I love the Northern Forest. But I’d never been in winter. This time it was freezing cold and Ray Mears was going to take us on an Arctic winter trip, not to show us how to survive in this environment, but how to thrive in this environment. Here’s the story of the first two days…
Ray Mears introduces us to the cold
The start was quite intimidating. No sooner had we introduced ourselves or talk of cold injuries, the limited scope for mistakes and how much your body had to adapt to these unfamiliar circumstances made a few of us doubt the wisdom of coming on this holiday.
After a solid helping of theory we practised a few of the skills we might need if things were not going quite to plan. We got to know each other a lot better on the first day then expected. The first exercise consisted of heating up the feet of your new buddies by putting them under your armpits. This turned out to be a great way to loosen up a bit…
Luckily we also learned that it is essential to eat and drink well to stay warm. Ray didn’t have to tell us twice as we got multiple helpings of our lunch and dinners…
Getting around in the Arctic winter
As the snow was about a meter deep in most places, we needed to have a better way to travel on snow. In Alaska and Canada the original method is snowshoeing. In Lapland it’s skiing. Original Sami shoes even have a little ‘nose’ on the end to hook their shoes under the rope binding of their skis. For our journeys we used wooden army skis.
First off we needed to practised skiing for a few hours. We started around a short track. Once we got a little more comfortable we practised going uphill and downhill. We ended going into deep snow. Most of us quickly discovered how much easier it is to ski than to walk by falling off and having to walk back through snow a meter deep…
An emergency shelter in the forest
When it got dark we followed Dave, one of our instructors, into the woods. He showed us the most basic shelter: you basically dig a ditch in the snow. Then, using your skis, you cover the uphill part of the ditch with a tarp.
We then made our own emergency shelter and spend a very special night outside at -17•C. It was amazing to experience the quiet of the forest at night. Luckily the sleeping bag proved up to the task. If only I didn’t have to get up during the night…
Watch the video of our trip or read more:
Woodlore Winter Bushcraft video
Building a quinzee post