(A perfectly baked loaf of bannock made in the dutch oven)

    About four years ago, I was working at a hardware store in my hometown. As an avid Bushcrafter, I was always looking at the products, thinking of what I could use them for. I had bought many axe handles, a few hundred feet of snare wire, and the materials I used to construct one of my favourite billycans (even to this day it finds its way into my rucksack). However, one aisle in the store always caught my attention for a moment or two; cookware. Stainless steel frying pans, copper lined pots, enamel plates, and ceramic crock pots lined the shelves, displayed for shoppers and clerks like myself alike. I always liked to see if there was possibly something in there I could use to cook with in the woods. One day while dusting these shelves, I found a box under several other boxes. I was in the mood to get really clean today, and decided to empty the shelves and give them all a good wipe down. As I lifted this box (and the inch of dust on top of it), I noticed the words “Cast iron”. A light sparked off in my head and I wiped off the dust, hoping to find a new frying pan. However, what I found was a large, heavy dutch oven, that was only a year old on the shelf (how that much dust accumulated I will never know). I could not find the price tag, but the employer still remembered the price, she was apparently a big fan of dutch oven cooking. I was soon to understand her reasons.
    I went home after cleaning the shelves, and while going through my old camp craft books, I came across a few pages on the “proper dutch ovens for the woods”. Figuring the subject was already brought up that day, I might as well see what makes a good dutch oven. According to the author, the best type has a flat lid, with a raised rim. Poor ones have a convex lid. This is due to the need to heap coals and hot ash on top of the oven during baking, the convex lid would just dump all of the coals and ash back onto the fire. A flat lid would let the coals be manoeuvred easily, and the rim would hold them in. Three little legs at the bottom would be useful, because this would help the dutch oven sit over the coal, without falling over (four legs, according to the author, is more difficult to balance in a pile of coals).After reading the entire chapter on wilderness cooking, and rereading the subject of dutch ovens and dutch oven cookery, I decided to pick one up, just to try.
    I went in on my day off, and examined the Lodge 10-inch cast iron dutch oven at my work. Identical to the descriptions in the book! That sold me, and my employer, being excited for me, decided to drop ten percent on the price, even though I had the exact money there with me anyways. Eighty dollars later, I was the proud new owner of a Lodge 10-inch pre-seasoned cast iron dutch oven. This variety has a ten inch base, and holds four quarts. While living where I was at the time, I never had the time to use it. So it stayed on my gear shelf, until we moved to the Kawarthas. While it sat in a box in the Kawarthas, I was living in Indiana, down in the states. While there, I mentioned to my girlfriend, with her father in the room, that I bought a dutch oven. Soon they were telling me stories that all revolved around their moments cooking with dutch ovens. Apparently these things had a huge following!
    The day I returned to Canada, I had some cousins visiting, and my folks were there as well, so I figured I would try out the dutch oven finally. I started up a fire of willow and cedar shavings, trying to get hot, long lasting coals. After about twenty minutes, the fire had burned down to a big bed of coals, and I set the oiled dutch oven on top of them. Being pre-seasoned, all I had to do was oil the oven. I placed a small venison roast into the oven, set the lid on top, and with a board of wood, scooped and piled coals on top of the oven. The amount of meat, in the amount of heat, it would be cooked medium to well done in an hour and a half. As the meat cooked, I added split willow around the coal bed, to make sure the coals would continue.  After the hour mark, I rolled out about a dozen small biscuits made from a bannock recipe of mine. Once the hour and fifteen minutes mark came by, I removed the roast and finished it in my cast iron frying pan. I dusted the bottom of the dutch oven with flour and piled in the bannock biscuits. In fifteen minutes the meal was completed. I had never had a simpler outdoor cooking session, it was easier then barbecuing in a lot of ways. I was hooked!
    Over the last few years, I have cooked many meals for myself, friends, family and even students with this dutch oven. The first thing I have to say about it, is do not expect to go backpacking with this thing. Weighing in at well over two pounds, and well over a foot wide at the mouth, these things do not pack lightly! So sorry ultra light backpackers, but this baby isn’t for you. However to those who love to use base camps, or even for car campers, this beauty is fantastic.
    While teaching and camping this past month, I had to feed six or more people at a time. We baked a black squirrel with it for one class of students. Another got to taste deer heart stew one evening, and the next night I inverted the lid to act as a griddle, and fried up two heart steaks. Finally, while a friend from Australia was visiting, we really put the dutch oven through the paces.

