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I'm here in McBride, BC because I had years of opportunity to visit many small villages and towns across BC. Stay a week, see what they have for home-owner amenities. I picked this place because I knew some people. There's a little 6 bed serious hospital with MD and nurses. Two grocery...

There's an ex-pat brit family here. They have embraced our life style and environment without blinking. Even at -16C at sunrise today. Licensed fur trapper with trap lines. Big game hunter of all available species and they prepare what they harvest. He's very successful. This village...

It's hard to describe how heavy and how fast a mountain snow storm can come in. No more orientation by the peak shapes! It can be 20 yards in just a minute. We only got maybe 6" a couple of nights ago, up another 1,000m or more must have been quite a blast. That's an advantage to walking...

I suppose that I always took more than I needed for any eventuality. The basic assumption was always that it would be pi$$ing rain when we stopped. OK: first out is the rain fly for the big A-frame tent, spread out. Next, toss the ripstop nylon tent under the rain fly and get it square with...

Crown Royal Canadian rye whiskey is good. They have a few novelty bottles which I have decided to blow some money on. Bought the apple one first, good strong nose and taste. Like it. Next was a very pale vanilla. 1/4tsp(1.25ml) natural vanilla extract in 2 oz/60ml was the badly needed fix...

Buy a good compass and learn to use it. Play with it, carry it with you all the time. Might just save your butt in a fog some day. When I bought this house 22 years ago, I imagined that the streets ran E/W and the avenues N/S. Fooling with my Brunton compass one day, I learn that the avenues...

The key thing is that the gnomon (pointer) has to point at the pole star, Polaris. Then you have a clock circle, perpendicular to the gnomon. Like the ring you see commonly on sundials. The angle above the horizontal is the latitude of your location, 53 degrees for my place. Hope that's...

Yup. I learned to carry lots of water for the stupid people. In my youth, in the outback, we all had "SaltaDex" tablets, salt and the necessary dextrose needed for the salt uptake. Salt and sugar, you pick your pair. One day was 117F, real hell out of the shade. Nobody was moving at all.

Bought all the ones that keep coming up: Mayall & Mayall, Rohr, Savoie, Cousins, Waugh, Stoneman, Muller. If it weren't for all the huge discounts from abeBooks.com, I couldn't afford to do this. Cousins is a hard cover with mind-gagging maths and some fold out patterns in the back. Stoneman &...

I used to lay 25 x 2 liter plastic soda bottles of water on the floor of my big, old car for summer travels. Sand dune country and 40+C is spooky without a lot of water supply. Now, I have 2 x 5 Imp gal water tanks and 2 x 4.5 liter plastic water jugs. They don't impose on the space for...

Extreme cold (-25C) possible by the weekend, heavy 25 cm snow drifting into us from the west (typical). But at least here, it has to warm up to snow. So, stocked up today on food and drink. Store empty of my favorite junk so will have to cook and bake my own treats in the coming days. Four more...

That's what we call a "camp knife". This is a great example. From splitting kindling to dressing and boning game, has to do it all with ease.

I buy all the good foods and drink that Rumpuss-cat and I could want or need. Shopping again tomorrow for the fresh stuff. Need to, might be -25C by next Sunday. I think we are ready. Despite always picking the best, my bank account continues to grow! Nice to have the choice about buying...

Cut by cut, bison is just about unaffordable. However, if you have freezer space and enough coin, buy an entire side. Steaks, a few roasts and all the rest burger/mince (NO added fat). The taste is everything that beef is trying to be. Now! You are in a very strong position to barter for all...

There are two kinds of bison in North America and they look physically quite different: Plains Bison and Woodland Bison. I can't recall the major differences and I can't remember what we have locally. The local bison ranch herd is about 50 animals in a partially treed pasture, 320 acres, I'd...

There's a global consortium of booksellers: abeBooks.com which has a site in the UK. Outstanding values on more recent titles (6,000,000) and eye-watering prices on oldies and classic firsts.

East of me, out on the Great Plains, the total bison population by 1750 was estimated to be 60,000,000. A bow and arrow will not kill a bison. Buffalo jumps and spearing the wounded and crippled is very efficient. There are lots of garbage middens, well used by the tribes of that territory...

I recommend "Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden." It's a condensation of many interviews with a Hidatsa woman who described how they lived (rather well) with the trilogy of beans, squash and corn, supplemented with eggs and meat. One major issue, no matter what they did to store dry food, were the...

Two flats of 24 cans each of mucky wet cat food for the blob, Rumpuss-cat. The year will cost me at least $450 to feed the pig. Enough electricity to have forgotten and left the electric blanket on all day on LO. Ah well, juice is cheap here. Snow all around us and the freezing level can't...

Pay close attention to the community efforts needed by First Nations to preserve their annual salmon harvest on the west coast. Everybody has a garage for the car but everybody always parks outside. The garages are all smoke houses. 300+ salmon hanging up is quite a sight and fresh sea smell...