Lists, Colour Coding and Labels
People new to outdoor activity such as hunting, hiking and camping are likely a bit more organized on the second or third trip than they […]
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Lost, Who Me??
I bet almost every backpacker, hunter or any other outdoor person has been lost in the bush, at least for a short time. Most won’t
Chainsaw-chip Fire Starter
We get pretty good at fire-starting if we light enough fires, but there are some ways to make it even easier. Solid-fuel fire-starters work well
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Hiking: Other Essentials
In previous columns, I’ve talked about food, tents, packs, boots, foot care and outer garments. Now let’s look at other things that range from nearly
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The Camp Knife
Too often, I have seen people wearing knives that are really too big to take on any task except chopping down trees. These are often
Clothing to Keep You Safe and Warm
Time on the land can be uncomfortable and even very dangerous if you aren’t ready for the weather nature sends to greet you. On a
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On Backpacks
Since people come in different lengths, so do packs. Most quality packs have frame adjustments to lengthen and shorten the unit. Some have no adjustments, but that’s fine if it fits you at the length it is. Don’t buy it simply because the price is right.
Freezing Fish
Over the years a few people have told me that due to a loss of flavour, they do not freeze fish and only eat them
Raingear
Over the years I’ve been out in the rain. I’ve seen people who wear raingear from ultra-expensive Gore-Tex to disposable vinyl rain ponchos, or even
Grilling Salmon
Salmon can be grilled in your oven. Then, it’s referred to as broiling. It can also be grilled on the barbeque, or carefully over a
A Hike or a Walk
Both hiking and walking use feet for propulsion. A walk is often more leisurely, unless it’s your mode of exercise, and it’s done without a
Camp Tips and Ideas
Meat care: • Pre-cut ropes for hanging quarters. Make them six to seven feet long with a tied loop on one end to fasten to
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Cooking and Eating Ling Cod
Ling cod, or burbot, is very common in the Yukon’s southern lakes, and is quite easy to catch by jigging, bottom fishing, or using set-lines
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Ice Rescue By Others
Falling through the ice is less life-threatening if you are with others, especially if they’re prepared for such an event. Some very experienced Yukoners have
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Cold Water Immersion
The 1-10-1 principle refers to time: one minute, 10 minutes, and one hour. “One minute” deals with cold-water shock; when you first fall into the cold
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Ice Fishing Equipment
Ice fishing is a cold weather activity and your hands are involved in every operation, including cutting holes, setting up equipment, and hopefully handling fish.
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Ice Fishing, Part 1 of 2
In southern Canada’s ice-fishing season, lakes have been traditionally dotted with wooden ice huts or shanties. These are frozen in places with propane or home-built
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Sleeping bag selection
Sleeping bags are available from $25 to $2500, depending on your needs and budget. They will all be satisfactory if used as intended, but none
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Making the Best of a Gunshot Animal
The heart-lung area is the place to put your bullet for a quick, clean kill on any big animal. The lungs supply oxygen, and the
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Knives For the Hunt
Generally speaking, a hunter should have two knives — one for camp chores, such as cutting rope, whittling a wiener stick, or cutting up vegetables.
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Cowboy/Camp Coffee
A little research shows me that “camp coffee” and “cowboy coffee” are the same thing, but maybe originated in different locations. Basically, each involves a
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Dumplings For Your Moose Stew
It’s an unfortunate household that doesn’t occasionally sit down to a simmering pot of delicious moose or other wild-game stew. It’s a meal that can
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Sheep Hunting Part 3
Many new gun cartridges have come to the market in the last few years. A number of them are in the 30-calibre-and-under range, and would
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Sheep Hunting: Part 1
A sheep hunt is a true test of intestinal fortitude. It is similar to an alpine hike, but with a heavier pack — due to meat-care
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Rhubarb
It’s in almost everybody’s garden, and it grows totally untended in abandoned homesteads and mine sites — It must be a North American plant, right?