(Above; Black squirrel baked inside of the Lodge Dutch Oven)

    The first dinner we made with the dutch oven was a “bush pizza”. Simply bannock laid out flat, with pizza sauce, sliced cheese and other toppings, baked until identical to a deep-dish pizza. This was made perfectly. The next time we made one, I fried some diced up moose sausage on the inverted lid, and added it to the pizza, even better!
    After three days at the base camp, we spent six days deep in the woods. Of course this meant no dutch oven.  With constant rain and cold weather, and only pine, spruce and the occasional piece of birch or fatwood, the meals were barely anything special. Our attitudes dropped to nearly hating the out of doors, and  it wasn’t just our attitudes that dropped. With just six days in the woods, our diets consisted of approximately 800 calories per day. The difficulty of cooking, as well as the need to focus out meagre fire towards boiling water for purification and for warm drinks made us lose considerable amount of energy. I had been woods wandering for years, and have never had this much difficulty in one week to feed myself!
    When we returned to our base camp, we decided to try something; 90% of our meals had to come from the dutch oven. Temperatures and weather were similar to our 6 days of misery. The only difference was the plenty of hardwood available. The downfall to this, was that the wood we had around was mostly green, even the wood that had been cut and piled for well over a year. None the less, we gave it out best, and with several big, thick, beautifully baked bannocks, our moods were a complete opposite of the sopping wet messes they were up north. Another pizza was attempted, and on the final night, I emptied an entire bottle of cooking oil into the dutch oven, heated it until sizzling hot over a thick bed of coals, and taught my Australian friend an old Native American delicacy, Frybread! This night was particularly horrible, with rain coming from every which angle. Even with the giant tarp we had strung up over us, we both got fairly wet. But the frybread came out beautifully, and we decided to have another batch the next morning. This time however I would try something new. We had a bag of berries, and a jar of peanut butter. I rolled out the dough, piled a dollop of each in the centre and folded them like a perogi. This was probably the best breakfast in the woods I ever had.  

(Left; Breakfast of berry frybread)

    Tools for working with a dutch oven are simple. Tongs can be made in the woods out of a piece of willow. These help in frying, roasting and adjusting coals around the dutch oven. A scoop of some sort is vital for the lifting of coals on top of the dutch oven. Folding shovels will work, but I often get by with a flat board of split wood, scraping a pile of coals onto it with the tongs and using  the board much like a dustpan. Other useful tools are a ladle or large spoon, a hook to lift the lid with, and a blowpipe to help stir the coals back to life. Pot-hangers can help you adjust the amount of heat inside the dutch oven, by lifting or lowering the oven over the pile of coals. This helps when you wish to just warm-rise some bread, or deep fry some froglegs!
    The dutch oven is a fantastic tool for any base camp or outdoor classroom. I am an extremely proud owner of the Lodge Cast Iron 10 inch Dutch oven., and now a proud member of this unnamed dutch oven fan club that seems to hide among woodsmen and woodswomen. Anyone looking to expand their camp cookery skills, I suggest you pick up a good, sturdy dutch oven . If you are looking for one, I would highly suggest the Lodge brand of dutch ovens that they sell for camping. They even have a cookbook for dutch ovens, in case you don’t know where to start.

Tread Softly,
Caleb Musgrave

A big open fire is not always what is required. Sometimes it's even a hindrance. It's use as a heat source, cooking tool and lighting can be shrunk down. Torches, candles, lamps and other small flame makers have been used since the stone age.

It's been tested and theorized that primitive oil lamps were the light source that Palaeolithic and Neolithic humans used when painting their amazing art on the cave walls of Europe. If an open fire was used, smoke would have choked our ancestors out of the caves, preventing that ancient art form from ever advancing.

The Inuit people lived in a region where firewood was at a premium (often being only dry seaweed or the occasional willow shrub). However, moss, arctic cottongrass and animal fat was common all over the tundra and arctic barrens. In this land of snow and igloos, the kudlik became the prime source of heat, cooking and light. If a regular open fire was used, it would have wasted their precious wood supplies, and endangered their lives when travelling amongst the ice-flows and sea-ice.

