• Happy Weed Appreciation Day! 🌱🌿🌻

So, what old item do you still use?

Thanks TG, I would like to improve the battery life but the bulb has those screw threads and they in turn hold several parts together, so the two of us will continue to go along, just a little dim but workable.

Best Wishes, Rob
 
I keep working in the old time gear. As I said in my intro I spend a week on the Allagash with my grandson and he needs to learn the old ways, so every year I try to add a new 'old' piece of equipment and an Indian trick. New ways of starting a fire and knots/braiding rope are always there.

I also collect old Coleman so there's the old GI single burner stove I've been taking and I'm cleaning up a double and a triple burner stove depending on what size group we have next year. I'm also working on a Mil Spec Coleman Lantern for next year to replace the propane one we use now.

Next year I'm also taking an old Dutch oven and a Tumpline.
 
1951 Old Town Guide 18
Handmade paddles
Duluth No 2s and a kitchen pack
Dutch oven from 1930s
Knives, match safe, compass from the 1930s.
Mess kit from 1960

There is something about the old equipment. I like Jerry Dennis' book "From a Wood Canoe."
 
1951 Old Town Guide 18
Handmade paddles
Duluth No 2s and a kitchen pack
Dutch oven from 1930s
Knives, match safe, compass from the 1930s.
Mess kit from 1960

There is something about the old equipment. I like Jerry Dennis' book "From a Wood Canoe."

Nice equipment list, hope to see some pictures some day.
I like Jerry Dennis too
 
I have a 30year old,18th century repo folding pot trivet and have yet to find a better,smaller,,lighter device to hold a pot to boil on any fire.
Turtle
 
Still using my 1970's Coleman 505A single burner white gas stove. Lights easy and has that smell when burning that takes me back to my childhood.
 
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My oldest piece of kit is my 1948 Coleman Speedmaster stove. Very rugged very hot and very stable. It weighs way too much and takes up a lot of wanigan space, but it has become more than a source of heat. It is a symbol of a bygone era when Canadian factories built quality gear and rugged people used them.
Nostalgia always trumps common sense!
 

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I have two of those old stoves and really like taking one along, even if it weighs as much as my two burner. I find it works really well and with the wind guard that karin built it has turned out to be a great find.
 
It's not really old,but it could be. I use a reproduction folding trivit to put my pot on in a campfire. I got it for living history camping, but also use it for modern canoe camping.It's pretty lite,packs small, and sure beats balancing a pot or grill on rocks or logs over the fire.
Turtle
 
Boy that is a cool looking old stove.

Bob.


It didn't hurt to have a beer next to it did it Bob. Around here instead of using sex to sell things we use beer. Memaquay will want a whole six pack of stoves. We must be getting old or something.

Yes I know, the beer can was a size comparison. And a good one at that. I'm just having some early morning fun with you all.
 
I miss the old Optimus 8 that I gave away. Snow shoes made in Minnesota from the Tenth Mtn Division. 1978 Kelty Tioga external frame pack in red. Knives and small axes from the 1940s. Wish I had an Optimus 111.
 


When I was younger I remember seeing made in Canada hunting, camping and fishing clothing and equipment. There was a general assumption it would be high quality. Same with outdoor items made in certain Northern US States such as Maine or Minnesota. We assumed it would last in the field or in the case of clothing keep you warm and dry.

I agree, my mother went to some mills somewhere in the Ottawa valley and bought my a wool red and black plaid jack shirt. I loved that thing, when I got back to Long Island I thought I was too cool, then the Beach Boys made them popular, which made me even more cool, but I had an original "Ottawa Valley" wool jack shirt, the best shirt I ever had.
 
When I was a kid, we used my grandfather's old Baker tent and Coleman 2 burner that he bought when he came back from World War I. The tent was amber colored canvas from years of campfires. The smell was heavenly and I would buy it if it was a cologne. The tent had a certain translucent quality and unfortunately some big rips. In a rain storm, my Dad would but a huge dark green canvas tarp over it. The old stove was completely black from flare ups over the years and probably a worn out generator. I grew up seeing the value of the old equipment. Recently my Dad gave me the old "family outboard." It is a 1929 Johnson outboard , 1 1/2 hp. It would be perfect for pushing a canoe, but it hard to start with the spark advance, primitive carburetor and No 7 spark plug.

My Dad often still says, "the old ways are the best ways." I got it from him. He used to build fly rods, sporterize old military rifles, sew leather and make stuff with an axe. We spent hours reloading ammo and shot on a rifle team as kids. We set traplines and got out of school to go deer hunting. He learned a lot from his Dad and my great Uncle Ralph. Dad liked to bring a bale of straw for under the new Baker tent on hunting trips. That was the way Uncle Ralph liked to camp.
 
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Gee whiz, I don't think I have anything old anymore. The one thing I did prize was a unique collapsing fishing rod. When I was on the pig farm, my buddy's father in law had been a soldier in WW2. He was a practical old fellow, and had fought with a tank brigade. During some down time, he had made a collapsable fishing rod out of an antenna from a German tank. It was heavy, but very very rugged. He sold it to me for ten bucks. Somewhere in the countless moves made during my life, I lost that fishing rod. It would have been the perfect canoeing rod!

Keep posting the beer pics boys!
 
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"Keep posting the beer pics boys!"

I came across this old stubby on a solo last September. Sure brought back the memories.
 

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This is my system for refrigerating beer on a trip



I need to find another dark float so it's not as obvious sitting on the water
 
I came across this old stubby on a solo last September. Sure brought back the memories.

Ah yes, the stubby! I routinely find those as well. The only ones still existing in the beer store are from Jamaica, Red Stripe or Lucky Stripe, something like that. Takes me back to the days when 24 stubbies was under ten bucks canadian. Of course, that's probably the going price for beer int he States.
 
Wool. I miss wool. I mean real wool, not the plastic blends we have today. I do like my fleece jackets, but let's face it. It isn't real fleece, it's fake fleece. When I was a younger man I was given a wool jacket one year. It was a plaid shirt type thing, and incredibly warm. Perfect for autumn, and even early winter with layers. I eventually was given three more by my parents. I didn't take care of my wool jacket riches though. I wore them to too many construction sites where they got ruined. I sure miss them. I once bought a pair of wool pants from an army surplus type store. I bought several items by mail from that surplus store. I remember buying a beaver hat as a gift for my brother. It was mean't as a kind of goofy gift, but with some traditional history to it. He loved it (or so he told me). There are still fur winter hats to be found made from beaver, rabbit and wolf. The best ones I found (but didn't buy) were handcrafted by a First Nations lady at a pow wow. She did some beautiful work. Oh yeah, those wool pants. Gosh they were warm, even in -20C or so. And they breathed, so when I'd come in from the wonderful wintery outdoors, I'd still be comfy sitting at our kitchen table. They were a couple sizes too big, so I had plenty of room to move around and layer under if need be. I kept them up with some trusty suspenders. I bought a set of wool underwear for when it got really cold. Wow. That combination of wool on wool on skin took the edge off any biting cold winter evening walk in the woods. Those wool onesies were a little itchy though. I don't know whatever happened to those old pants.
 
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