DAY 17 - A change of pace 😊
Well, today wasn't as exciting as white water rafting, but it was almost as enjoyable. After going none stop since we started our trip we still needed a little more rest. We didn't set an alarm and woke up at 9am. It's pretty hard to wake up early in Jasper considering its between 3-5°c every morning, and it's much warmer under the sleeping bags. We finally decided to get up and make a Western with spinach, feta cheese, and cherry tomatoes. As Melinda started to cut everything up I started to make a fire, however, I did things a little differently this morning. After watching enough primitive technology videos on YouTube, I figured I would give er a go. I bought a ferrocerium (magnesium strip) fire starter at sail and started to build the fire.. I put decent sized kindling on the bottom with very fine, thin wood shavings at the top with dry pine needles. After that I got out my ferrocerium bar and proceeded to make small magnesium shavings on the very top. After getting about a quarter sized worth of shavings and cutting a good chunk of my knuckle off doing so, I switched to the Flint side. Now apparently everything leading up to this was the easy part, because even though its easy to make the sparks, its very difficult to direct them into your shavings. After about 20/30 tries I sparked the magnesium igniting all the fine kindling and paper towel and into a roaring fire. I've never felt so rewarded making a fire in my life. Even though I only have a bit of peach fuzz on my face, and was wearing my Canadian branded flip flops, I'm pretty sure Melinda saw me as a lumberjack in plaid with a full, luscious beard. After that we made up our westerns and enjoyed the fire for the afternoon. Since it was such an exhausting morning, we decided to have a nap for about 3 hours. When we woke up, finally feeling refreshed, we went into town for some dinner and to look around the local shops in Jasper. We went into a quaint little candy shop where we got fizz candies and McCraw's old-fashioned flat taffy along with some assorted candies. After enjoying some dinner and candies, we stopped at a pull off just outside of Jasper to write the blog while we still had service. We were even accompanied by some deer and elk that ran across the road infront of us! Tomorrow we're back at it full tilt hiking around the amazing landscapes before moving to Yukon Thursday!
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