I was out fishing again last weekend with our neighours
On Saturday I caught a Rainbow trout using my “Pocket fishing kit” and on Sunday I caught an Arctic Char.
I have also completed another knife.
The knife handle is made from Reindeer and Moose horn, Sallow root bur and leather. The sheath is made from leather and Sallow root bur.
I have designed a new wilderness shirt, which a friend has now made for me.
The material is worsted wool, with leather sewn across the shoulders and around the collar. I have also sewn leather along the bottom edge of the two breast pockets. The buttons I have made from Moose horn.
The back of the shirt is longer, so that it covers my backside.
The shirt has a poly-cotton lining to reduce wind penetrating.
There is a leather baffle in the front to also reduce cold air penetrating inside.
I am very pleased with the end result and it is incredibly warm. A belt warn over the shirt, around the waist helps to hold in warm air.
On Saturday I went ice fishing with my neighbour Folke. The snow is very deep and it was not easy to travel with snowmobiles.
It was 12kms to the lake where we intended to fish and once we arrived there we started boring holes in the ice to fish through.
After only a few minutes of fishing (using a worm and a piece of shrimp for bait) Folke caught an Arctic Char!
I was fishing with my Reindeer horn fishing rod
It took a little longer for me to catch my first fish; a Rainbow Trout
We made fire and cooked some coffee
We then continued fishing. Folke caught 2 Arctic Char and I caught 2 Rainbow Trout and 1 Arctic Char.
Recently I have made some Chaga tincture. Chaga (Inonotus obliquus), also known as True Tinder Fungus
is renowned for its medicinal properties which include; anti-tumor, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, anti-viral, anti-septic, anti-inflammatory and it helps to strengthen the immune system.
It is recommended that you crush the mushroom into a powder and use to make a tincture (a tincture is an alcohol extract), but I wanted to use the fungus after to teach firelighting, so I broke it up into small pieces and placed in a tar which has an air-tight seal. I then covered the pieces of Chaga with 40% vodka.
I sealed the jar and left it in a dark cupboard for two weeks, agitating the jar everyday. After two weeks I poured the jars contents through a coffee filter, into a bottle.
Then I put the pieces of Chaga back into the jar and filled the jar with fresh vodka and repeated the hole process again. Eventually I had a vodka bottle full with Chaga tincture. The Chaga pieces I have dried and use for firelighting and some of the tincture I have transferred into small medicine bottles and I take a dropper full of tincture two times every day.
This will be my last post for a week or so as I am heading off to England for a few days (weather in England permitting).
I had the idea to make an ice fishing rod out of Reindeer horn, and after searching through my pile of horn, I found the ideal piece. Having cut off the two ends of the horn, this is what I was left with
After a couple of hours work, this is how it looks now
I have started doing some basic engraving on the handle
I will be testing it when I return from England!
I decided to try making an ice fishing rod. This is just a prototype and if it works well, I will improve the design.
The rod itself is a piece of Willow (Salix).
The handle I have made by glueing together pieces of Birch bark onto the Willow rod.
The eyelet at the end of the rod I have made from a piece of reindeer horn, which I have then lashed to the rod.
For the “reel” I have made two pins from reindeer horn and drilled the rod and inserted the pins in. The fishing line then wraps around between the two pins.
I have not had the chance to try out yet, but will let you know how it goes!
Here is a larger knife that I have made to order.
The blade is 15cms long. The knife handle is made from pieces Moose antler, Birch bur and Sallow root bur, with sheath leather between each piece.
The sheath is made from Sallow root bur, half-tanned reindeer leather and I have used pieces of Moose antler (glued on both the front and back) to secure the leather to the root bur.
Having a monthly electric bill between £280 – £600, we considered installing a wood burning stove, but instead decided to invest in a wood pellets stove.
The pellets are made from sawdust which is a by-product from sawmills and other timber products manufacture. The sawdust is compressed with high pressure which super heats the material and releases natural glue which holds the pellets together when they cool
The pellets come in 16kg bags and are easy to store and take up very little space. A 16ks bag will heat a well insulated house for 2-3 days.
You control the room temperature via a digital control panel on the wall.
You select the maximum room temperature (21 degrees C for example) and the stove will turn off when the temperature is reached. When the room temperature drops by 2 degrees, the stove automatically turns on again.
The heat from the stove is circulated via a fan mounted inside the stove, which can be run from a 12 volt battery during a power cut.
I was hoping to get out and about this weekend and do some stuff for the blog, but Teres was taken into hospital on Thursday and now I have bronchitis. So I have made a tutorial for making Birch bark containers.
I begin by cutting out two identical wooden disks to use as the top and bottom of the container and then role the bark around and mark and cut out a piece of bark. This particular piece measured 30cm x 9cm. On the outside of one end of the bark I thin the bark down to a wedge shape and I do the same on the inside of the bark at the other end.
Then I make to lines of holes in each end, about 5mm between each hole.
Form a tube with the bark, making sure the end thinned down on e inside sits over the end thinned down on the outside. I use a clip to hold the two ends together and then use sinew, false sinew or dental floss to begin sewing the bark together.
Now draw a line around the side of each wooden disk (use your finger as a depth gauge)
Then draw a line around the underside of each disk
Use a knife or sandpaper to remove the wood between these two lines to give an angled edge. This makes it much easier to insert the top and bottom disks into the bark tube.
You may find that one of the disks is a little too small and does not fit tightly into the bark tube. In this case you can take a thin layer of Birch bark and glue around the edge of the disk (use an elastic band to hold the bark in place while the glue dries).
Use a knife or sandpaper to remove excess bark and it should look like this when completed
Put some glue around the edge of the bottom disk and push into the bark tube and then push in the top. To help strengthen the top and bottom, cut two strips of bark (I use a pair of serrated scissors that I bought from a Dollar Store to give a decorative edge, but I have also done this using a knife) and glue around the top and bottom.
Drill two holes in the top and thread a piece of leather through and tie a knot on the inside of the lid.
Now the container is completed.
Here is a picture of some of the things I make to sell here in Nattavaara.
On the far left are firesteels, then Birch bark containers, at the front is a Birch wood container, a Birch spoon and finally a Birch cup.
