Posts by Sherwood Botsford
Simulate the setup as follows: Use several 1 gallon milk jugs as your 'person' In the middle jug, put a hole in the cap, and insert a temperature probe. (Many multi-meters come with a temperatu...
Little things add up. Do you need a set of batteries a day for your GPS or is 3 sets enough for a week. Take food out of boxes. A plastic bag is 6 grams. A box is 40 grams. -- about an ounce....
A 23 foot hull might be capable of using an inboard motor, in which case two of the holes could be for cooling water. Boats are usually designed to be maintained. You should be able to get to the...
Deer are browse feeders. They nibble on shrubs during the winter. You want to keep the forest clear enough of trees that shrubs do well. In our region (Alberta) dogwood and alder are the big one...
When a canoe has one end on shore,it's unstable. It helps if one person squats with knees on either side of the bow while the first person steps in. At the end, the bowsman steps into the canoe a...
I have not found anything yet, but have two partial solutions. Sneakers + gaiters. For this I need to buy sneakers in at least 1 full size larger, and go extra wide. My intent is to go in wearin...
Thirty odd years ago there was a fad for shoes generically called snow joggers. It was a super lightweight boot in appearence -- usually 6-8" tall, but with a very light construction throughout. ...
I don't see why it wouldn't. Any small sailboat that had a place for stepping the mast and that already had centreboard or leeboards should work. Caveats: I had a 1 week course in sailing usin...
I use total elevation change -- where down is also counted as well as up. I find that downhill (especially steep downhill) also slows down horizontal travel, so when estimating time for a trail, I...
Solution 1: Make a tool. When I played the flute I made what amounted to a shepherds crook with an almost closed loop on one end. Thread the corner of a rag through it, and draw it through the b...
After reading the "you're doing it wrong if you need to" I'll take a contrarian view: I've camped several times using an outfitter's tent -- canvas walled, barely liftable dry, and barely dragable...
I have spent somewhere around 1000-1200 nights in the Canadian Rockies, Prairies, boreal forests and tiaga. I rarely have used either a water filter or sterilizer tablets. Nor have people on our ...
Cannot speak to your specific species, but I have found that any form of grease: lard, margarine, butter, engine oil, transmission oil, is effective against at least horse flies, black flies, sand...
Water resistance: Yes it affects washability. Water can't wet the surface. Soap helps. Gortex type coatings can get clogged pores, especially if not well rinsed. Read the owners manual with ca...
Charlie Brumbaugh's answer is fairly comprehensive about the dangers. I will address some ideas on how to deal with this sort of trip. Avalanche Hazard. A: Take an avalanche safety course. It w...
Duct tape works as a temporary repair. Get rid of the duct tape glue. A: remove the duct tape. B: trying various solvents, remove any residual glue. You can try solvents first on the duct tape...
The national parks, such as Jasper are pretty sticky about trail use, especially on popular trails. (Jasper's skyline trail has a party every 15 minutes both ways when I did it. Never again.) At ...
Ten feet isn't unreasonable, although it's right at the edge of day to day accuracy. I used a Garmin 60c along with aerial photographs to create an orienteering map. I had an overall accuracy of ...
You stuff it into a bag that fits it reasonably. To small and it's a lot of work to stuff it. To large, and you don't have room for your other stuff. I prefer to use a bag that easily fits my sl...
Much depends on wave size. A sudden strong wind will kick up small white caps on a short reach. Not much to worry about. Give the wind 10 km or so of water to run over and it doesn't much wind to...
Bee keepers in central B.C. will use old school busses as portable bee yards. Each hive base is bolted to the floor, and a tunnel leads outside. They use a solar electric fence charger to charge t...
Find an old aluminum external frame pack. Remove the bag and discard. Lay the barrels crossways on the frame. Cut wedges that match the curve of the barrel. Fasten the wedges to the frame. (Th...
I've been inquiring about lighting safety in general, and the more I read the less certain I am about anything. A: While boating incidents are a big fraction of lightning deaths, and deaths of fi...
A sand filter won't take out bacteria, but will take out larger critters like giardia. Anything that makes the water clear will increase the penetration distance of sunlight. UV is tough on bacte...
Martin's answer is good. Adding a few tidbits: Most alcohol stoves will burn other alcohols. Denatured alcohol usually refers to ethanol with an agent added that makes it undrinkable. The 3 c...