The Ojibway tribe and other Eastern Woodland natives used torches made from several sources, to help them in hunting and fishing. Fish are attracted to light at night time. With this knowledge Ojibway men would drift across the lakes and marshes on their birch bark canoes, holding a torch above the water. Once a torpedo-shaped shadow was seen drifting in the lit waters, a bone-tipped harpoon or pronged spear would be thrust down, to capture the distracted fish. Deer and moose would also fall to this trick late at night, especially in the winter.

The best way of making a smaller flame-tool is to remember how a candle works;

-A slow burning fuel (like paraffin wax)
-A steady flame-making material (like a wick)
-A vessel to hold/carry/contain the flame and fuel (candlestick holder)

Candle:

Many wicks can be made in the wilderness. Shredded cedar bark rolled into a tubular bundle can be used, though it reeks when snuffed out. Twisted milkweed cordage can also work. The best is a slightly firm material, that is porous. The pithy inner core of the Common Mullein stalk is my favourite. Dipped in a fuel source like deer tallow, or processed seed oils, it can burn for up to an hour. If you need a quick candle rub some cedar bark into a fluffy bundle, twist and roll it into a long bundle. Than roll it through pine sap or spruce gum. Sooty and black, it will not be a great candle, but will complete the required task for a time.

Another technique is to find resin-filled dead wood. The best coming from dead weathered pine or spruce trees. Split up the wood, and you will eventually find a glossy aromatic supply of wood. This is where the once-live tree's resin decided to collect upon death. When split down to a few pencil-to-finger thick length, it can be used as a candle.

The trick is to take your resin-wood (fatwood) splints and split their ends into four sections. Put a tiny twig in this split, to act as a wedge. Once complete, light the split end. The air passing through the four tips will help with a steady burn. This candle is best used outside of an enclosed shelter, due to it's sooty smoke. Or else you will have to have a well ventilated shelter (tepee, wigwam, etc).

A simple holder for the candle is a long green stick. Sharpen the one end to go into the ground. Split the other end and use this as a clamp. Wrap the base of your primitive candle with cordage or a thin wooden splint, than wedge the ends of the splint or cordage into the split green stick. It sounds more complicated than it is. If I had a camera I would demonstrate it.


Torches:

Consider this a giant candle. A simple torch is made by getting a 6 foot pole and splitting the end of it. Into this split you wedge a piece of birch bark. The trick to making this torch is to fold the birch bark right. Take a long, thin piece of birch bark. Fold it lengthwise accordian style. Wedge it so about 7 inches sticks out one end, and the rest hangs out the other side. Light the 7 inch end. As it burns up, feed the longer end through the split. The birch bark acts as your wick and the fuel (most outdoors folks know that birch bark has a high oil content). However, this torch is short lived. The longest I've ever had one burn is 45 minutes. Once you have only a foot left to the bark, add another piece of folded bark.

A better torch is the mullein-tallow torch. In the fall (and through winter) second-year growth of the mullein plant can be seen in most fields. It looks like a weird woody corn stalk with a bizarre corncob still attached. The stalk is useful for many tasks, from candle-wicks (the pith inside the stalk), hand drills and even primitive fishing arrows. With the flower head (the bizarre corncob) still attached it makes the mullein stalk perfect to act as a torch.

First, heat up a container of animal fat. Render the fat into a grease and pour it through a filter (cheesecloth or a handful of sedges) to catch the impurities. What you are left with is an amber or clear oil. Depending on the animal, this oil will turn to a semi-solid product called tallow. It depends on the air temperature, raccoon tallow usually stays liquid like unless cold. But deer grease will become tallow at room-temperature.

Once it has been strained, set it aside (keeping it hot so it remains a liquid). Take your mullein stalks (I make about a dozen torches at a time, to cut back on how often I have to make a torch), and heat the flower heads over the coals of the fire you used to render the tallow. If it gets slightly charred or burned, that's okay, but don't let the whole thing go up. Heating the flower head makes it more prone to absorb the grease.

Bring back the heated tallow and plunge the hot flower heads into it. Remove from the oily stuff and reheat. Once it seems to have absorbed the tallow, repeat the plunging. Now heat it again and set them aside to cool off. Wrap the heads with birch bark or some sort of fabric to prevent dirt or other junk from getting stuck in the tallow.

