Frisport Andersnatten Extreme 6-8 person lavvu

Thought I would write a quick review about my new Frisport Andersnatten Extreme lavvu.  Apart from our 15 person Tentipi, this is the first tent I have purchased and so I cannot compare with any other.

Before I begin I must say a “BIG THANK YOU” to Jed Yarnold from True North Outdoor for all his help and advice when I was considering purchasing a Frisport Lavvu.  Jed is the UK distributor for Frisport and really friendly, helpful guy.  He also designs and produces his own range of outdoor equipment so take a look at his website.

I purchased my lavvu from an on-line shop in Norway and it included a free mosquito door, so when I opened the box, this is what was inside; the lavvu, centre pole, tent pegs and the mosquito door (I have included my Leatherman Wave for size comparison

The parts of the centre pole pack neatly inside each other and a plastic cap on each end prevents them sliding out.

The five sections push together to make the pole

and the end of the pole goes into a cup in the top of the lavvu

The lavvu material is rip-stop polyester

The lavvu has an aluminium coating on the inside which helps reflect heat and this also reduces the size of fire required to warm the tent.

There are two air vents opposite  the door which can be closed completely if not required

A guy-line to one of the air vents was missing, but a quick telephone call to Frisport (also in Norway) and one was in the post to me.

A hat can be fitted over the top of the lavvu (see picture below) which can be opened to allow smoke out when using a fire inside.  The hat can be rotated 360 degrees but to do this you have to un-tie and re-tie a series of guy-lines.

To simplify this I have added shockcord hooks to each of the lines

I must say that the instructions that came with the lavvu are appalling!!!  When I have some time I will produce a PDF instruction document available to download.

Here is the PDF instructions frisport andersnatten instructions

The end of one of the seam tapes is also not stuck to the material and so I have to buy some adhesive and for these two reasons I give the Frisport Andersnatten Extreme a 8 out of 10.

Lapland autumn 2009 – 23rd September

We spent the morning collecting fallen trees from the forest for next years fire wood.  Its so much easier to drag them back when there are two people!!!

I also carried back the tipi poles and stored in the cabin roof.

I spent the rest of the morning sawing the trees into logs

We drove to a small village about 10 miles from the cabin to buy some supplies.  As we returned I took a couple of pictures of the landscape around my cabin

Later on I completed a Birch plate and kåsa

I also had a half finished kåsa/kuksa which I took back to England and completed

Lapland autumn 2009 – 19th September

Heard a strange, regular noise in the forest behind the cabin first thing this morning.  It was clear that whatever was making the noise was moving from left to right.  I telephoned Anki and Ingvar at their cabin and they immediately identified it as a Reindeer with a bell around its neck.

After breakfast I went to the area where I had left the tipi poles tied to a tree to dry, when I was at my cabin in the spring.

I had tied the poles around the tree so that they did not bend as they dried and it had worked very well

I spent a lot of the day carving a kåsa as a gift for Anki for her birthday.  The boys had enjoyed making and watching the boats floating on the lake and so I came up with the idea of adding tea-light candles to the boats to enable us to watch them on the lake at night.

And when one caught fire that added to the enjoyment for the boys.  Here is a piece of video of the boats when we first put them on the lake

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Pictures by sufguy1 – Photobucket“, posted with vodpod

The new birds for my list today were Siberian Tit and Bullfinch

Lapland Spring 2009 – 1st June

Cold with a strong NW wind this morning.

Every day I have had my fish trap in the lake but caught nothing.  I am told it is because of all the rain and melt water stirring up the lake.  After a couple of warm sunny days the lake has become clearer and this morning I caught fish.

Three perch or aborre in Swedish which are good to eat.

I had dismantled the tipi because heat from the fire was causing resin to run out of the poles into the parachute material and drip onto the occupants.  I had leaned the poles in a tree to dry but then noticed they were bending.  So I have now arranged them around the trunk of a tree

and tied them in position to leave until the autumn to dry

I wondered around taking pictures  for the rest of the morning.  Here is the view from the tipi

and a view across the lake

and here is a view of the lake now

compared with the same view one year previous

Clearly showing how much more advanced the spring is this year!

While eating lunch I heard a crackling outside and rushed out to find that the remaining dead grass outside my cabin had caught fire (either from a spark from the chimney or from the bottom of a polished beer can left in the sun after making fire with it)!  The strong wind was fanning the flames and it spread very quickly.  I spent over an hour running up and down to the lake with two buckets until finally I put the fire out.

and another view

After the fire had been out for a couple of hours I walked in the forest and on the marsh collecting plant specimens

These are the flowers of Bilberry (apologies for the quality of the image)

This is Cloudberry Hjortron in Swedish (Rubus chamaemorus), in the same family as our Blackberry.  Locally it is used to make a desert sauce or jam and also a strong liquer.

