes named a happy adventure and it's named that after Farley Mowat boat who wouldn't float our canoe has not lived up to its namesake which is always a good thing it does slow yes that's good very good yeah let's show you around a little bit oh cool screen that Andrew made and you're gonna be in a shot just deal with it some siding aluminum that's been riveted together with some hinges to create a he reflector and it folds up to be the exact same size of the stove so it fits in the same box okay always bring like a little a little drill bit thing for making candle holders too it's nice to have a canvas you go you don't have to have stuff like this I've got a Leatherman as well just nice to have I just found that bringing a spade bit with you especially one like this it starts the whole forever and so actually that Center pole goes into a piece of wood sitting flat okay under this metallic we can make sure it doesn't slip

if that pull does start to kick out on an angle so this is just not you could do it with a knife or whatever you want um but then you can start your whole and rescue center pull in that groove and then bury it into the snow pack it down and then it'll never slip out of that hole that's cool I like that yeah it's pretty candleholders last night to do that so it's okay you're bringing a screwdriver with you but you can make a candle holder as well you have lots of time in the evenings yeah and what else have we got in here to show us all kinds of goodies are placemat which is also our archive covered but it's a knife it keeps your feet off the ground - you seem a little nut this one keeping your feet warm is always an issue obviously in here because you're living in this mill but we've got a nice little foot rest over there - yeah good another little trick is to just so your feet aren't pulling the moisture up oh yeah and we're obviously living in here and sucks all the time oh yes I'm sit yeah and so that way you just keep them up and dry this is another thing that's super helpful for the stove here it's a little bit difficult to regulate the temperature in your stove because they burn stuff up really quickly and then you're you've got glowing red spots which is bad for the stove it means it's going to burn out faster but with this you can kind of keep an eye on it so if we go to started going into danger over fire we kind of damp it down a little bit and control the burn a little bit more it also warns you when you're going to get into creosote so you don't get would poop drips on your tent which is a big pet peeve of mine what a big safety factor is that way you know until the creosote goes yeah yeah that's another thing we cut out the spark arrestor we do have a cap for the top of the tailpipe okay we cut we snipped out the spark arrestor because we saw everyone else has had it in there it would just get clogged with creosote and you have all this smoke filling your tent and it's just really dangerous so we cut it out it's only good for a potato masher it'll actually drift and stay in the tent which yeah statics but current we have not had any issues even as most time with no spark arrestor yeah we didn't put the cap on this refinery I mentioned that another one of my videos this temperature control of the pipe itself is important if you run cold fires all the time I suggest always at one point at the beginning typically of your trip and then again at the end if you can getting this temperature up into the close to the danger zone because it actually will burn the creosote it out need to get flash heat up there melt it burn it out and then it never builds up you can literally have a completely clean pipe if you burn at least one hot fire on every trip yeah we usually try to pick it up really high right away just to make sure that everything's good to go in the early morning it tends to get up into the danger zone yeah you're using first fire the day always hits the danger though yeah you can't you can't maintain a fire in here overnight unless you're feeding it every half hour and then you're not getting any sleep so why bother just bring your warm stuff ultimately it's called camping yeah yeah the fire goes a genius LeMay that's another great point I don't think people realize that I don't think I realized that when I first heard about hot tenting I assumed you kept the fire going

that's a winter camping is not about lightness that's for sure no good and heavy yeah exactly not a light setup I think altogether it probably weighs about 50 pounds for the tents of the stove okay yeah I'm not carrying it on my back Yeah right and I mean in the summer when we're portaging the food barrel is about 85 pounds in the beginning of the trip so yeah really not that bad yeah that's true yeah yeah I mean the weather's pretty dry it you got some bad weather when you're up here but you know a lot of trips you're going to get snowstorms or warm spells or you have wet so it's nice to get in out of that and be able to dry off especially them dry their gear yeah we're sitting early yeah and it gets so hot up in the top that things dry really fast if you had a little bit a wet sleeping bag just from the frost build up and then you hang it up there isn't done in 20 minutes incredible yeah yeah you can feel even just kneeling up right here I'm roasting my I'm a big tub I was just like because when we set it up I said and here's a pill and he'll go out in the old aisles asides just for the fold of the collapse like smells like bacon in here Oh directly like a little more team pretty warm I'll just take the balance with the pasta pesto see if it still is right a big deal like yeah we make what we call a flop hole yeah inside yes the parish water I mean if it's the time today it would be pretty lazy to do that Butthead 11/8/12 a night after Jersey yeah you're you're pouring you're in scouts right in the hood into this roof I what's in that um flour baking powder a little bit of sugar

and that may in just melt and you sprinkle like dip them in sugar if I'm at work and for maple maple here am usually very coming bag issue is in although they're about that need to live yep okay alright guys are done nothing forget the white sugar and go straight to the maple yes chef the original tinder the bacon grease sausage grease and lemon oil David we don't have enough okay let's take it variables out actually a bigger than 50 holds almost twice as well as two in course no condition all right [Music]

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all of this work for right now the rigging

that's immensely hydrophobic fine you bought it in a sailing drawer no no but then obviously just run it back and we're taking one this plate doesn't work there's events so one problem is if you have bulky items like if you don't have the right bags to pack a gear into everything I've got more than a year to roll yeah and then the Paul Kerr protected this because it's my side well if your belly your bag pokes out your dragons

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please don't forget to subscribe to the channel and if you can like and comment below I'd really appreciate it that a whole series on winter camping coming up probably twelve videos on different winter camping setups still to tell the story about the log cabin that I lived in in my early 20s and all the adventures I did while I was in there quite a bit of footage on that thanks again for watching and see you in the next video

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