At Peace With the Coleman Stove

I have a secret to tell you.
I love Coleman camping stoves!
I don't mean those ones that you screw a bottle of propane to, but the "real" ones. Those naptha / white gas green ones with the red tanks that you pump up and light. I love the blue flame, the smell of the fuel burning and that quiet roar they make as they spew the fuel forth and produce a hot flame.
When I  was in the army, we used to go on exercise in winter (winter indoctrination they would call it). We would hump up and down hills and across fields and through forests on crappy snowshoes, pulling an overloaded toboggan full of rations, ammunition, axes, a ten man tent and of course the precious Coleman stove. When we finally stopped for the day we would unpack the tent. The first guy to crawl under the canvas was the pole man. He would put the pole up and set it into the baseplate and stand there as we stretched the canvas out and started securing the guylines and tentpegs. But even before we had all the pegs and lines nailed in, one of the other guys would crawl in and get the Coleman stove going to heat up the tent. After a long day of slogging through the bush or sitting in an ambush feeling your boots freeze around your feet, the best thing was crawling into that tent already warming with the heat from the two burner stove. It sat there by the entrance roaring away. A good soldier would already have snow melting in the pot ready for coffee and heating up our boil in the foil rations. The Coleman lantern would also be roaring away hanging from a hook on the pole pumping out even more heat. Next we laid out our sleeping bags and mattresses and it wasn't long before wet mitts, socks, boot liners and other assorted articles of clothing were hanging from the clothes drying strings attached to the inside of the tent.
People wonder how we could sleep in those tents in the dead of winter. I kid you not! We were above the arctic circle, it was -80 degrees celsius outside with the windchill and we were sitting in that tent in our shirts as happy as can be with the two burner stove, the lantern and a single burner stove for some extra heat.
We would then set up a stove watch of a couple of hours each. Courtesy was for you to fill up the fuel tanks on the stoves just prior to your relief taking over. Once in a while you got the shaft from someone as you just settled down and suddenly the blue flame would fade away and the hiss died. In the hectic life that being on exercise in the army can be, those 2 hours sitting there in the quiet while the rest of the section slept and only the hiss of the Coleman stove broke the silence....well those moments were golden.
This summer I ended up buying two Coleman stoves.
The first I got at a garage sale for $10. I was a little leery when the guy I bought it off told me how he had used it while fighting forest fires and burned helicopter fuel in it. I got it home and lit it up. It was burning really good when suddenly the whole thing burst into flame. My army training had prepared me for this, having been privvy to a few stove mishaps in the winter tents. I kicked the thing out the garage, shut off the valve and let it burn itself out. When the flames died down it was none the worse for wear so I figured it must have been burning off some of that "alternative fuel" the ex-firefighter was so fond of. I relit it a few minutes later and it burned as it should without further incident.
The second stove I picked up for $1.50 at the Thrift Shop in Boston Bar, BC.  It was a bigger model than the other one. A bigger fuel tank and larger case. It was also old. When I opened it up it was full of dirt and several spiders had built their nests in it. I was skeptical it would work as it was pretty rusty, but I took it back to my mom's and hosed it down to get the spiders out. I brought it back home and it sat in the garage for a couple months. Just tonight I decided to see if it would work. I put some naptha in it. Pumped it up but it wouldn't hold pressure. The fuel was leaking out from the cap. I took the cap off the other stove and got a good seal. I figured the generator was probably bad but after pumping it up and I was welcomed with a hiss so biting the bullet I hung the tank on the stove, pumped it up and lit a match. I was a little cautious after my previous adventure with the firefighter's stove but it lit up just fine and soon I had a nice blue flame. Next I lit the other burner and it too worked!


I stood out there in the driveway as the sun was setting and the darkness of the evening began to creep in. I listened to the stove hiss and roar.  A feeling of peace and warmth came over me and my mind wandered back to the long ago time.

Summer of Pop Culture Obsessions

I was thinking today about how I began the summer taking in the Calgary Expo and finished it at a roadside diner in the Fraser Canyon at an Elvis festival. Two celebrations of popular culture about as different as can be!

The Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo was held in a large convention centre and revolved around science fiction and fantasy featuring some big name celebrities and an endless supply of merchandise to spend your money on. Attendees dressed in amazing costumes they had spent hours and days getting just right.

Spirit Caves at Yale, BC

Today we decided to get out and hike to the Spirit Caves, located up a rather steep trail above Yale, BC. We were fortunate to run into a fellow named Don Walmsley, former principal at Boston Bar school, the night before at the Old Towne Inn that explained to us they are not really "caves" in the true sense of the form. They are actually piles of giant rocks that fell on top of each other, but have fallen in such a manner as to make a number of caves that you can go into. If we did not get this info prior to departure we may have ended up looking for the wrong thing when we got there!