Hold over a fire until the torch lights. These heads, if made and used wisely, can burn for up to an hour. I find them fantastic for having around a primitive base camp. When you need to go out to the latrine, or feel like going out for an evening stroll, they are right there for you.

Lamps:

The most advanced of primitive lighting, lamps were often found in northern climates, especially in arctic regions. The most famous and best known is the kudlik. Fuelled by seal oil, these soapstone vessels could light up an igloo, and bring the temperature up just warm enough to make the snow-dome cheerful.

Now, not many people live near a quarry that has soapstone (steatite) present. And not everyone can afford to order a brick of the stuff to shape. So after reading some books, and experimenting, I came up with a cheap and effective method. After making a few dozen of these I stumbled across Cody Lundin's book "When All Hell Breaks Loose", where he shows a perfect description of making modern economic Kudliks.

Take a tuna can (or similar can) and open it, leaving one inch of the lid still attached to the can. Empty and eat the contents. Wash it out and remove the label. Shove the lid down into the container (making a little ramp). Make a wick. This can be gauze, twisted cordage, dried moss, or even shredded cotton socks (my favourite). The best are glass wicks made for high-end oil lamps. Char the tip and lay it down on the ramp, charred end up, and the rest inside the can. Fill with a liquid fuel. Sunflower oil, canola oil, olive oil, or any other natural cooking oil is great for this. Though what I like to do, is fill half a cup with chunks of deer tallow. Fill the half a cup, with sunflower oil (or whatever you choose), until it covers the tallow. Heat and stir until it blends. This makes it into a gelatin, that lasts longer in the lamp.

Pour into the tuna-can kudlik, until 1/4 inch from the charred tip. Let the oil soak into the wick, than light. The former can-top acts as a ramp, holding the burning end out of the oil, while the wick soaks in the oil, drawing up the slow burning fuel as is needed.  

If you have a chunk of soapstone, you can make a traditional kudlik by pecking and grinding a slanted basin into the top, filling with your preferred fuel, and wick, than lighting. However, before doing so, I suggest you try the tuna-can method a few times until you have it down pat. Figure out the little details (what fuel you like, how long the wick should hang out of the fuel, how angled the ramp should be, etc) before you make a soapstone one, to make sure you don't waste a nice chunk of stone.

Need a fast oil lamp? Take a clam shell (mussel shells will work, but aren't as long-lasting), twist up a wick, and lay it in. Fill with your fuel and light.

Want to make your tuna-can kudlik more versatile? Crimp the rim of the kudlik, and make a snug fitting lid out of another tuna can (remove it's top completely). This will hold your lamp's contents safely, keep dust and dirt out of the fuel, and even act as a snuffer.

All of these lighting sources require some sort of snuffer. Simply blowing them out leaves you with a stinky, long-lasting plume of smoke. For the candle, simply taking a shell or similar non-burnable object and smothering the flame will do. For a kudlik, my preference is for a flat stone that covers the entire kudlik, giving it no oxygen, and no chance to spill (much like the tuna-can cover).

Using these ideas, advance your skills of fire-lighting, and see what you can do. I've slept many nights in a pile of snow, with just a small tallow candle to give me light and warmth. Remember to always have an air vent when burning, as it uses air, and makes carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. If in a snow shelter and you see a well made candle or other small flame sputtering, get out and vent the shelter. Carbon monoxide may be building up inside.

