Edwin
15-01-2011, 11:47 AM
We all seem to love fire and work out ways of constraining it and using it, by properly built campfires or stoves or with fire bowls. But, is it actually part of our kit? What I mean by this is that if one looks at "primitive" shelters a fire is an integral part of their performance and even enabling one to sleep without a covering but in comfort.
Yamana Indians in Tierra del Fuego even had fires on their canoes as did some Prehistoric Stone Age dugout boat users in Denmark. The Yamana wore no clothes mostly and warming themselves by a fire was their solution in even freezing conditions.
If we want to make fire our extra blanket should we reexamine our kit? Artificial fibres do not behave well near fires, unlike wool or cotton but especially wool. Wool doesn't melt under heat or catch fire very readily. Cuddled up to the fire one would like to be more impervious to sparks.
Perhaps there is a way of using the Hobo Stove, for example without intimate contact with the fire itself: by spreading the heat from it with a directional back piece, filling a hot water bottle, heating large stones, whatever.
What do we do, or could do, to use this free resource?
Yamana Indians in Tierra del Fuego even had fires on their canoes as did some Prehistoric Stone Age dugout boat users in Denmark. The Yamana wore no clothes mostly and warming themselves by a fire was their solution in even freezing conditions.
If we want to make fire our extra blanket should we reexamine our kit? Artificial fibres do not behave well near fires, unlike wool or cotton but especially wool. Wool doesn't melt under heat or catch fire very readily. Cuddled up to the fire one would like to be more impervious to sparks.
Perhaps there is a way of using the Hobo Stove, for example without intimate contact with the fire itself: by spreading the heat from it with a directional back piece, filling a hot water bottle, heating large stones, whatever.
What do we do, or could do, to use this free resource?