-30C WINTER CAMPING ALONE in a HOT TENT *HEAVY SNOWFALL BLIZZARD*

So I want to start this video off with sharing one of my techniques that I use for lighting fire using a ferro rod or fire steel. Now at the beginning of this video here I took some dry wood that I have outside of my tent and I split them down into manageable sizes like this. Now I can always use my axe here but I want to use my belt knife which you've seen me use in the past and the reason why I recommend using a belt knife for this providing it's a high quality knife that's able to withstand this type of work is that you have more control and it's a little safer. So I do have cut proof gloves on if I happen to slip this will protect my hands and what I'm going to use is my SE5 here and I'm just going to start processing this wood down into small manageable pieces. So this is what we call kindling and you want to build a fire from the ground up so you want to essentially have pieces down as small as matchsticks moving up to pencils moving up to thick markers and then pieces around this size. If you skip these early steps in preparation your likelihood of being successful doing this will be low so don't be afraid to take the extra few minutes and have a good fire press. Now the inner part of wood even if it's exposed to elements is always the driest part so again when you split down your pieces of wood you want to cut them into quarters and then into eighths and then take the inner part of that piece and start cutting off those pieces this is the dry section of the wood here. Okay so once we get down to these smaller pieces here what I'm going to use is a technique I'm not sure that I came up with it but it's a technique I've been using for quite a few years and I really haven't seen it on YouTube before. It's more common now since people have been watching my videos but this is a safe way to be able to make feather sticks. So you want to take your knife put it into a piece of wood so it's nice and solid you can do the same thing with your axe. I've done this in the past where I've drove my axe in and I've used the edge of the axe right here kind of as a lathe to be able to shave and make fire sticks as well but for today's demonstration we will use my SE5. So you can use any tree stump any natural material in the forest that will give you a good base. What I'm going to do is I'm going to look through these pieces I have here and try to find the straightest piece. Straightest piece the wood grains in these are quite straight as well so I'll start with this one here. I'm going to angle off the blade and I'm just going to lightly start to shave against the grain here and you're trying to make these little curls. Now there's a certain feel that you'll experience when you're pulling against the fibers of the wood and if you're able to maintain that angle the wood will start to curl very nicely. Okay so that's my first piece. I usually like to have at least two maybe three pieces. Okay there's two pieces there. Yeah I'll do one more for today. Like I say fire prep is important. Okay I should do the trick. So I want to keep these small shavings here as well because they will definitely be useful. So I'll kind of scrape these off to the side. Next is going to be the birch bark. So birch bark is extremely prevalent here throughout northern Canada and it's an excellent tool to use when lighting fire. Keep in mind birch bark has a high oil content and this stuff will burn very easily and it will burn for a while. So once you get a spark with birch bark you have a few moments to be able to organize yourself and to start to construct your fire. So you need to have a sharp knife in order for this to work. Hopefully I'll be able to zoom in here so you guys can see what I'm doing. Okay so I'm trying to make little flakes, tiny little flakes. You can also use your fingers and tear this apart as well. The more sharp edges of birch you have the more chances a spark will catch the edge and ignite the birch. In fact this is very dry birch so I don't really even need to scratch this one. If the birch starts to crumble on your fingers like this piece this will work as well. If not use the edge of your knife scratch the birch create your dust pile. Okay so I'm going to need two pieces of birch. I'm going to need my piece that's going to ignite the spark. Once this piece ignites I'm going to take my birch off to the side and start feeding this pile right here. Now before I do that I want to lay it on something flat so once I have my fire going I'm able to move it into the wood stove. So I'll just find a flat piece of wood off to the side. Actually what I'll use is I'll use another piece of birch or sorry another piece of bark make this a little easier. Okay so the fire steel will usually come with a little scraper. One side is going to be extremely sharp so if you want to feel that with your finger you'll be able to feel which side to use. Now there's a couple of different techniques of how to use this. Some people recommend holding the scraper and pulling back on the ferro rod like so. Some other people like to hold the ferro rod and then push the scraper forward. Okay let's see if I can hit this. There we go. Now that it's going take my birch off to the side, build myself a little fire. While I'm doing that I'm going to take my feather sticks that I made and I'm going to start to catch those pieces just like so. Move the rest of my birch over. So now I have a nice little pile here. I have time I don't need to rush this part. Lay this right into the wood stove and then I want to start feeding the fire with my other smaller pieces of kindling that I made. Make sure you pick