Tread Softly,
Caleb Musgrave
Canadian Bushcraft

  
  I teach bushcraft whenever I can. Here in Ontario, the seasons are incredibly different. And each brings with it different flora and fauna to study, often in great detail. This past June, during the wetland bushcraft course was no different!
    Where we were camping, was on Rice Lake, on the Hiawatha First Nation reserve (Anishnaube Akii/Ojibway Territory). We spent a lot of our time feasting on cattails and milkweed pods, building fishing weirs, and often getting close to our local neighbour named Chelydra serpentina.
    Who? The name when spoken conjure up in my mind, some hideous dragonesque creature from the depths of the darkest waters. Very similar to the descriptions of Cuthulu! And sadly, that stigma often lands upon this beautiful cousin. The Common Snapping Turtle, is native specifically to North America (however can be found in South American countries as well), being found almost as far north as Hudson Bay (though not often further north than Algonquin Park).
    While on the wetland course, the students I had with me were very interested in studying these beings up close. Of course, the name alone was reason enough for them not to get too close! The snapping turtles were found on the banks of the marshlands, right along a backroad, digging nests in the gravel. Snapping turtles rarely leave the waters. Usually only the females leave their swamps to dig their nests and lay their eggs. However on occasion the adults (and young) can be found basking in the sun. Though more often they do this by floating on the surface of the water, often to the surprise of a bushcrafter who just fell out of their canoe...
    I carried an Australian styled fishing spear with me during the entire course, complete with an American Indian styled "Atlatl" dart thrower (didn't have the time to make a genuine Woomera to accompany the spear). This is a very useful tool when in the wetlands. I used the butt of the spear to prod one of the females we happened across, to demonstrate to the students her powerful jaws and speed. She immediately reared up on all four legs, which suddenly seemed a lot longer than I remembered a turtle's legs being. She emitted this strange hiss that didn't seem to come from her mouth, but from the shell (though it was from the mouth, the sound just seemed to echo from the shell). I prodded again, hoping to demonstrate how vicious of a bite these shelled creatures have. Nothing. I tapped the shell, hoping to watch her long neck (which can reach halfway across their body, and sometimes more) lunge out at the spear. Nothing. I rested my spear in front of her, and turned to my students to tell them that usually these turtles were much more aggressive, when suddenly I felt the end of my spear splinter with a loud "SNAP!", I turned in time to see her slowly bring her head back to it's original position. We left her to finish laying her eggs, and went on with our day.
    Snapping turtles are omnivorous, and will often scavenge any dead substance in the water, whether it be a dead fish, or rotted plant matter. However, they will actively hunt, feasting on small to medium sized fish, crayfish, mussels, insects, amphibians, rodents such as voles, and reptiles such as snakes and smaller turtles (including infant snapping turtles).
    Their relative, the Alligator Snapping Turtle Macrochelys temminckii, whom resides in the southern United States, is much larger than the common snapping turtle, however is not as aggressive as the common. The Common Snapping Turtle is recognized for the deaths of many goslings and ducklings each year throughout Ontario. Adult ducks and geese (even swans) are sometimes found with missing feet or toes, often caused by being maimed by snapping turtles. While heading to the bay where we would be harvesting cattails (Greater Reed-mace), the students and I came across a very large painted turtle, whose shell had a large section missing from it. Still alive, healed and scarred, this old girl was a survivor of a snapping turtle attack. There are countless stories of snapping turtles amputating the digits of people. I was raised with stories from my Ojibway grandmother who witnessed a boy losing a very large section of his heel to a snapping turtle he accidentally kicked while swimming. Though it seems unlikely that an animal that looks so slow could do so, their powerful jaws, and aggressive tendencies give good reason to steer clear when you find them.
    Being so vicious, has done some good things for the common snapping turtle. They cannot fully retract their heads into their shells, which other North American turtles can do. Because of this, they are left exposed, and in theory, easy to kill by predators. However, except for the rare otter, and man, Snapping turtles don't really have that many predators. I suppose the other predators learned long ago what my spear learned during the wetland course!
    As well, their diet supports their ability to survive in almost any water body in North America. Seeing as I named otters earlier as a predator of the snapping turtle, I'll describe what a park ranger told me when I was learning Bushcraft in Algonquin Park;
    Most lakes in Ontario, and North America, can support perhaps 2-3 families of otters (four to six adults, plus their young). The fish after that, will decrease in population, and due to starvation, the otters will have to move, or die. However, that same lake can support up to fifty adult snapping turtles, plus the hatchlings. Why? If it lives/lived, they'll eat it. And seeing as they don't need to eat constantly to survive, they can take long stretches between meals.

