Bushcrafting: Making a Firesteel Handle

I have a Finnish puukko (a small Sami/Laplander knife) which is amongst one of my favorites.  It is made from deer antler, birch, leather, and has a hand forged carbon steel blade which is very very sharp.  I have always wanted to make a firesteel handle to match one of my knives and this knife seemed to be a perfect match.  It looked like it would be a pretty uncomplicated job and it was!

I had deer antler left over from other projects so all I had to do was scrounge up some birch from a nearby woods and find a little leather.

I cut and trimmed everything and then into the vice with a some glue.

A little shaping with a rotary tool and some hand sanding and it all came together.  I wanted to keep it a little asymmetric because it was the best way to leave a little character in the antler and it gives the whole firesteel a rustic and natural look.

Lastly, I finshed it with a little mineral oil and a glossy wood finish and I installed the firerod.  I went with a misch metal rod rather than a harder ferro-rod because I prefer seeing the shower of sparks that a misch metal is known for.  I should be able to generate all the sparks I need by rubbing it on the spine of my carbon steel blade.  Here is the finished result.

Crafting this little firesteel has convinced me to attempt an even more ambitious project.  Stay tuned to see me create Woodlore bushcrafting knife.

Watching My Father Turn into a Zombie

I'm sorry if this rambles but I feel compelled to save my thoughts.

My father, my first hero, and my role model, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's last year.  He probably had it long before it actually got named but it is very evident now.  He is a very proud man and extremely intelligent.  It was his intellect that managed to fill in the gaps in his memory and allowed him to function without too much trouble.  I have kept him at home, his wish, for as long as possible and perhaps a little longer than it should have been.  Now things have progressed to the point where I must take this noble man and see him put in a care home, his personal nightmare and now mine too.

Let me tell you a little about him.  Born just before World War 2, he grew up in northern Ontario as a plumber's son.  His love of the outdoors was passed on to me as was his love of geology, travel, and golf.  He worked his whole career in the mining industry, and retired from being a long term planning  engineer at one of the world's largest open pit mines.  He would suffer no fools lightly but was generally a very sociable fellow.

My dad, son, and I before a hike.

I suppose there is a time in everyone's life when they discover that their parents are not super human and in fact fragile.  It was ten years ago when I realized how vulnerable my dad had become.  My mom had gotten really sick and they were forced to move from the home and hometown, in which I was raised, to a city where there was better healthcare available.  As she got sicker, something in him broke.  I went from seeing my father as a rock to me being the person he turned to for support and reassurance.

I can't say that I have been the greatest son.  I wish I could have spent more time with my parents.  With a family of my own, my own health concerns,and a demanding job, I have had to prioritize.  My parents were too stubborn to allow us to move them closer and so my infrequent visits have caused all too suffer.  My distant relatives have labelled me as a negligent son and so would my wife and kids have an entirely different, but equally unpleasant, label for me if I dropped everything to just be a dutiful son full time.  Life is a fine balance.

So as I make plans to see that my dad is taken care of the best way I possibly can.  He doesn't want to be a burden and he never will be, he's my dad.  I get to watch as this horrible disease takes him slowly from me.  Everyday another piece of him is gone and one day all that will be left is his body.  My father is slowly becoming a zombie.  It is pure agony to watch it happen.  He deserved better.  My mind plays games wondering whether he is as terrified as I am or if at this point the Alzheimer's has made him blissfully ignorant.  I have selfishly wished for him to have a heart attack in hopes that it would give us both a release from this ongoing hell.  I really don't know if I have the strength to visit him when there is nothing left.  You would think that knowing others who have gone through similar tragedies in their life would make me feel better and not so alone but it doesn't. It's too personal.  My wife and kids give me strength.

Give the people you love a hug and let them know how much you appreciate them.  I wish I had something more original or uplifting to end this entry on but my tank has run dry.

Guns: Call me a hypocrite!

Although I was raised in a hunting family and enjoyed the activity, I have always been a supporter of stronger restrictive gun laws and tougher punishments for gun related crimes(I'm still very committed to this one).  It's easy to come to this conclusion when you see so many highly publicized and violent rampages on national media.   I have many American friends with opposing points of view and it took me a long time to realize that you can't take the firearms out of their society because it is part of their culture.  It's really no different than telling me I can't celebrate Christmas. 

