Winter in the northern forest By Nick.

For true mastery of this environment we look to the indigenous peoples of the North. In North America those resident in the northern forests (such as Cree, Ojibway, Mi'kmaq, Algonquin) developed and refined their bushcraft, clothing and equipment to deal with cold conditions over many lifetimes of experience. After experimenting with some of their technology I’m astonished at how it performs.







A great example of this is the mukluk. Mukluks are the traditional winter footwear of the indigenous people of the far North of North America. The design is basically a boot - high enough to keep snow out and roomy enough for plenty of insulation. Exact design and materials vary by region and what was available. More about this later but briefly these things outperform any cold weather footwear I’ve tried before. Light, comfortable, dry, warm. Made by my own fair hand they cost a fraction of the price of the fancy gore lined boots I normally wear.

While there’s much to be said for modern stuff it’s good to step back and weigh up the benefits. If you’re just going out for a couple of hours and are 99% sure you’ll be back in a nice warm house before supper to dry everything off this becomes less important - just use anything that works for a few hours. However, to live and work comfortably outdoors for even a few days in cold weather you need kit you can rely on and that can be repaired easily on the trail. Failure of key items in these conditions could spell big trouble.






Of course it’s difficult to pick some of this stuff up in shops - mukluks don’t tend to be up there on the shelf alongside the rubber pac boots. Some are commercially available but in my experience just don’t match up to your own hand made creations! This becomes a great advantage. Most items are pretty easy to make. Once you’ve made them you have the knowledge to make repairs or even replacements in the field. Before you know it these things are meeting all your needs and turning all you thought about outdoor gear on its head.
This article was written by Nick at: http://skillsforwildlives.typepad.com/skills_for_wild_lives/2010/02/winter-in-the-northern-forest.html