illustration: Ken Seabrook
Campfire know-how
Options for lighting a fire when wet matches leave you in the cold.
There are few things I find more heartening than a campfire at the end of a day in the wilderness. Conversely, there are few things more frustrating to a cold, wet, hungry camper than being unable to get a fire going.
Fire-starting options range from primitive, time-honoured techniques to complex modern gadgets, with various experts preferring different methods for different reasons.
“In a survival situation I don’t want to rely on matches,” says Wes Gietz, a former biochemist who studied with U.S. wilderness survival expert and author Tom Brown Jr. (www.trackerschool.com). “What would happen if everything I had got soaking wet?”
Gietz is founder of Firemaker (www.firemaker.org), an annual Vancouver Island gathering where participants learn what he calls “ancient skills of survival and living.” His recommended fire starter for most applications is a simple block of magnesium (www.coghlans.com, $7.58), which comes with a strip of flint. You use a blade to scrape some magnesium shavings from the block (which will fire up even if damp), then strike the flint to create a spark.
Read more in the current issue of British Columbia Magazine
