I found something useful on Sami firecraft while surfing the net:
The Sámi people in the north of Scandinavia have a thorough knowledge of fire-making. They were nomads and moved with their reindeer herds. They seldom had permanent housing, living instead instead in tents. Being always on the move, they had no stores of chopped and dry firewood. They had to make a fire with whatever was available where they camped. That usually meant cutting down standing living trees, and using the raw wood immediately.
In Scandinavia it is birch (betula species) that grows at the highest level up to the tree-line in the mountains, not conifer trees as in most of the arctic area. When birch dies it does not dry out, instead it decays under its waterproof bark. This kind of rotten wood is possible as firewood, but not used very much. Instead, freshly cut birch is a superior fuel for everyday use in the tent. Despite being fresh and damp, it burns well, if only you know how to light it.
Above the birch forests you find willow bushes (Salix species), called siergga in the Sámi language. When willow shrubs die they dry out. The dry twigs are excellent for lighting a fire, but there is never very much of it in one place. Instead there is plenty of live willow, and it resembles raw birch: even damp it burns well, and the embers stay alive and glowing for many hours, while coals from dry wood die out faster.
Raw willow bushes are such good fuel that in nomadic times some families stayed in the high mountains the whole winter, living in tents and warming themselves and cooking with nothing else.
Reindeer herders sometimes slept out in the open even in winter. They made a big fire of willow, and when the fire had gone out they spread a thick layer of twigs over the embers, and then slept on this heated twig bed. There are many rules regarding what kind of twigs you should use, how to cut them and how to distribute them on the coal. Mistakes will set fire to the twigs and the sleeping men will get burned. As an old reindeer herder says: Inexperienced people must not try to sleep on coal, they will surely burn.
Higher up in the mountains where the willow is rare there is dwarf birch (Betula nana) or skierre. It is used as summer fuel in the tents, and for little coffee-making fires outdoors. The slender twigs are burned fresh with their green leaves, and they burn quickly. A fire of thin skierre twigs gets hot enough for baking bread, but does not last long.
In the mountains Juniper bushes (Juniperus species; gaskas), grow crooked and curved, and their needles whirl around in the air when lit, therefore juniper wood is seldom used. Still it has one very important property, so important that reindeer herders sometimes call juniper life saver of the mountains. When a juniper has died and dried out, the wood is harder than any other. Even in very heavy rain it does not absorb water. No matter how terrible the weather is, it is always possible to get a fire going if you can find old juniper.
Freshly picked crowberry, (Empetrum nigrum; dangás in Sámi), Phyllodoce caerulea (vuorkkodangás), and even Lycopodium (ruvdarássi) are also used for fire, usually in fine summer weather. When the sun is hot, reindeer move up on to snowfields high above the tree-line and for the herders following them these small shrubs are the only firewood available.
A reindeer herder always carries birch bark in his backpack to light his fire with. The precious strips of bark must not be squandered; in the mountains the next birch might be a very long way off. In the summer you might find dry wood to light up with. But in winter it is much harder, as almost every twig is hidden under snow. Surprisingly though, it is actually possible to light a fire out of live, raw willow, even with no dry material at all to help out.
Matches and a razor sharp knife are necessary, however. You take a fresh willow branch and slice a number of paper-thin strips, piling them into a little, lofty heap. Put two or three matches to it carefully, and it ignites.
In pine and spruce forests it is easy to make fire, as there is plenty of dry wood about. When pine (Pinus sylvestris) dies it gets dry, and the trunk remains standing for decades, until it finally falls to the ground. The standing dry pine, soarvve, is used in different ways. When sleeping outdoors in temperatures of 20°C or 30°C, the reindeer herders made a special fire of two soarvve logs. One was laid on the ground, and the other parallel upon it. Different kinds of supports were used to prop up the upper log and prevent it from rolling off. The small flames, not more than on a candle, still generate a lot of heat. Such a double log fire, a nuorssjo, burned all night.
Dry spruce wood (Picea abies; Sámi luorkoj), is unsuitable for open fires, because it generates a lot of sparks that fly around. When the spruce has decayed, however, and is rotten through, you have useful firewood that will glow and burn softly without making sparks. Therefore it was used for night-fires in the tent.
Smoke from fires has many uses, for instance as protection against mosquitoes. Bigger animals can also be scared off by smoke. In the old days reindeer herders picked leaves of Angelica (Angelica archangelica) and smoked them in a pipe to protect the reindeer from hungry wolves. Angelica has two different forms; one is tall with a stem of one metre or more, Sámi bosku. This form is edible and well known as a Sami household vegetable. The low-growing form without the long stem is called vádnu. It has an acrid taste, and its leaves are smoked in the foul-smelling wolf-scaring pipe.
In a recent book by Yngve Ryd the Sami expertise of fire-making is revealed in fascinating detail, with excellent colour photos making it possible even for those who do not read Swedish to follow the processes and to understand something of these ancient skills.
The author and publisher are looking for a partner to publish the book in English.
Eld Flammor och glöd samisk eldkonst.
Yngve Ryd, Natur och Kultur, Stockholm, Sweden. 430 pages.
ISBN 91-27-10750-7
Source:
http://www.taigarescue.org/index.php?view=taiga_news&tn_ID=1137
Must be useful to some of you...
