Calm before the storm

Another week flew past, and it was our last week with Turkka. It was a good week and we learnt some useful things. It's back to the grind next week. We have an Identification test Tuesday on trees, berries, mushrooms, ferns, lichens and polypores. Its probably not going to go well, but I've got Monday night to do some revising.
I've got my workplace sorted for December. I'll be in Lapland for the month working at Snow Fun Safaris. Not sure what I'll be doing there? Hopefully a bit of everything, Snowmobile safaris, cross country skiing, snowshoeing, ice fishing, reindeer and husky safaris. I've done all but the reindeer and husky safaris before, but not as work and it seems to be a good company so I'm looking forward to it.

OK so carrying on this week, I was supposed to make an emergency back pack and I did start it, but I heard that we wern't going to have time to learn how to make the emergency snowshoes so I dropped the back pack, asked Turkka to explain how the snowshoes were made and cracked on with them.  

I needed ten straightish lengths of wood about two and a half metres long. So I took an axe to some young Birch and Rowan trees, both are good and flexible. The shoe was about as wide as the distance between my thumb and little finger spread out and the wood was tied more of less evenly spaced in a way to allow a little movement, then finding the balance point tied on a cross piece for under my toes and another to go under my heels. Tied the front ends, bent them up and tied them off to the toe piece to give them the shape and finally tied an extra piece of rope to to strap my feet in.

They might look a bit shit but they were actually really easy to walk in. All I need now is some snow to go for a real test. I hopefully wont have to wait long.

As I was playing with my snowshoes some of the others were tying nets for their back packs.

A finished back pack. It's nice and all, but for me knowing how to make emergency snowshoes was more interesting and could be a lot more helpful if I need them.

 Making a rug, apparently its very nice to sleep on.

keeping the lines tight and moving them up and down stuffing the material in as you go.

The finished product. you can use pretty much anything soft for the rug. Reeds, Long grass etc.

 We made a few small things for a bit of fun. A pen above that did actually write.

 Our little friend here donated a bit of fur.

 Badger fur paintbrush.

Lastly I started working on a fishing lure. It needs more work, some sanding and a little paint. Easy to make so I'm going to make a few different types and hopefully catch some fish. 

This week we also made tinder from tinder fungus. It was a lot of work but its good stuff. I might at some point write a detailed post about it when I've used it and I might also write more detailed posts about a few other things that I could then use in a portfolio I need to create.

Laters

Back from a week off

I'm back at school this week after the holidays. I was just hanging around at home but I managed to get the 50 plant species list finished, I did it on PowerPoint and everything! Then me and Heli went to Mikkeli for a few days and popped over to Joensuu for a night to get drunk with D-Willy.

Before the holidays I took part in and completed the First Aid 2 course so apparently I am now a first aider and I've got a certificate to prove it. Unlucky everyone, pray you don't need first aid if only I'm about. Only joking I wasn't that bad.

So this week Turkka is back and he's showing us all kinds of traditional skills. We met in the classroom on Monday morning so he could describe what we were going to make that day before we headed out to search for the materials from the forest and to construct Atlatal's by the laavu.

It was pretty cold, the thermometer at the house said -8, but we're wilderness guides so it doesn't matter how cold it is. Mira is so tough she's not even wearing gloves! So first we got the materials, chopped down some Rowan tree's to make the darts or spears because it grows pretty straight, then we used Alder to carve the Atlatal which is the spear thrower. It acts as an extension of your arm to give more leverage when throwing.

That's my effort. The length for the dart is from the floor to your armpit. I stripped the bark off and removed any twigs then made a small hole in the end of it and tied some feathers to guide it in flight, but I'm not sure if they helped? I didn't weight it at the other end because it seemed to be heavy enough. As for the Atlatal, the length should be from your elbow to the tips of your fingers, it has a hole for your forefinger to go in and grip the handle, then at the other end I fixed a hook that the end of spear goes onto when throwing. I also carved a nice shape to it just for fun. After a bit of throwing practice that was about it for the day, Mondays are short days anyway.

Another cold day, the thermometer said -10. Apparently its gonna warm up a little tomorrow and towards the weekend. Today we had to make some targets to shoot at with our Atlatal's, wicker birds then.

 

Turkka showed us what to do then we were on our own. I collected twigs from birch trees a little over two feet long then started by twisting some of the twigs into a ball shape a little larger than my fist, and using wire wrapped the rest of the twigs at one end. Making space in the centre of these twigs I shoved the ball into it to form the body and wrapped the wire around to form the shape. I then folded the twigs up to from the neck and continued wrapping the wire around tightly which keeps the twigs in whatever position you want them. For the head I split the twigs into two bunches and folded them over again to create a big eye shape and beak and wrapped them up. I finished it off with the knife to shape the beak and tail a little.