The trail head is fairly easy to find as it is signposted. We came to the conclusion that the locals may be trying to deter people from attempting the climb because the trail is badly overgrown from the trailhead for about the first 500m. However, if you persevere and get across the fourth little bridge the trail soon opens up as you get into the forest. From here it is basically a continuous ascent through the forest on a well defined trail. You spend most of the time traversing up the mountain on a series of switchbacks.

As you ascend you are constantly reminded of the close proximity of the highway and railway tracks below. Breaks in the trees offer a number of views of the Fraser River and Yale. Close to the top there is a roped off area that offers the best view of the valley below.

Shortly after the viewpoint, you turn away from the highway deeper into the forest and drop into a little depression. Suddenly the highway sounds vanish and you are surrounded in silence. The forest is dark and shaded and incredibly green. The rocks of the spirit caves loom ahead of you. They are not obvious at first and we actually followed the trail further on than we needed to because we were not 100% sure that we were there yet. Once we reached the summit of the mountain and determined the small holes we saw in the rocks behind us were what we were looking for we headed back to explore further. Climbing up on to the rocks we were soon greeted with a number of different caves that we could actually get inside and look around. Some lead deeper into the mountain and others to chambers that allowed you to exit at different points. There was one that was so deep and so cold that the air turned to mist as it came into contact with the warm daytime air.

The atmosphere of the place was a little creepy, peering into these dark caves as your eyes adjusted from the bright sunlight. We had taken a flashlight with us as well but it was not totally necessary! I was, as usual, a little concerned about bears and such. The caves look like they would be ideal homes for wildlife and a pile of feathers under a tree suggested something had been snacking up there. I would maybe recommend taking some rope to explore the deeper caves.

Apparently native Americans used these caves and no doubt where they got their name, however I was a little disappointed that there was no obvious hieroglyphs painted on the walls, except by some teenagers of a more modern age I would assume.

The trip back to the trailhead follows the same route as you come in on. Travel time up was about 2.5 leisurely hours, but I think we were only about an hour or so getting down to the car. Allow at least an hour at the caves to explore. It is a good workout for the intermediate hiker but no technical skills required. The trail is fairly rough so I would recommend a good pair of hiking boots and a walking stick. Previous hikers had the courtesy to leave their makeshift sticks at the sign on the trailhead, so feel free to grab one of them. Just remember to leave it there when you get back!

Pick up the "Trails of Hope" brochure at the Hope, BC visitor centre for more hiking ideas in this area.

*Note: This post is a document on my journey on this trail and should not be used as a guide. Before hiking this trail make sure you are well equipped and informed!

Trip to Fort St. John

This week I had to go up to Fort St. John, BC for work. I have always enjoyed travel. Even though it is only about two hours away, the fact that it takes me out of Alberta makes it feel like I am actually going somewhere.

While in Ft. St. John I met up with a few Twitter folks for some beers and food at Egan's Pub. It is always nice to get together with the folks behind the tweets and I was quite happy they took the time out of their day to meet up with me.

The drive up highway 43 (which becomes BC Hwy 97) is quite nice. What I have always liked about travelling in this part of the country is how the seasons continually change the scenery.

Road Trip to the Calgary Comic Expo 2011

This past weekend I travelled 800km to Calgary to take in the fifth annual Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo. I have always wanted to attend a ComicCon / Sci-Fi convention, but it was only last year that I learned that this one in Calgary even existed. I was pleasantly surprised at just how good a time I had and the variety of things there was to see. A good part of the show is dedicated to comics. I do not have a real great interest in comics though. I was there more for the Sci-Fi and horror aspects. This year Calgary had invited such guests as George Romero, Felicia Day, Tia Carrerre, Summer Glau and Elvira Mistress of the Dark. The main attraction was William Shatner.

Once we got to Calgary we checked in to our hotel and downed a quick beer, then hopped on the C-Train and headed down to the BMO Roundup Centre. I had bought my ticket online a couple of months ago, so upon arrival I traded it in for a weekend pass.

"The Thing" Revisited

I was eager to try out the features of my new iPad so I decided to rent John Carpenter's 1982 movie The Thing from iTunes in order to check out video quality and convenience.

Last year I had listened to the short story "The Things" by Peter Watts via a Clarkesworld Magazine podcast. It is a retelling of the story from the perspective of The Thing. The story rekindled a desire in me to watch this movie again. I had seen The Thing in the 80's when it first got to video and I seem to recall that I had walked away in disappointment. I'm not sure why that is because now that I have watched it again I must say that I quite enjoyed it!

I won't spoil the story for you. It is about an alien life form that is discovered frozen in the ice of Antarctica. The creature exists by assimilating lifeforms around it and taking on their appearance. The movie revolves around a group of researchers who are faced with the horror of trying to figure out who has become one of the creatures and who is still human. Kurt Russell is the main character McCready.

What I noticed most about this movie is that even though it was filmed in 1982, it does not appear dated. I would attribute that mainly to the fact that parkas and winter boots never go out of style! Apart from a scene with an old computer and another where McCready records himself on a cassette recorder, you would not know it was shot  almost 30 years ago. Even the creature effects are quite good.