Coming from Canada, the almost cavalier attitude and unnatural comfort  of Americans towards something that is highly regulated up here can be very disconcerting...especially when one sees someone cleaning their handgun on the picnic table at a rest stop right next where where my   innocent family is eating their lunch unawares.  I understood the collecting aspect, the hunting aspect, and even the thrill of just shooting a firearm for fun but my perspective hasn't changed much when I have discussed my concerns online with some delusional people who rationalize the need to carry because they see a boogeyman  behind every bush.   It's those paranoid few that send shivers up my spine!

I had my chance to fire a selection of what would be considered restricted firearms in Canada in Las Vegas last week and I really enjoyed it.  The activity was in a very controlled environment with some very qualified instructors supervising it.  My comfort level with these guns has since risen to the point that I wouldn't mind doing it again and perhaps taking some  Canadian Firearms Safety Courses and applying for a Restricted Possession and Acquisition License with the aim of enjoying a little target shooting of my own.  The process is long and quite limiting but I think it's for the best.  To those of you getting freaked out at the prospect of a firearm in my hands, be comforted in the knowledge that I have owned and used them before and will abide responsibly by the laws and rules of our country.

Under the Volcano: Chapter 2

I have been watching feed from the Tolbachik volcano on the Kamchtka Peninsula ever since it started to erupt.  It has got to be my favorite type of eruption, an effusive fissure eruption.   Every summer, I have found myself on the side of some volcanic feature and inspired by Tolbachik volcano, I have decided to write about a few more of my favorites.

Craters of the Moon National Monument

I have driven across the flat and dry volcanic Snake River Plain in southern Idaho several  times and always regretted never visiting Craters of the Moon National Monument.  It is a little out of the way from the major interstate highways of the USA  but then again, so are most of the interesting volcanic features I have visited before.  Last summer I got my chance and it was well worth it.

Craters of the Moon National Monument consists of 400 square miles of basalt  lava fields originating from a "Great Rift".  Eruptions along this rift come from a series of fissures that generate spatter cones and effusive lava flows.  There are also a series of monogenic cinder cones some of which, like Inferno Cone (see picture below) can be climbed by the public.  The most recent erruption was approximately 2100 years ago.

The expansive and flat lava flows contain tree molds and some of the largest lava tubes I have ever seen.

I was fascinated by a distinguishing and a unique feature of the Blue Dragon flow, the youngest flow in the park.  The lava is covered by scales that give off a blue sheen.

Craters of the Moon National monument is at 5900 feet altitude and is almost always windswept.  The lack of cover and the heat sink nature of the black basalt can make it also a very hot place to visit.  Despite these conditions, I enjoyed my time there very much.

Yellowstone

I have visited Yellowstone at least five times and keep being drawn back.  Yellowstone is a fascinating to me not only because of its seemingly endless local volcanic and hydrothermal features but because of the fact that the hotspot which created them, is also responsible for many of the large geologic formations  throughout the pacific northwest.  These include the flood basalts of Snake River Plain and even the Columbia River Basalt Group, one of the largest trap formations in the world.

Columbia River Flood Basalts

 When you have seen all of this, calling Yellowstone merely a "super volcano" doesn't seem to justify the magnitude of eruptive material that has been created by this hotspot.  It is mind boggling!  Yellowstone itself is a series of overlapping and sometimes nested caldera type eruptions on a massive scale.  The youngest caldera is filled with the remains of many more recent effusive and sometimes explosive events.  Eruptions at the current location has ranged from phreatic to those producing lavas all all varieties, basalt to rhyolite.  Yellowstone resides on the continental divide, currently one of the thickest parts of the earths crust on the North American Plate.  The massive magma chamber, which was once fed by the hotspot, is still full of plastic hot magma possibly left  there from previous eruptions of the distant past.  Insulated within the rock of the crust, magma can stay hot for milenia.  This magma chamber is at a very shallow depth such that water coming in contact with it has created the world's largest collection of hydrothermal features which include geysers, hot springs, fumaroles, and mud pots.  Below is a small sample of some of the geology that can be seen within the park.

Ubiquitous "Old Faithful" geyser

Upper Geyser Basin Path

Grand Prismatic Spring

Mammoth Hot Springs

Fountain Paint Pots boiling mud pond

Roaring Mountain Fumarole Field

Overlapping columnar lava flows at Watch Tower Falls

There are two resurgent domes within the Yellowstone caldera which have been growing lately.  This has been a source of concern amongst sensationalist media types but they are a common feature in most  active calderas around the world.  Resurgent domes are known to inflate and deflate routinely and are not a good  indicator of an imminent volcanic eruption.  The National Park Service and the USGS (United States Geologic Survey) monitor the volcano constantly with various types of sensors.  There has not been any sign of a significant increase in sulfur dioxide emissions or increased seismic tremors(earthquake) in focused swarms, key indicators of a possible eruption.  Experts say that the likelihood of a big Yellowstone eruption is 1/730,000 every year.   I hope this debunks some of the fear generated by media...sorry doomsday preppers!

