Stainless Steel wood or alcohol burning backpacking stove

Reviewing the stainless steel wood and alcohol burning backpacking stove.

We were at the stump reviewing our new stainless steel wood/alcohol burning backpacking stove. Over all we were very impressed.

The first thing we noticed that it packed quite small when it is nested inside itself. It came with a carry bag. The packed dimension is 5 inch x 2.7 inch(H).  Item weight: 390g/13.6oz. 

What makes these stove work so good?  

Like most of these camp stoves, they have air holes on the bottom part of the stand which allows the air to flow in. The inflow of air is efficiently drafted into the fire because the wood is held off the ground by a grate and by additional air holes on the inside top of the fire box. The fire creates draft which further drafts oxygen into the fire.  The heat is stored in the firebox and there is only one way out and that is out to the cooking surface.  

How good does it work?

The stove burns very efficient and clean. It burns dry wood into a very find powdered ash. The fire box stores the heat and there is no way out but through the top to the cooking surface.  A hand full of dry material will boil water. 

How to use the stove.

1. How to light the stove.   

Some fill the fire box with dry wood and reach in with a lighter or match. We are minimalists so we only had the spark of our ferro rod. We found the easiest way to light the stove was to load the stove with dry tinders.  Make a small 2 inch/5cm fire out of birchbark and tinder then set the stove on top of the small fire. The  dry tinders in the stove then ignites in less than 10 seconds and within a minute you have a hot fire at the cooking surface.  

2. A good cooking fire 

Jimmy says a good cooking fire does not flame out of the top of the stove.  A good cooking fire you should be able to hold your hand near the top of the stove for a few second but no more than 10 seconds.  So keep your fire under control.  With this stove you do not have to load it completely up.  You can easily add a pine cone or a little wood to the fire via the load port near the top of the stove.  Using the loading port you do not have to remove the cooking pan to add wood. 

3. Use dry material.

Dry material can be found even when it is raining.  The inside layer of the birchbark is usually dry.  We also baton/split 4 inch peaces of wood. The inside of the wood is usually dry and ready to burn.  

4. You can use the stove with Alcohol.

If you prefer, or if you cannot find dry wood you can use Alcohol with this stove.  It has a little dish which can be place in the firebox and filled with alcohol.  Light the alcohol and start cooking.

5. Packing away your stove.

Once the fire is out, the stove cools down in about 5 minutes. The stove can then be disassembled and the peaces nested inside itself.  Put it back in its carry bag and put it in your backpack. A total of 30 seconds. 

Like any other camping skills, you become more efficient with practice.

Check out the backpacking stoves on Amazon

Pollett River Run 2015

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The start.  Hordes of people will be gathering for the big river run on the Pollett River;put in is in Elgin, N.B. , April 25,2015. As always, the Pollett River Run is the last Saturday of April. This year the last Saturday of April happens to be on April 25,2015. That is next week and there is still a pile of snow on the banks to melt. In addition to the spring run off, the forecast is melting temperatures and rain. I am expecting the ride to be very fast, deep and wild.




Breakfast Is Served.
We usually stop at the Elgin Firehall for a great breakfast. The firemen put this on to raise money for their hall. After breakfast we head a km or so to the put in where people drag to the river, their canoes and homemade rafts made from just about every material known to man. Beer is opened, yahoos are heard,

Things you will need to take.

1. Canoe or raft  complete with boat pole or paddle.

2. It is an all day event so bring some snacks.

3.  Life jacket could saves your life.

4. Lost of people get wet so bring extra clothes. Dry bags full of warm dry clothes tied to your boat saves the day.  The weather is usually about 10 degrees which is very cold when you get wet.

Amazon has some good prices on some dry bags, life jackets etc.

Have fun and play safe.

Cain River Trip 2014

After a long hard Canadian winter, the warm sun on our backs was welcoming and brought on a flood of river memories and emails. Our cravings to indulge our thoughts deeper into a trans of the coming river trip dictated that we meet and spend a few hours together for some planning. Well as usual laughter and beer over shadowed our planning process and a couple of hours later we walked away not knowing what the hell our plans were except that our busy scheduled coincided on June 15 to June 19 of 2014.

June of 2014 arrived and with it organizing, planing and training had to begin. My training aids was my pipe, pipe tobacco and beer. I had to build up my endurance for I knew I would be exposed to more of the same during the trip..