Your Goose is Cooked
Unlike the southern provinces where ducks and geese are around for a few months, migratory bird hunting is not a popular activity here. But those
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The Perfect Weenie Roast
As far as I know, electronic gadgetry hasn’t affected the humble hot dog. Having said that, I’m confident that somewhere out there there is a
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Use and Care of Axes
On a recent visit to a friend’s place I noticed that his axe handle had a 10 to 15 centimetre warp, and the head was
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My View on Optics
Whether you’re a hunter, bird-watcher, naturalist, or a combination of all three, optics play a big part in the activity. Sure, wildlife can be spotted
Fly Fishing for Pike
In the Yukon, fly anglers usually target arctic grayling, rainbow trout, or kokanee salmon in stocked lakes. These fish are readily available, fairly easy to catch
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Open-fire Cooking with a Dingle Bom
When my Swiss friend showed me how to use a “dingle bom”, he neglected to tell me how to spell it. I did, however, quickly
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Smaller Guns for Women and Youth
If the gun doesn’t fit the shooter, learning to use it will be difficult and even dangerous. Traditionally, both rifles and shotguns are made to
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Duct Tape
Likely, most households, tool-kits, camping–boxes, and glove compartments contain a roll of duct tape. Originally developed to seal joints in cold-air ducts (hence the name),
Managing Recoil in Rifles
Newton’s law about every action having an equal and opposite reaction becomes obvious, and sometimes painful, when shooting any type of firearm. Firearm recoil or
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Of Course You’ll Stay for Dinner
You aren’t sorry for inviting them to stay, because they are all your kids’ best friends, but what can you make for dinner to satisfy
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A Recipe That Might Change Everything: The Ziploc Omelette
Next to drug dealers, North American kitchens are probably the biggest users of smallish, sealable plastic bags. There are a variety of sizes and brands,
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Bison Hunt: On The Table 5/5
When serving bison, ideally the first meal is raved about. If not you’ll have difficulty serving the remaining 2300 pounds in the freezer.
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Bison Hunt: In The Kitchen 4/5
Nutrient comparison: fat per 100 grams of lean cooked meat: bison: 2.42 grams; choice beef: 10.15 grams; pork: 9.66 gram. Why we hunt Bison.
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Bison Hunt: Field Care 3/5
I suppose by now some hunter has field-dressed a large wood bison by themselves, but I’ll bet they never want to do it again.
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Bison Hunt: Getting Equipped 2/5
Hunting Bison isn’t easy. One bull broken down and weighed in pieces is 2,300 pounds. Big animals that can disappear after being hit well.
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Bison Hunt: intro of the herd 1/5
1998 was the first bison hunting season. They did nothing to avoid hunters. Later they became wary so hunting them became more challenging.
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Smoker Choice and Maintenance
Leaning against the counter at my wife Heather’s staff party, I listened to tales of hiking trips, caribou hunts, broken ATVs and fishing trips good
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Canning Wild Meat
Before electricity, drying and canning were the only ways to preserve meat, but I’ll bet it didn’t take long to get tired of eating dried
Vacuum Sealers
Fish quality deteriorates faster than anything else in your freezer. Flavour loss and freezer-burn are the most common results. Double wrapping with plastic and butcher
Wrapping for the Freezer
Freezer-burn ruins a lot of meat, fish, and vegetables every year. It is caused by air leakage in the packaging, which allows the moisture to
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Coleman: A Good Name in Camping Equipment
It’s been a long time since I was a child, but I clearly remember Coleman lights and stoves on my earliest family camping trips. These
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Tarps Around Camp
Tarpaulins are a very important, but often under-utilized, piece of outdoor equipment. There is no reason why a nature enthusiast shouldn’t have a bunch of
Lighting and Keeping a Fire
Fires keep us warm, get us dry, cook our food, act as a signal and make us feel good. Anyone can eventually get a fire
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Axe Care and Use
I’ve never found a hatchet very useful, but they are very common camping equipment. If hatchet carriers tried a short, full-sized axe, I am confident
Boot Care
A high-quality, well-made pair of hiking boots will probably cost you much more than your sleeping bag and almost as much as your tent. Having
Wild Game Chilli and Spaghetti Sauce
Up to a certain point in the preparation, spaghetti sauce and chilli are the same recipe. It’s only when you start to add the specific
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What to Have in a First Aid Kit
You’ll never be sorry for carrying a basic First Aid kit with you on your outdoor adventures. Kits are available ready-made, but they are expensive
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There’s a Bear in my Yard!