Aside from the geology, I also love visiting Yellowstone for it's rustic charm, abundant wildlife, and beautiful mountain vistas.  Yellowstone is just too large to see everything in one trip.

Newberry Caldera/Volcano and Medicine Lake Volcano

Although these two volcanoes reside in two different states, they are both situated just east of the Cascade Range and volcanic arc, they are both essentially shield volcanoes with extensive associated monogenic cindercone fields,  they are both atypical shield volcanoes in that they have produced both basalt flows at lower elevations and rhyolite flows at higher elevations, and they both have lakes within their calderas.  It is likely that both have multiple small magma chambers rather than just one.  Both of these volcanoes seem to be on an area of crustal extension with eruptive vents running along fault lines moving from the oldest in the southeast to the youngest in the northwest.  The last eruption at Newberry was approximately 1400 years ago and the last eruption at Medicine Lake was approximately 900 years ago.

I had the pleasure of camping inside Newberry Caldera next to East Lake.  Newberry is in central Oregon.  The caldera itself is filled with obsidian shards from various rhyolite flows and this can make walking in unsuitable footwear treacherous.  There are several hot springs along the sides of both lakes in Newberry Caldera.

Central Pumice Cone across East Lake

Big Obsidian Flow

Lava Butte

Medicine Lake Volcano is in  northern California and has Lava Beds National Monument on its northern slope.

Medicine Lake Volcano on the left and Mt Shasta distant right

This volcano is well off the beaten path but its numerous lava tubes makes it a destination for adventurous spelunkers.  I discovered this monument more by coincidence than on purpose as it was on my planned route to Reno one spring.  In Lava Beds National Monument the final battles of the Modoc War (or Lava Beds War) were fought between the local native American Modoc tribe and the US army  in 1873.  The lava beds were known as Captain Jack's (the Modoc leader) Stronghold and the lava tubes and ridges provided an effective defense during the two battles which were fought in them.  The combination of history and geology has made Lava Beds National Monument a fondly remembered destination for me.

Devil's Homestead Lava Flow

Lava tube entrance with Schonchin Butte cinder cone behind

Stay tuned for more volcano goodness as I have visited many others and I intend to see many more.

Bushcrafting: The Mighty Kuksa

I have been accused of being materialistic, even by people who are supposed to have been close friends.  To a certain extent this is correct however, for me it has always been about the quest to obtain whatever object I am seeking.  The harder an object is to attain, the more I have valued it.  This is why I cherish anything that I have made through my DIY (do it yourself) projects.  This is also part of why I really enjoy the "crafting" side of bushcrafting and this leads me to my next project, making a kuksa.

A kuksa (guksi or kasa) is a traditional handicrafted cup carved out of the burl of a birch tree by the Sami or Laplander people of northern Scandinavia.  The Sami believe that  traditionally, you should either carve your own or receive one as a gift.  A kuksa should last you a lifetime.  The kuksa has been adopted by bushcrafters not only for its aesthetics, function, and its origin in the forest but because it is a natural progression in carving skills to craft one after completing the carving of a spoon.  The tools and skills needed to carve a kuksa are exactly the same as for the spoon.  All you need is a saw, hatchet, carving knife and a crooked knife.

A cook spoon I carved from the fallen branch of a cedar tree.

Since a kuksa is made from natural materials of the forest, I was determined to find what I needed to make one there.  There is an abundance of birch trees growing in the boggy woods which surround where I live so I headed out on a hike to find the materials I needed.

After a long search for a burl, I found one (which I at first mistook for chaga).

Birch burl

  Unfortunately, the burl was too small so I settled for using a piece of silver birch from my pile of firewood.  It took me approximately two weeks to carve and along the way I had to fight the wood from cracking because it was still slightly green.