    Another interesting subject that comes up with snapping turtles and their survival, is their eggs. Ron Brooks, a professor of Zoology, was recorded in Norm Quinn's book "Algonquin Wildlife: Lessons in Survival", of doing research on the nesting and survival rates of snapping turtles. According to the book, unlike other species, like rabbits, which breed a great amount of young but have short lifespan, the mortality rate of adult snapping turtles is very low (disregarding human involvement that is). It is believed that wild snapping turtles can live up to 45-50 years, though this theory is hard to pin down, because after a certain length of time, the turtle's shell scales no longer grow. So measuring the age of the turtle becomes impossible after 45-odd years.
    Other species that live long periods of life (moose as an example), give birth to very few young. Often 2-5 in their lifetime. But the Snapping Turtle can lay up to eighty eggs in one season. Females will lay each season. The females can lay eggs for many years of their lives. So that is a lot of eggs!
    Odd though, is the fact that the mortality rate of infant snapping turtles is nearly 99.9% of them. Foxes, raccoons, vultures, gulls, ravens, skunks, large mouthed bass, pikes, and other snapping turtles all pose threats to the infants throughout their lifetime. This includes their time in the nest, where foxes, skunks and other critters will sniff out the eggs!
    And yet, the turtle's population has never seemed to naturally lower. I say naturally, because human involvement is lowering the population through; hunting, poaching, vehicle collisions with nesting mothers, and the destruction of habitat. But in nature, the snapping turtle populations never seem to lower. Nor do their numbers rise (remember, the babies don't often survive). So in a simple, dramatic way of putting it.. snapping turtles.. just.. don't die...  
    Mother turtles will travel extensively over land, to find the perfect soil (sandy or gravel, in warm sunny places) to lay their eggs. If harassed by vehicles, people or other animals, they will abandon a nest in mid-dig, and travel a far distance to dig again. I accidentally bothered one mother enough to make her travel deep into the bush, climbing over metre thick logs, and under fallen trees, just to find a new site. I tracked and followed her at a far distance, and once she found a new nesting site, I left her to do her business.
    Native people have had a close relationship with snapping turtles. When the nesting season began, Ojibway youth were sent out to prod the sandy banks of rivers, lakes and swamps with sharp sticks. Once the stick was found covered in yoke, the children would dig up the nests, harvest the eggs and bring them back to the village as treats.
    Fishing weirs were often found with snapping turtles within them, and because of this, they frequented the diets of Eastern Woodland tribes (Ojibway, Iroquois, and Menominee). Midden mounds found along the shore of Rice Lake had snapping turtle bones within them from long ago (well over 2,000 years). The meat -according to many Anishnaube elders- comes in seven different textures and tastes, ranging from fish, to tenderized lamb. It's a favoured dish served within the Anishnaube Akii (Ojibway Territory) throughout early summer.

    The claws are often found on necklaces, possibles bags, and medicine bundles. The body, including shell, head and neck, would be carefully sewn shut, filled with birds beaks, wild cherry stones, or even small pebbles or mollusc shells. The neck would be stretched out tightly (again, a long neck), and braced out to dry with hickory or ash splints. Wrapping the braced neck in rawhide, this item was used by many Iroquois holy people as a rattle/shaker. Other native tribes made similar rattles.The carapace (Top shell) was/is used as a bowl for soups (including turtle soup), and as a berry basket. Other uses for the carapace have included; shields used by some tribes during pre-firearm warfare (these shields can still be seen amongst some Northern Traditional pow wow dancers), and drums,. If the open side is covered with rawhide and bound tightly, a small hand drum can be produced, though the sound is not very popular. Bags are also made from the carapace. If the back is covered with deerskin or fabric, a shoulder strap can be attached and made into a very attractive possibles bag (smaller shells used similarly as belt pouches)
    The plastron (Bottom shell) was often scored with flint tools and broken into flat disks, used as pendants, pieces for traps, animal calls, and even as dinner plates. Other uses can include; Beads, goggle lenses (often seen by Malaysian cultures with sea turtle shells, which they scraped thin enough to become translucent), playing cards can be made from them. Simply scratch the numbers and suits onto the disks (Primitive Poker anyone?). The dried heads have been used as decorative pieces for "spirit sticks", and other ceremonial tools.
    The Iroquois and Algonquian tribes believed the world rested on the back of a snapping turtle. Due to this, they called their homeland "Turtle Island". Interestingly, if you look at a map of North America, you may just see this. Newfoundland and Alaska make up the front legs. California and Florida are the hind legs. Mexico is that thick serpentine tail. The arctic islands shape beautifully into the head, and the rest of North America is the shell. I find it absolutely beautiful how a native legend suits the geography that well.