I cant rotate this picture for some reason?

My target. Apparently you can use these when hunting to lure other birds in, because the birds will only look at the shape of the lure and if they're happy with it they'll want to come over to say hello. Then as long as your a good shot you have your dinner. I only used it to shoot at though.

Here he is, ready for shooting.

Everyone Else's birds and Tim's dog waiting to go home. Today we also prepared some tinder fungus for making fire lighters, made rucksack frames and nets but I'll save that for another day.

As for the rest of the Russian trip, I'll add pictures here and there with descriptions but I've got to get on with some studying, we've got a dirty test next week.

Laters.



Russian karelia, paanajärvi pt.3

 Day 5 of the trip.
There was a pre-planned route made by the planning team for the whole trip with our camps marked out. We didn't have to follow it exactly, but use it as a rough guide.
I was the lead guide in the morning, with Seishi bringing up the rear and we switched over in the afternoon.We had a meeting the previous night to discuss our route, where we would take breaks, lunch and worked out about how far we had to go and how long it might take. The route in the morning looked fairly straight forward. I had to pretty much follow a stream from where we were to a small lake and a bog just over a kilometre away, go around the bog, up and over a ridge to another small lake, go around that lake, then following contour lines of another ridge go around and not over it to eventually head in a South Easterly direction to our lunch spot at another lake. From there Seishi would take over and take us up and over some big hills, rock faces and down the other side to our next camp.

So up at six as usual, had breakfast and packed up camp. As daily guides we had the extra weight of the First Aid kits, sat phones, gps and extra rope in our packs. The gps is only for emergencies. All navigation was done by map and compass. So if I mention bearings, I mean compass bearings.
Everyone gathered just before eight. Then me and Seishi told them our plan. I let everyone know that it was going to be the longest hike of the trip, because there was going to be alot of climbing in the afternoon and it would be slow going. I would be setting a good pace in the morning to get us as far as I could and give us more time in the afternoon.

I led the way with Seishi at the back. I thought we could have gone along the side of a hill following the direction of the stream, but immediately saw that it was too steep so changed plan to go down to the water level and carry on from there. After about half a kilometre of climbing over fallen trees I thought it might be easier to walk on the other side of the stream so we crossed over and marched on. At some point I thought it was a bit quiet so I turned around to see only one person behind me. We waited for the others to catch up, then had to wait for them to catch their breath and carried on, eventually getting on top of a ridge and following it down to the start of a bog.

A water and snack break

I had a chance to take new bearings while I waited for everyone to catch up again and decided to skip the first small lake and instead go straight over the bog and take a slightly different route to the next lake.
Some people don't like bogs. They can be very waterlogged. You can get sucked in and stuck in the mud. But they are flat, there are no obstacles to climb over and you can walk in a straight line exactly where you want to go.

We got through the bog without incidents and on the map it looked like we had a slight incline over a ridge, then down to the next lake. It was way steeper than I thought it was going to be, but thats the way we had to now go. So, after a few moans and groans from my fellow students, up we went (I thought it was fun). At the top I took new bearings again, went over the top of a hill and down the other side to find the lake.

Ten minutes rest

Looking over the map during our break I changed the route again to cross another bog, seeing as it went so well last time. The teachers had a quiet word in my ear and pointed out a tiny lake on the map, that wasnt really on our way, but might be fun to try and find, and make it more challenging (you can see them plotting something above). Bring it on!

Across the bog, up another hill, over the top and then we met quite a steep drop which would have led us to the tiny lake. I was on for going down it, but I think I was the only one, so we followed the top of the hill to the east until I found a place where everyone was happy climbing down, but it put us off course. I was told that it was ok if we didn't find the lake anymore, but I still wanted to get there and not long after got back on course and found the bugger.

Next stop was lunch, so I took a new bearing and headed off. We came to a ridge which I expected and followed the ridge round to find the lake. Oh hang on. I didnt find the lake did I. No, because I assumed the lake was going to be at the bottom of the bloody hill, not half way up, but you know what they say about assumption. So I led us around the hill and came to a massive rock face.