Tom
The Sámi people in the north of Scandinavia have a thorough knowledge of fire-making. They were nomads and moved with their reindeer herds. They seldom had permanent housing, living instead instead in tents. Being always on the move, they had no stores of chopped and dry firewood. They had to make a fire with whatever was available where they camped. That usually meant cutting down standing living trees, and using the raw wood immediately.
In Scandinavia it is birch (betula species) that grows at the highest level up to the tree-line in the mountains, not conifer trees as in most of the arctic area. When birch dies it does not dry out, instead it decays under its waterproof bark. This kind of rotten wood is possible as firewood, but not used very much. Instead, freshly cut birch is a superior fuel for everyday use in the tent. Despite being fresh and damp, it burns well, if only you know how to light it.
Above the birch forests you find willow bushes (Salix species), called siergga in the Sámi language. When willow shrubs die they dry out. The dry twigs are excellent for lighting a fire, but there is never very much of it in one place. Instead there is plenty of live willow, and it resembles raw birch: even damp it burns well, and the embers stay alive and glowing for many hours, while coals from dry wood die out faster.
Raw willow bushes are such good fuel that in nomadic times some families stayed in the high mountains the whole winter, living in tents and warming themselves and cooking with nothing else.
Reindeer herders sometimes slept out in the open even in winter. They made a big fire of willow, and when the fire had gone out they spread a thick layer of twigs over the embers, and then slept on this heated twig bed. There are many rules regarding what kind of twigs you should use, how to cut them and how to distribute them on the coal. Mistakes will set fire to the twigs and the sleeping men will get burned. As an old reindeer herder says: Inexperienced people must not try to sleep on coal, they will surely burn.
Higher up in the mountains where the willow is rare there is dwarf birch (Betula nana) or skierre. It is used as summer fuel in the tents, and for little coffee-making fires outdoors. The slender twigs are burned fresh with their green leaves, and they burn quickly. A fire of thin skierre twigs gets hot enough for baking bread, but does not last long.
In the mountains Juniper bushes (Juniperus species; gaskas), grow crooked and curved, and their needles whirl around in the air when lit, therefore juniper wood is seldom used. Still it has one very important property, so important that reindeer herders sometimes call juniper life saver of the mountains. When a juniper has died and dried out, the wood is harder than any other. Even in very heavy rain it does not absorb water. No matter how terrible the weather is, it is always possible to get a fire going if you can find old juniper.
Freshly picked crowberry, (Empetrum nigrum; dangás in Sámi), Phyllodoce caerulea (vuorkkodangás), and even Lycopodium (ruvdarássi) are also used for fire, usually in fine summer weather. When the sun is hot, reindeer move up on to snowfields high above the tree-line and for the herders following them these small shrubs are the only firewood available.
A reindeer herder always carries birch bark in his backpack to light his fire with. The precious strips of bark must not be squandered; in the mountains the next birch might be a very long way off. In the summer you might find dry wood to light up with. But in winter it is much harder, as almost every twig is hidden under snow. Surprisingly though, it is actually possible to light a fire out of live, raw willow, even with no dry material at all to help out.
Matches and a razor sharp knife are necessary, however. You take a fresh willow branch and slice a number of paper-thin strips, piling them into a little, lofty heap. Put two or three matches to it carefully, and it ignites.
In pine and spruce forests it is easy to make fire, as there is plenty of dry wood about. When pine (Pinus sylvestris) dies it gets dry, and the trunk remains standing for decades, until it finally falls to the ground. The standing dry pine, soarvve, is used in different ways. When sleeping outdoors in temperatures of 20°C or 30°C, the reindeer herders made a special fire of two soarvve logs. One was laid on the ground, and the other parallel upon it. Different kinds of supports were used to prop up the upper log and prevent it from rolling off. The small flames, not more than on a candle, still generate a lot of heat. Such a double log fire, a nuorssjo, burned all night.
Dry spruce wood (Picea abies; Sámi luorkoj), is unsuitable for open fires, because it generates a lot of sparks that fly around. When the spruce has decayed, however, and is rotten through, you have useful firewood that will glow and burn softly without making sparks. Therefore it was used for night-fires in the tent.
Smoke from fires has many uses, for instance as protection against mosquitoes. Bigger animals can also be scared off by smoke. In the old days reindeer herders picked leaves of Angelica (Angelica archangelica) and smoked them in a pipe to protect the reindeer from hungry wolves. Angelica has two different forms; one is tall with a stem of one metre or more, Sámi bosku. This form is edible and well known as a Sami household vegetable. The low-growing form without the long stem is called vádnu. It has an acrid taste, and its leaves are smoked in the foul-smelling wolf-scaring pipe.
In a recent book by Yngve Ryd the Sami expertise of fire-making is revealed in fascinating detail, with excellent colour photos making it possible even for those who do not read Swedish to follow the processes and to understand something of these ancient skills.
The author and publisher are looking for a partner to publish the book in English.
Eld Flammor och glöd samisk eldkonst.
Yngve Ryd, Natur och Kultur, Stockholm, Sweden. 430 pages.
ISBN 91-27-10750-7
Source:
http://www.taigarescue.org/index.php?view=taiga_news&tn_ID=1137
Must be useful to some of you...
Tom