Whether your yard is a camp-site, the area around your cabin or your fenced residential property, it is still disconcerting and sometimes frightening to have
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More Tips About Tents
Now that you’ve selected a tent and figured out how to set it up, let’s consider some more tips to get the best use out
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Oyster Sauce and Tin Foil
A roll of aluminum foil can be a time and energy saver when cooking over an open fire – or even at home with the
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The Tent: A True Survival Item
If you are interested in sheep-hunting or high country backpacking, then your tent may be the most important item you will ever own. Suffer through
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How to Cook a Meal in a Pit
Yukon is blessed with many pea-gravel beaches surrounding our lakes. These locations are perfect for pit-cooking. It is a bit of effort to dig out
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Home-Made Trail Snacks
Fruit Leather is a chewy fruit roll or bar made by blending and drying fresh fruit into a leathery consistency. If it is kept cool
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Warm Feet, Happy Feet
Everyone has had cold feet ruin or at least negatively impact an otherwise great day. Our feet are some distance away from our body heat
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Winter: Time to Repair the Summer Toys
We all plan to spend part of the winter checking out and repairing some of our summer-use equipment. But just like New Years resolutions many
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Firearm Care for Cold Weather
A rifle or shotgun is a tool used to help put meat in the freezer. Like all tools, a firearm needs a little TLC so
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Sleeping Outdoors
Trappers and dog mushers have always slept out in the cold and with a few exceptions have done well. I got my start in occasionally
How to Make a Tender Dish Out of Tough Meat
They say that with a big bull bison even the gravy is tough. If you are in possession of such an animal you may have
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Dressing for the Cold
Wearing high quality brands certainly helps, but the real key to staying warm in winter is dressing in layers with the ability to vent off
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Budget meals for backpacking
I haven’t had any freeze-dried back-packing meals for a long time. They may have changed, but I always found them to be very expensive with
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Hypothermia: Symptoms and Prevention
Hypothermia results in death far more often than many might realize. Often the reported cause of death is drowning or heart attack but it’s hypothermia
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How To Assemble a Winter Survival Kit
Most survival situations don’t involve plane crashes, floods or blizzards. Usually they are fairly routine events such as a broken motorboat propeller, water in the
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Knowing the Tricks to Starting a Fire Can Save a Life
After a long day on the trail, or a short day in foul weather, there is nothing quite so comforting as a fire. And just think what it does for us in a survival situation out on the land.
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Spring Black Bear Hunt
An annual rite of spring for many Yukoners, including me, is the hunt for a black bear. Grizzly bears are also active and available, but
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Cast Iron: The Heavyweight of Cooking
Cast-iron cooking implements have been used in kitchens for hundreds of years, and are still very popular with all of us who have taken the
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Ice-out Lake Trout
The three most targeted fish species in the Yukon are lake trout, Arctic grayling and pike, and are sought after in that order.
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Pike in the Shallows
Pike spawn in the late spring and depending on where you are fishing are available in shallow water well into early July. Among my favourite
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Stir Fry and BBQ: Making the Most of Your Game
So you’ve got 250lbs of moose or up to 500lbs of bison in your freezer? You’d better hope the family likes the first dish you
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A Great Late Winter Catch
If you catch a fish in the Yukon that looks like nothing you’ve seen before, it’s likely a ling cod. Ling cod and burbot are
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Lip-smacking Ling Cod
Ling cod, burbot, fresh-water cod—call them what you like, we can all agree that they’re delicious. I’ve yet to hear of a complicated recipe, but
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Canning Fish and Wild Game
A very traditional—often thought of as old-fashioned—way of preserving fish and wild game is canning using the pressure of steam. Unless you have a friend
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Meat Care Basics
When you have 300-500 lbs of moose or bison in your freezer, you really need to have everyone in the family just love the first
Moose Hunt Essentials
A moose will often fall exactly where you had hoped they wouldn’t. Here a prepared hunter shines and the newbie learns a few lessons.
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Fish Smoking Basics
Smoking fish and making jerky are somewhat similar in that the process removes the moisture from the product (fish or meat). In either case it
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The Faithful ’06
The 30.06 Springfield is now over 100 years old. With a 180 grain bullet tit is the minimum cartridge to hunt bison in the Yukon.
Campfire Bannock
Bannock is another old favourite—at least the eating part. Making it is simple, but it impresses everyone in camp cooking it for them.
Jerky 101
There are a few options to consider. They range from not hunting this year (not a likely choice), passing some meat on to someone who
The Old-fashioned Shore Lunch
If you’ve ever read about—or been lucky enough to go on—a guided freshwater fishing excursion, there’s always a shore lunch included.
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