I’m headed out for our winter term, which means 3 weeks in the woods for our Winter Woodsman course and the Boreal Snowshoe Expedition. Then I’ve got just a few days before leaving for northern Quebec to spend a week on the land with my old friends David and Anna Bosum.

February is my favorite winter month to spend on the trail. The ice is thicker, the days are longer, and the January thaw is behind us. The weather is usually more stable.

We put together a few new toboggans for this winter’s programs, as is seen in the photo. We use both wooden and plastic toboggans, as well as runnered sleds. We make all of them ourselves.

I think of the wooden toboggans like I think of canoes. I love to use our wooden canoes, but I don’t like to let people who are just learning use them because they don’t understand the care that they need. This isn’t to say they aren’t rugged, as I’ve got two that are 19 years old, but like canoes there are certain parameters that must be obeyed when using them on the trail. The plastic toboggans don’t have these same parameters, so they are great for people just learning the way of the winter trail.

See you in a few weeks!