After performing a refit on my canoe(patching a hole and repainting), I carefully organizing my supplies into the dry bags and felt I was ready to go. Now the challenge was to endure waiting for three more days until we set sail.... a feeling that a small child has for his wait for Christmas day.


We arrived at the put in under the Doaktown Bridge on route 123. We bid our driver Albert farewell(which is Chad's good friend)and guaranteed him we would meet him at Salmon Brook Pool at 7:00 P.M. five days from now. Albert knows his way around this neck of the woods and we could trust him to find his way into Salmon Brook Pool through old remote logging roads that were barely on the map.

The Cains is a slow moving river. To canoe it without scraping on rocks, water levels has to be above summer levels. The excitement of fast rapids and falls is non existent from the Doaktown Bridge down to the mouth but it is a river where you can enjoy the scenery, friendship and fishing without having to break for precariously navigating through white water rapids riddled with boulders and big drops.

Typically, we like getting our tents set up around 4:00 pm cook some trout then have the evening for fishing, camp fires,lies, guitar playing, and a few refreshment well into the night. Our energy runs out long before our conversation and laughter,  but as soon as we awake we start all over again. The first night, June 15,2014, was no exception. Around the Upper Trout Pool Area, under the comfort of the hardwood trees and a roaring camp fire, we partied well into the morning before cashing in and calling it a day.

The second day was colder then average for this time of year - around 15c. Early morning a moose crossed 150 meters downstream from where I was fishing. The day progressed with lots of stops and the cooking of freshly caught trout. The day came and went in a flash and before we knew it we were setting up camp again. We tarped our tents to shelter us from the rain.
A few showers didn't stop us from the usual guitar playing, having a warm fire and cold beer. We all slept well and stayed dry.

We awoke to a warm hot day. Mid morning Aaron's neck was getting burnt so he borrowed my hat. Denis's forearms were getting burnt so he borrowed some wet grass from mother nature and tied it to his arms. Our third night camp was near Blackville at a pool I think is Dr. Island Pool. The camp spot was up a hill about 150 meters away. Dragging the cooking gear would of been a task so we cooked and ate our supper by the river's edge. Despite the dropping temperature, we had a bath in the icy water. I am not sure what was worse, the cold water or hauling the camp gear up the hill. It was however a nice place to camp and worth our efforts.

The forth morning greeted us with a bright sunny day. I dressed light thinking it would be warm. It started to rain, the temperature dropped and we all got wet and I got very cold. The down pours caused the day to be rained out as far as fishing was concern. We paddled hard for several hours until we got to Fin Pool where we found a wet campsite up on a hill. We pulled our gear up the bank and about 100 yards into the wood, quickly got a fire going and pitched our tent complete with an over head tarp. I changed into dry cloths and put on my rain gear and started cooking supper. The rain let off and although it was not an ideal camp site we though it would be decent spot to spend the forth and last night of the trip. Well we got more then what we bargained for because about 3:00 a.m. we all awoke to strange screeching noises and branches being broke by an animal that would have to be as big as a bear. Now folks we are not new to the woods so we figured the screeching may have been an owl, but the breaking of big branch and trees had to be by something big. I joked a big foot but the boys settle there minds to be a simple old black bear with no claws and dull teeth. The sounds seem to go away and we fell back to sleep for another couple of hours.

The 5th morning was cold and I dressed for it. I used my neoprene waders, a sweater and an oil skinned rain jacket. Despite the cold and rain we were all fairly comfortable and enjoyed the day fishing and floating down the river. Early afternoon the temperature dropped again and we had one heck of a hail storm. The pellets were bouncing off my hooded rain coat like a rubber ball on pavement. We sat in wonderment of the storm and somehow enjoyed it's splendor.

After the storm we continued our way downstream. I spent an hour or so fishing at Pickards Pool which is about 1 km upstream from our take out at Salmon Pool. I caught a few small trout and like most of the fish we catch, I released them back into the river to live another day.

We arrived at our takeout at Salmon Brook Pool. We walked our boats up Salmon Book about 100 meters to a steep embankment where we unload our gear. Off in the distance we heard our drive coming up the woods road. The timing was perfect so it wasn't long before we had our boats and gear loaded on the trailer and heading back to Moncton. The trip back home was endured with many colourful stories each replete with exaggeration and humour.  I am not sure when we will be back but I will sure miss this 40 km, 5 days on the Cains River.
This book will surely kindle your sense of adventure.