This next plant (when not in flower) can be mistaken for Labrador Tea but as a member of the Heath family, Bog Rosemary (Andromeda polifolia – Andromeda because as sea water bathed her feet when chained to a rock in the sea, so the roots of this plant are bathed by fresh water from the marsh) is said to be poisonous.  It lacks the brown hairs on the underside of the leaf which Labrador Tea has.

Filled with enthusiasm from catching three fish this morning I spent the evening fishing

Regular readers will of probably already guest that I caught nothing!! And had to console my failure with a fish and dehydrated potato pie made from my catch this morning

While out rowing I spotted a Birch tree which had broken in the wind and was now hung-up in a Scots Pine.  This would be useful fire wood for me and so I needed to plan how to get it down, logged up and back to the cabin, but more about that next time!

1 Whooper Swan landed on the lake just as the sun was setting, called a lot and then flew off

Lapland Spring 2009 – 24th May

My official birthday today so I opened some cards I had brought with from England

The boys were heading home today so although I still needed to cut and prepare more poles, I decided to put up the tipi.  I started my lashing four poles together

and then laid more poles between them.  I folded my parachute in half and tied the folded edges to two poles, then pulled the ‘chute around the frame with one of the poles.

You can see that more poles were required b ecause the parachute material was sagging in some places, but the boys seemed happy with it!

I wanted to learn the boys some plants so later in the morning we collected some plants and took them back to the cabin.  We placed them on paper and completely covered each specimen with sticky take to preserve them.  I wrote the English and latin name of each specimen and the boys added the Swedish name.  If they did not know the name of the plant we looked them up in the two Swedish plant guides I have.

I noted the latin names of the plants and when I am back in England I will research their uses for the boys.

Bird sightings of note; Northern Bullfinch, Redpoll, GOSHAWK (new species), 20 Ruff lekking, Tree Pipit, Green Sandpiper, 1 pair Common Sandpiper breeding, 1 pair Wigeon, Tufted Duck, 2 groups of Black Grouse displaying.  Female Pied Flycatchers are now sitting on eggs.

Lapland Spring 2009 – 22nd May

Rowed to the far end of the lake first thing this morning and went walking in the forest, but very quickly it clouded over and really heavy rain fell.  I was soaked by the time I got back to the cabin and it’s times like that when I really appreciate have the cabin and a warm fire to go back to.

I collected the rain water from the roof of the cabin for drinking and cooking

While it was raining I carved some hooks from pieces of Pine

to nail up around the cabin to hang things from.

After the rain stopped I decided to go into the forest to begin cutting small Pine trees for poles to make a traditional style tipi or kåta.  I was careful in my selection, taking a tree where two were very close together and only one would survive, or trees that did not look so healthy.

Once I had cut down a tree, I removed all the branches with my axe

To remove the bark I drove the tip of a knife into a wooden batten to make a simple draw knife

I tried eating the inner bark which was surprisingly tasty and quite sweet.

I was having lunch and some coffee at my cabin when I heard the voices of children in the forest

It was the grandchildren of my friends Anki and Ingvar who were coming to visit me.  The children are taught survival skills in school in Sweden and they were keen to learn new skills from me.  Particularly making fire without matches.

I began by demonstrating the bow-drill to them and then we headed into the forest to collect different tinders for them to experiment with using firesteels.

We also experimented with flint and steel to make fire with True Tinder fungus

The boys were also keen to teach me things as well.  Here they are explaining how to navigate in the forest using Wood Ant nests

and here Simon is demonstrating how to eat the ants without being bitten.

They were actually quite pleasant to eat.

We spent the evening fishing though no one caught anything.

New birds; Redstart, Song Thrush, Mallard, Teal, Whimbrel, Capercaillie and two groups of Black Grouse lekking on the edge of the marsh.

Primitive skills weekend – Part 1

Last weekend I attended a primitive skills weekend run by Will Lord and John Lord + some of their friends.  Here are John and Will exchanging tips on the hand-drill

I arrived early on Friday afternoon as food was being prepared for an evening meal

Once this rabbit had been gutted and skinned we made up a rack to suspend it over the fire to cook (we cooked Pike in the same way).

People continued to arrive throughout the evening

I had set up my parachute as a tipi for my shelter for the weekend and it was great to be able to lay in bed on Saturday morning testing out my new trangia stove to make coffee and fried breakfast.

I fried salami, mushrooms and spring onions on bannock bread and I must say that the stove performed extremely well.

The day started with some of us attempting to produce a coal with the hand-drill……unsuccessfully I might add!

Will lead the primitive theme for the weekend by dressing in his buckskin and leather clothing (including a really nice pair of Red Deer skin boots he had made)

After a chat and a brief about activities for the day around the campfire

some people started scraping deer skins ready for tanning.

As brains were being used for tanning the hides, they needed to be mashed up before they could be applied

Nick (a deer manager and stalker by trade) gave a demonstration on skinning a Roe deer with flint tools

and also butchering it with flint tools

and John was running a flintknapping workshop on making flint tools

For lunch we experimented with cooking shell fish on a burning log with a few embers on the top

which worked really well