your tools up when you're done with them. You don't want to leave anything behind especially if you're out in the forest. Put your fire steel back in your pocket. So once I have a good base going now with this fire I want to start loading the larger pieces in. And we should be good to go. So I highly recommend practicing your fire making techniques in a low stress environment. You never want to learn in a high stress environment and practicing out here at the winter camp is always a great spot to hone in those skills especially when it's cold out because there is a sense of urgency. You are using your bare hands a lot of the times but also if it's too cold I do have my backup which I can always use gas or matches if if needed. But I would recommend doing this often enough that where you can do it in any 5 Yankee Tango Echo. You're about a 5-9 here into the northwest territories in northern Canada here today. Back to you. Roger roger the name here is Phil Papa Hotel India Lima. Roger roger Phil you're speaking to Dave here Delta Alpha Victor Echo. Just hanging out here in my canvas tent with the wood stove in northern Canada here. It's quite cold today. Temperatures are down to about minus 25. Wind chill is down to about minus 30. Back to you. Roger roger what are you doing out there? Yeah roger that. I just have a winter camp set up here in the northwest territories and I spent some time away from my home QTH and just head out on the lake with the snow machine and just spend some time here burning wood and just enjoying the northern ambience. Over. Roger that pretty amazing. Yeah roger if you check out my QRZ page there's a few photos there you could probably see the tent that I'm sitting in right now as we speak actually. But that's kind of the way of the life up here in the north. We spend a lot of time out on the land so I've developed the skills to be comfortable in these in these conditions. Over. I love the outdoors. Yeah roger that. We've spent some time down in Yosemite as well. Beautiful part of the states there and definitely enjoyed my time. Although I was there in the summertime so we spent some time van camping and it was quite the experience to say the least. Roger that Phil. Thank you for the QSO today. All the best and seven threes. All right so I'm done playing radio for a while. About to cook up some supper here so I have a strip loin steak with some beans and some pita bread and looking forward to a good meal. I'm quite hungry after spending all day out here today. I really only had a cliff bar and a protein shake for breakfast so I really need to eat something of substance and about to dig into this steak here. So the wind right now is picking up quite a bit. You're going to notice the tent started to flap around. The forecast for this evening is wind gusts up to about 55 kilometers per hour and the wind chill is going to drop down to about negative 34 degrees celsius tonight so it's going to be nice and cold. I'm a little worried about the back flap here of the tent because I'm actually south facing. The back of the tent is north facing and where the wind is coming in from the north the back flap is moving quite a bit so I need to come up with a solution of how to try to minimize wear and tear and damage on the back of my tent but that's for a little later. here in my pita bread and beans. Delicious. That's a meal in itself. So let's cut into the steak here. Have a nice crust on the outside. Oh yeah that's cooked perfectly. Oh yeah that is juicy. I know I'll enjoy this. All right guys I think that's about enough radio for the evening. I managed to make 82 QSOs or contacts today. That's probably one of my all-time bests over here at the tent in a short amount of time. Took me maybe around two and a half to three hours. Propagation was great today. Band conditions were up and down. Most of my contacts were in the southeast of the U.S. which is great speaking to my east coast folk. And other than that I absolutely love amateur radio. There's just something about being as remote as what I am here with a mast and a wire outside of my tent with a little mobile radio here and I'm able to communicate with the rest of the world globally. Something about that that's pretty neat just sitting next to the wood stove and hearing the hiss of the lantern in the background. Kind of brings you back to the old days when people would use bush radio to communicate with each other. If you guys are interested in amateur radio or if you want to see more of these style videos with the radio and me operating please let me know. I know it's not for everybody and it won't be the main piece of my channel but I think occasionally I'll definitely throw some of this content in if it's something that you guys enjoy. It's something that I definitely enjoy as well. So other than that guys sit back relax for the rest of the evening. Just finishing the rest of this black tea here. I need to split up one more load of wood just to keep inside of the tent in the event I need to get up in the middle of the night to stoke the fire again. Usually I just let the fire burn down and just use the warmth of my sleeping bag and my clothes to keep me comfortable at night. But I know that wind is supposed to get down to 34 tonight so let's see how that plays out. But other than that that's the end of the video. Thank you guys for hanging out with me today and I will catch you guys in the next one. If you're not following me on Instagram check me out there at Dave's True Life or just check in the description below. All links for social media are posted there. With that being said you guys have a great night and we'll check in the next video. Peace.