 I consulted with my guide pair and we decided that the lake must be further on around the rock face. No, it wasn't. We kept going and going until we came to a stream. I told everyone to take a break and after a few words of advice from our teachers on how to find out where we might be, by how long we had been hiking, speed we were travelling and what was around us, me and Seishi headed up the hill to see if we could see the lake from higher up. We couldn't see anything through the trees and were about to give up when Seishi noticed the ground was getting boggy. I told him, it cant be because we're on top a hill and all the water would run down. Apparently not in Russia. We found the lake right at the top of the hill. I had misread the contour lines on the map thinking they went up and then down to the lake but they went up and up again. By the time we got back to everyone, they were cold and hungry so we had lunch where we were and Seishi led us in the afternoon.

We cracked on with it after lunch, a slower pace than in the morning. All but a few people complained that I was going too fast and were knackered already, but we were also about to start climbing.

Not leading I had time to take some pictures. Pretty nice views as we got a little higher. My little camera is not so good at long shots though.

We knew we had to, at some point, head over the top of the hill and it was going to get rocky. It was difficult to know when exectly to start heading south. We had a chat and had to take a guess at how far we had come, but we knew what bearing to take and it didn't really matter exactly where we were as long as we were heading in the right direction.

 Up we went and took a rest at almost the top of the hill. People were getting pretty tired now. It was getting late in the afternoon and we still had to get over this hill and find a suitable camping place on the other side.

Not a great pic, but you can see where the toes and claws were.

 We found bear prints and another lake on top of the hill, before we started climbing down.

It was a little dangerous going down here. Loose rocks and holes all over the place to fall and break your legs in. A few people fell, but no injuries.

When we finally got to our proposed campsite, it was no good. No water source and no flat ground. It left us one choice: to head towards the big lake a few kilometres away. There were one or two places we could have stopped on the way, but the following day was a rest day so we decided to soldier on to the lake.

Finally, got there just before it was dark. Not the best ground to camp on, but we weren't going any further. Some people had enough energy left to put up their shelter before they crashed out. I thought it was a good day overall. It wasn't mine or Seishi's fault the day was so long. A bit of a crazy route planned by the planning team and the original campsite was no good so we had extra kilometres to hike.

More to follow.

Laters.

Russian karelia, paanajärvi Pt.2 of ?

I don't really have many pics from the first real hiking day, because I was worried the battery on the camera was going to run out before the end of the trip. The morning went pretty well. We made good progress through the forest, found our rest stops and a lot of bear poo. When we stopped for lunch we were well ahead of schedule, I think that might have been when everybody switched off. We set off after lunch heading north, thinking it was just a few kilometres over a hill or two to a lake and our campsite. I'm not sure what happened? We didn't find the lake, but we did find a massive bog.

Apparently we had passed the lake a few hours ago, but it seems as if no-one had been paying any attention to the maps. But we were now. We were lost! After Tim had got sucked into the bog up to his knee's and we helped him out, it looked like it was going to start getting dark soon. Our guides decided to head south east to try and get out of the bog and back on track or at least find solid ground to camp on for the night. A few more people got stuck in the bog on our way out, but it was nothing serious..

This was our camp the next morning. We had to put our shelters up in the dark again. Me and Seishi put our shelters up together this time so we had a fire in the middle. The heat from the fire gets reflected from the inside of the shelters keeping us a little warmer.

Thursday was a scheduled rest day, just because we had been travelling since Monday. I found this lot making all sorts of noise doing some kind of hippy forest yoga.

Because we still didn't really know where we were after getting lost the day before, in the afternoon a few us went on a mission to find out. We went up-stream from where we had camped to hopefully find a lake and not another bog.

 Here's a picture of an eagle (if you can see it) I snapped with my mint wildlife photography skills.

We found a lake! which meant our campsite was about 2.5km north west of where it should've been. It meant a little more Hiking the next day.

That night Seishi tried a different fire technique. Got 2 decent sized logs, shaved the top off of one and put the shavings on it, lit the shaving's and put the other log on top and they burnt hot and for a long time. It took a while to get it going, because it was raining, but it worked well.

We were up at six every morning (except rest days) and packed up and on our way by eight. Crossing another bog above. Trying to find a good place to stop for lunch.

Filling with a few pictures here.

Someone had a feast. We think the bones are of a young moose, but we don't know what ate it?

The orienteering went really well this day. Even though we had extra kilometres to walk we got to our camp early enough to put up our shelters in day light. It was a really nice place and probably the most comfortable nights sleep I had the entire trip.

Here we are cooking spag bol and drying our stuff for the next day. We did this every night, some nights because of the rain, but most nights because of the sweat. Rubber boots are good for hiking through bogs and this type of terrain, but not so good at letting your feet breathe.

The next day it was mine and Seishi's turn to be the daily guides. Which will be coming soon.

Laters.