 I wanted to keep this kuksa as authentic as I could so I added deer antler to the handle.  The antler was supplied by a fellow bushcrafter and I can't believe how hard the material was to shape!  I also etched a crude Sami symbol for reindeer into it, my first attempt at scrimshaw!  After my initial scare with cracking, I was afraid to try curing the kuksa in the tradional way by boiling it for several hours in salt water so instead I went with rubbing it with mineral oil.  The mineral oil makes it safe to drink out of, protects it from rot, and brings out the grain.  Here are a few pictures of my completed kuksa.

For someone interested in a kuksa but not motivated to carve their own, there is a new product gaining popularity with backpackers and bushcrafters alike.  Kupilka, a Finnish company, makes a a lightweight kuksa. called the "Kupilka 21", out of  a natural fiber composite consisting 50% of pine and 50% plastic.  At only 3.5oz, it is dishwasher safe and biodegradable.

Kupilka 21.

The kuksa project has been very satisfying to me and I can't wait to use it around my next campfire.

Bushcrafting: Man Bag/Haversack

As much as the "European man bag" is getting mocked these days, it is still very trendy and not a new idea.  Haversacks have been around since man first started to travel. Old army surplus gas mask bags are much prized by young adults in Great Britain right now and of course, the bushcrafting crowd all over.   Hey, even Harrison Ford's character, "Indiana Jones", carries a British Mark VII gas mask bag as part of his adventure kit.

Surplus Finnish gas mask mask bags are easier to find, less expensive, and just a little larger in carrying capacity.  The other thing which makes these bags so popular is that they are so easy to personalize or accessorize.

I decided that it might be a nice project to fix one of these bags up for myself.  The haversack would make a nice addition to my canvas and leather Frost River backpack and the rustic style would make the two very complementary.  I could also use this bag on its own as a daypack for bushcrafting trips or, yes, even as a man bag.

 So I purchased one from a surplus store online because I could not find one locally, shopped around for some leather and brass parts, and ordered a shoulder pad for the strap from Maxpedition.  I had to have some straps removed and new loops sewn in their place.

 Finally, I attached a leather "Navigator Pouch", made by leather artisan and very talented knife maker, Cody of  Adventure Sworn.

 My coworkers are always very curious about my little crafting projects and they really liked this bag.  One asked if I could make them one in pink!  For now, I think I'll just take mine out and enjoy it regardless of the "man bag" stigma.

Vaccinate Debate

This is the season where people go and get their flu shots.  It always brings up contentious discussion over the efficacy of vaccinations..  Normally I don't have a big problem if someone decides that immunizing themselves is not for them as long as they have done their due diligence when deciding.  I wish they would reconsider but it's ultimately their decision.

What really irritates me is all the people who spread misinformation about what is in these vaccinations and how they work.  Lately I dropped two of the support groups for my vasculitis because it is filled with such people.  I have heard everything from the flu shot contains live viruses so you could become a "Typhoid Mary" type of carrier or that the flu shot contains tracking devices put there by the "government".  I have read from some posters in these support groups encouraging people not to take any vaccinations which is in direct contravention to the medical advice given by the Vasculitis Foundation of Canada, the Johns Hopkins Vasculitis Center, and even my own well respected  rheumatologist.  The wrong information being spread by people, no matter how well intended, can have disastrous results on people who are already chronically ill, immunosuppressed, and gullible enough to believe it.


As a medical professional I am concerned when I see the number of people stricken with whooping cough(Pertussis) reaching epidemic levels.  This is all because misinformed parents refuse to get their kids vaccinated with the DPT shot.  Pertussis is otherwise highly contagious.   It is also alarming to see the resurgence of Polio, a disease that was thought to be almost completely wiped out because of a worldwide successful vaccination program.  Then there were all the highly publicized claims about the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) causing autism that were later proven to be fraudulent only last year.  The list goes on for the non-science based witch hunt on vaccines and people are getting sick as a result.

 Yes indeed vaccinations can have unpleasant side effects such as fever, chills, allergic reactions, or soreness in the spot where the shot was given.  In some cases the side-effects can be worse but the incidence is much lower than the possible bad effects of the original diseases.


On a personal level, I almost died from the Swine Flu (H1N1) in the Fall of 2009 because I didn't get vaccinated in time.  As a medical person who is exposed to sick people and as a person who is immunosuppressed, there was a rush to get my shot but I had already been exposed to the disease by the time I received it.  I ended up in the hospital as a patient in isolation and very sick.  I never miss getting my flu shot and as early as I possibly can now.

 Bottom line is I don't want to be sick nor do I want to make anyone else sick.  Getting a simple vaccination can prevent it.