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