Read more on salmon

Fish migration - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Last week on the Miramichi

Last week on the Miramichi was eventfull. Fresh salmon are in parts of the system and the trout fishing picking up as well. I will be writing more on this. Stay tuned. Good luck with the coming season.

The Pollett River Run 2008

Pollett River Run 2008.

I was looking forward to the Pollett River Run this year. George, an experienced canoe man, with two of his friends wanted to hit the Pollett. Brianna being 16 years old, I felt that she was old enough to experience the Pollett River Run for the first time. The last Saturday of April arrived, which for the past 25 years, is the day of the Pollett River run. The timing was good because the river was high, it was 10 degrees, and I was recovered enough from the cold I was battling to make the trip.

George left his van at the takeout on the Sanatorium road. My jeep and the blazer carried us and our gear to the put in at Elgin

We skipped the traditional breakfast at the community hall and opted for an early start. We set sail around 09:30 A.M.

George has a loud voice that carried half way down the river. He told joke after joke to people 150 yards away. Brianna and I laugh our heads off for many hours of this day. George kept us entertained for sure.

George was not only a good joke teller and canoe-men, he was good at rescuing. One guy about 50 years old in a rubber boat hit a tree that was leaning across the river. He found himself in fast deep water holding on to the tree not wanting to let go. George got out a throw line and after a second attempt landed the line near enough for the poor man to grab hold and pull himself to shore. He was almost crying in fear and that he lost everything. This was a bad way to start the trip because this tree is only about 5 minutes down from the put in. This tree caught many people off guard especially the rafts that could not manipulate around this outreached tree.

About 2 hours into the run, I forced Brianna to take the stern. With a little teaching and practice, she quickly learned the tricks of the trade and guided us through the rapids, around rocks and bridges like a pro. We never did flip and she save our ass by having her paddle in the water. We hit a side current which nearly knocked me out of the canoe and nearly flipping us but she had her paddle in the water and I felt the force or her counter action stable the canoe. I though for sure we were going for a swim. I had people upstream say “ooooooo close one”

After about three or four stops along the way we came to a water falls on the river right. We pulled the canoe in on river left for lunch. This was a great spot for lunch for there was a big dry field sheltered from the wind. The sun without the wind felt warm and we enjoyed many laughs with these first time canoe partners. George proved himself to be a great outdoor cook as well as a canoe men, joke teller and rescuer. The salmon he cooked was incredible.

After lunch we nosed our bows into the current and headed down river. We stopped at a camp where many people were socializing. A canoe came down the river and didn’t make the turn. It hit a rock and dumped its cargo and passengers into the cold water. One girl had trouble getting to shore. Brianna had to go help drag her in. After looking at the injury, it appeared her leg was broken. After getting her comfortable and knowing there were many good people there to help, we once again pushed our canoe to the rapids and continued our trip.

Brianna navigated her way down stream to the takeout on the Sanatorium road. At the takeout, there were about 1000 people partying. The major event was the mud bogging. Big truck and 4 wheelers cracked their engines wide opened through the deep mud holes. Much of the field was muddy so there were drunken people slipping and doing face plants.

It was about 07:45 P.M. when we finally got back to Riverview. We unpacked and sorted the gear and bid farewell to our canoing partners.

Brianna missed her soccer tryouts but she had a good time and was tired so she jumped in the shower and shortly thereafter headed to bed.

It was Brianna’s first voyage of type. Hopefully there will be many more and hopefully she will cherish these trips like I do.

Canoe Flipping

In early summer of 2001 a three day canoing/fishing trip was the cure for the long ache of a cold wet spring. The canoes we used for most of our upper Miramichi fishing trips were 21 foot freighters. They were stable and we grew to trust them. Marvin, Damien and Scott were in one canoe floating over a deep hole. Damien spotted some big trout and when the other two inexperience canoe men decided to lean over the same side to see the fish, the canoe flipped. Denis and I were upstream about 200 yards. We had a good view of their pitiful faces as we glided passed. A site for sore eyes alright. They sat in the canoe filled with water, their fishing rods and gear floating around. They were wet, cold and Damien’s pride was hurt. He repeatedly commented on how he never flipped a canoe in 20 years. I suppose some would say it was crewel of Denny and I to start laughing at them. After we recovered our breath from laughter, we helped dump the water out of the canoe and gather the gear and beer. Damien’s two week old cell phone which he bought at a cost of $500.00 was sitting on the river's bottom. I am not sure where all the fishing tackle came from but there seemed to be a fair amount of it floating down the river.