Gichigami - "Big Water"

Sunset Aug 22 2008 - Lake Superior

Sunset Aug 22 2008 - Lake Superior

Storm Clouds

Approaching storm chases the sun away. Was just a quick sun shower and then the sun came back. Having some nice weather these last few days.

Tipi at sunset

Nice sunset tonight.

5' Kid's Tipi

A "Tipi" I made from a 3 metre x 1.5 metre  (10' x 5') piece of canvas I bought at Walmart for $28.   The Tipi is 5' diameter and 5' tall inside. I haven't had time to sew the fireflaps so they are just tacked in place with some waterproof woodglue.

Another Black Bear sighting -on the beach / Lake Superior.

A friend was telling me that there are more black bears this year since they cancelled the Spring Bear Hunt. More bears, more bear sightings. Berry crop failure makes things worse. These factors explain the unprecedented number of nuisance bear problems that the province is now experiencing.

15 ' Tipi pattern.

Plains Tipi

Wikwemikong Tipi

Wikiwemikong tipi in the backyard.

Drive back to town. Bear encounters.

We drove back to town today and saw 2 black bears crossing the road. The 1st was a cub crossing from the bush side towards the beach about 10 minutes drive from the camp. The second was a larger - full grown and very lean black bear that lumbered cross the highway in front of our car at the turn off to Manitoulin Island. Something is happening with the wild life in the area since we have seen 2 black bears and 2 wolves in the last 2 days. (More than I have seen in my whole life at camp) Be careful out there ! Anyway ...  we had a great visit the past few weeks and look forward to reading more posts during the month of August.  

kayak this morning

The lake was very calm this morning so dad and I went for a long kayak towards haviland bay. We could clearly see the Sandy Islands and it felt like we could paddle over to Batchewana Island. It was a good thing we didn't try since the wind came up by noon, and the waves were reaching 4'.

Interesting Information: Heating the Tipi

This is quite interesting: http://www.trapline.com/1.htm
"The best thing about a tipi is the opportunity to have an open fire in the dwelling. There is nothing quite like a tipi fire with yellow and orange light from the flames flickering off the inside walls and the faces of those gathered within. Dig a small indentation in the soil just forward of center of the floor. Around this shallow pit place stones to create a hearth. A small and efficient fire will lessen the amount of smoke created. In a tipi, the walls block all the wind and the smoke rises up in a perfect column to exit out the opening at the top. It is important to take note of the prevailing winds before setting up your tipi; put the back of the tipi into the wind and this will help in the drafting of smoke from the lodge. In the Western United States this normally means positioning the tipi facing toward the east.
Keep a large supply of wood to the right of the door and smaller pile of immediate use nearer to the fire. Experiment with different kinds of wood... . Pine throws more sparks than most wood but it's easy to light, burns furiously and gives off very little smoke if maintained and throws ample light. For serious winter living I would suggest a wood burning stove, it contains and controls your fire much better. During a storm the wind can change direction ruining your careful plans for drafting smoke out the flaps. With a wood stove you can keep the flaps closed at the top and keep the heat from escaping.
There are two ways to vent your pipe from the stove. You can vent it out through the smoke flaps using triple layered stove pipe. It is important to note triple layered pipe is used - anything less and you will burn your tipi. The other way is to install a stove jack on the outside wall. This is a square piece of heat shield rated at 600 degrees where the stovepipe is inserted through for safe venting.
The smaller the tipi the easier it is to heat. Heating is a major factor in choosing the size of tipi..."

The Peeling of the tipi poles.

We stripped the bark off the 12 Tipi poles this morning. When they were done we rolled them around in the sand to remove some of the sap. They are now drying in the sun. There was a lot of discussion on how we might also use this structure as a sauna. We'll see once we have the frame up if there is a way of adding cedar siding and an interior roof that would allow us to create a long term sauna/sweat lodge. I made a sketch -

12 Tipi poles ready for the weekend.

Here's a photo of the 12 Tipi poles cut and ready to go. They are about 20 ' long straight evergreen trees.

Porcupine Canvas for Tipi's.

Found this online. 10' canvas for teepees $290. PorcupineCanvas.com

Sun is out. Time to go for a swim.

Waves are rolling in, but the mist is off and it's time to take a dip.

10:50 am and now the fog is rolling in.

Still waiting for the mist to burn off. I can't see past about 100' offshore. No kayak paddle this morning. The last couple of days the mist rolls out around noon so I'm expecting the same today. Hopefully the water stays calm so we can paddle out to the Island. The Island is up for sale again - 120 k this time. Problem is that there is no access from the adjacent shore so we would have to boat over from here, which would make it difficult to build anything over there.

How to build 10 ' Teepee

10' teepee

Aug 1st - How to build a Tee-pee

Windy day at the cottage. I'm going to see if I can find out how to build a teepee for making a sweatlodge on the beach. I'll post what I can find.