This weekend, I took the whole family out for a camping trial. We haven’t been camping since a June 2016 trip to Vermont that was simultaneously wonderful and terrible.
We chose something a little closer to home this time. My in-laws own a small triangle of forest about 1 km up the road from Eccles Hill, near the US/Canada border. The property, situated somewhere near brigade.useless.eyebrow (just for you, HHFP) has a small cabin and outhouse, and maybe a couple acres of sloping woodland. It’s an old forest that’s falling down and slowly regenerating, and could use some help. There are lots of maples and other leafy trees, but almost all of the giant pines died off a few years ago after a heavy wet spell.
The cabin was dusty and mousy, so we left it as part of the scenery. We had plenty of space to set up the tent, but no running water, electricity, or wifi.
The only mobile network was a very spotty 4G connection... what is this is, 2008? Ha! Apart from sending a couple of text messages, my phone stayed in flight mode. It felt good to disconnect.
We went for one night just to try it out and see how we would survive. All-in-all, it went well and we had fun. Our sleeping equipment worked well and this gave us hope for a future outing.
Some comments/lessons learned:
- we had plenty of water for 1.5 days and one night (about 25-30 litres) but having more would have been less stressful
- don’t leave home without salt and pepper
- the kids were less interested in exploring the forest than I expected, this may be due to lack of familiarity with the area?
-the kids wouldn’t stop opening the cooler and hovering around the kitchen area, this got old real quick
- our big 5-man tent with vestibule was worth every penny, it’s amazing
- bring a baseball or soccer ball or something, we didn’t have any toys... oops!
- the Toytec lift is even better when the truck is loaded up a bit, such a smooth ride
- putting kids to sleep in a tent is impossible, it’s just far too exciting! Of course, if we had stayed longer they would have gotten accustomed to it and bed time would have been easier.
Also, an update on the search for a knife: I have not yet bought a knife, but my father-in-law gave me a couple of old knives he had laying around.
The “Buffalo Skinner” is in much better shape than the other two, and looks to have a 6067 stainless steel blade from Solingen . It has a symmetrical grind and would probably make a good all purpose knife, if not a bit clumsy in the kitchen due to that rising point.
I spent about 20 careful minutes on a small dry stone and managed to get a bit of edge on this knife, but much more remains to be done. The edge is damaged/dented near the bottom of the curved section, but it can probably be ground out. If I can get it cleaned up and properly sharp, it will become the camp kitchen knife, where a stainless blade will be appreciated. (If it fails me for whatever reason, I’ll just get the Dexter Russell 6" butcher knife or something similar.)
This still leaves room for an accessory knife, just because I want one. I still haven’t decided, there are too many options! But I’m leaning towards a Scandi grind in the 4" range, and have a few contenders in mind.
Since I know you’re curious, they are (in no particular order): the Mora Bushcraft Heavy Duty, the Condor Knives Final Frontier, and the Victorinox Hunter Pro. The Mora and Victorinox I know I can get locally, the Condor I have yet to search for. I’ve held the Victorinox and it’s amazing - solid construction, great balance and a superb grip, very reassuring. For pure in-hand feel, it’s going to be hard to beat...
But I’ve still got my eyes on a CRKT folder, and there are affordable options from Gerber and other companies as well. And there’s still this beauty to be considered...
