hand drill below zero in the Boreal forest

I often hear it stated that the hand drill method of fire lighting is a technique which usefulness is limited to warm climates. Here we demonstrate the hand drill in a Canadian winter, using a cat tail stalk (Typha latifolia) collected from the edge of a frozen lake a short walk away as the spindle and hearth board carved from a fallen white poplar having been weakened by Fungus (Phellinus tremulae), which was also found near the cat-tail growth, the grass used for the tinder was collected from the sheltered area beneath the white poplars under which we are sitting.

Apart from shaking off the snow, carving the spindle and hearth to shape and vigorously rubbing the grass between our hands to increase its surface area, no further preparation was made to any of the materials used; they were not stored or dried in any way.

You'll notice that we continue to drill longer than is normally necessary after the smoke indicates that an ember has formed, this is because we find that the bitter cold quickly saps the strength of the ember and in this case the grass is also a little damp, so we are aiming for an ember two to three times the size we would normally be satisfied with in summer.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• hand
• drill
• winter
• boreal
• forest
• canada
• fire
• by
• friction
• bushcraft
• Handrill

[spectralmunchkin]

I keep coming back to this video. I live in BC so this is a great reference on how to get it done. Thanks for posting this.

[Varg7393]

I love staring at those White Poplars, they're my favorite trees, I thought at first this was filmed in a Slavonic nation, they are abundant in W'Poplars as well. Great video and humbleness!

[TryingTBHumble]

This is exactly waht i was looking for :) I'm far more interested in making hand drill fire compared to bow drill fires, and was wondering if it was possible to make a fire with a hand drill all around the year in canada(where i live) so this was really helpful. Thanks a lot.

By the way what other materials would you reccomend be used for making a hand drill fire in the ontario region?

[branni79]

good effort fella.