Important information before a cabin trip

Starting a fire

(1)

Collect some bark and chop some really small pieces of wood. Prepare at the same time wood pieces with a medium size. Newspaper, especially with a bit of candle-wax inside, can be used additionally or instead of bark.

(2)

Start building up bark at the bottom and some smaller pieces of wood on the top. Keep access to the bark where you can light up your fire with a match.

(3)

After a while, when the fire has started well, start putting in some medium sized wood pieces and close the door of the stove.

• Smaller wood burns faster and gives more heat at shorter time than bigger wood.
• Is the wood wet, chop it in smaller pieces, those will burn easier.
• Never store wood on the stove or too close to the stove.
• Bring matches. You never know if there are enough in the cabin.

 Newspaper

Is not THE thing to start the fire. Useless if you stuff the stove full with it and put big pieces of wood on top of it. Ok, if you replace the bark as mentioned above by newspaper.

 Press

The door of the stove must not be used as plunger of a press for getting wood into the fire! Leave the piece outside if it is too big and wait until there is enough space in the stove for a new piece.

Sawing & chopping

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Wood pile

You will find a wood pile either in front of the cabin or not far from the cabin. Check if you see some notes inside the cabin if you can't find the wood pile.
Please don't chop down trees in the surroundings since that might give trouble with the landowner! Cutting trees is done once a year by a group in agreement with the owner.

Sawing

Catch some trunks from the wood pile and saw them into pieces which fit into to stove, normally 25-30cm long. You will find equipment for sawing at all cabins. Saw at least as much wood as you used during your stay!

Chopping

is an important activity which helps to dry the wood much faster and helps you to warm up the cabin in a shorter time. Chop the wood you sawed and store it in the wood compartment so that it is dry for the next group!

Campfire

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The prepared wood you find at the cabin is intended to be used in the stove for heating. Preparing wood is a time consuming and sometimes expensive work and is done by volunteers. Use dead wood you find in the surroundings for a campfire.

Primus instructions

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Gas Stoves
It is gas stoves at all cabins, but you have to bring gas on your own to most of them. The stove model is Optimus Vega. They use standard gas bottles for camping stoves (7/16 valve), which can be bought at most sporting goods stores and places like Biltema.

Big gas stoves
Some of our cabins have gas installed, but we cannot guarantee that these are full. Therefore you should always bring a small gas for the primus, just in case. The cabins with a stove are:

• Flåkoia
• Heinfjordstua
• Holmsåkoia
• Lyngli
• Mevasskoia
• Stakkslettbua
• Vekvessætra

Suggested meals

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All cabins contain dishes, forks, knifes, spoons, pots and pans and whatever you will get use for to make a large gourmet dinner for you and your friends. There are some limitations anyway because you have to carry the food with you(!) and you often have only one primus stove.
If you want to drop some of the dish cleaning after eating, use paper plates and paper cups. After the meal you just put the dishes in the oven and fire it!

 Breakfast: Bread, butter and cheese, meat, egg and bacon etc. and a cup warm coffee or tea and the morning is complete, perfect. In Norway we have two types of coffee; kokemalt and filtermalt. Because kokemalt is more roughly than filtermalt, it's the best to make in a coffee pot over the primus stove or the oven. Put some extra boiling water on a thermos for today's outdoor lunch. Cereal can be prepared with water and milk powder to save weight in your backpack.

 Lunch: Some slices of bread you made by breakfast, soupbags (Rett-i-koppen) or maybe a cup of hot chocolate (powder which you just add water into) and hot water from the thermos. Bring a sleeping mat or some plastic bags to rest on.

 Dinner: Soup++, spaghetti, different types of meals with rice, vegetables etc., etc., etc. Use your fantasy (and common sense)! Very popular on cabin trips are sausages (pølser) for the campfire and Taco as a very social dinner. The advantage of rice, pasta or couscous is that you save quite some weight compared to potatoes for example.

 Dessert: Cake(s), cookies, chocolate and tea/coffee. A tradition on cabin trips is to prepare a cake in the evening. Buy a three layered baked pastry case, some cream (fløte), pudding, chocolate, fruits, etc. For inspiration, have a look on the Koiene Cake Gallery. :)

Please do NOT leave any food at the cabin! Even if you have leftovers of uncooked pasta, rice or coffee, take it with you back again. The food will most likely not be used by other groups and will only attract mice to the cabins.