VIKING HIKING XII

BACKPACKS & BEDROLLS

Transporting materials should be done in the easiest and most convenient manner you can find. For the most part, this means that you need to make either a backpack or a bedroll which will carry a lot of your gear.

When packing your backpack, make certain that the weight is evenly distributed. It is suggested that you practice packing your gear and lifting the result. Do not be afraid to start over an d prepack it to make it easier to carry.

Set out your fur and blankets. Place the gear you are taking in the middle. Then roll it tightly and secure it with rope or a strap. I will repeat, roll it tightly! The ends can tied with a rope or a strap for carrying over your shoulder (either by the rope or strap or with the roll over your shoulder. It can also be separated into several bundles and secured by a strap for transportation on a simple frame that can be attached to your back so that it resembles a knapsack.

The Gokstad backpack is a basket that may contain the goods and then is strapped to the back. It is unknown how common this was, since all that remains of it are a solid wooden top and bottom (with holes where the upright spines were inserted) . It is unknown, in fact, if the sides were basketwork or solid leather. Interpretations have been both.

Anything secured in this manner is not readily available and should not be considered accessible. Anything that does need to be readily available should probably be placed into a scrip and carried over the shoulder.

FOOD & LIQUID

While it is possible to bring along raw materials on a trek, that can be cumbersome and requires at least a metal pot and some way to suspend it over the fire. It makes a lot more sense to bring along prepared foods and to eat them cold or, if you want warm foods, suspended on a road or stick over a fire.

Suggested Prepared Foods

Keep it simple. An eighteenth-century refers to the bag that contains food as his food wallet.

• Cheese
• Bread, Crackers and/or Flatbread
• Jerkeyed meat
• Fresh Fruit (such as apples, grapes and cherries, but not sweet oranges)
• Dried Fruit and Vegetables
• hard-boiled eggs

optional

• Fresh vegetables including kale, turnips, peas and (not a vegetable) mushrooms
• porridge dried
• salt

Fresh Foods

Collect fruits and berries as you trek, but make certain they are safe and edible. Do not consume anything that you are not certain may be safely eaten!

If you have the time, you might want to hunt or to fish along the way, but keep in mind that the meat must be prepared before consumption. You must have the knowledge for doing this, as well as the time to do it. Keep in mind that if you have to take the dead animal for later preparation, it will add to the weight being transported, and the discarding of unwanted parts of the animal is not advised just on moral grounds.

COOKING

Many trekking videos and articles are obsessed with telling you how to cook. If you want to cook, that is okay, but I have a tendency to love cold camps! If you are unable to exist without warm food, and want to cook food rather than just heating it, you must bring along the necessary equipment—pots, skillets, spits, trivets, griddles and cooking utensils such as ladles and cooking forks.

Recommended equipment are a wooden bowl, a spoon (wood, horn or metal) and a cup (wood or metal; ceramic cups can be too delicate). Drinking directly from the kestrel without a cup is entirely acceptable. Horns are for feasts and horn cups are probably not period

LIQUID

Every person on the expedition should have a personal kestrel or two, a leather or ceramic canteen. Fill it with enough or other liquid to last the trek. The liquid might be milk (if the weather is not too warm), fruit juice, cider or near beer. If a leather kestrel is wax lined, alcoholic liquid might very well destroy the lining!

Any alcoholic beverage—beer, wine and hard liquor—can be brought in a separate kestrel but should not be used as a primary source for drinking.

If you replenish water—don’t get involved with making juice—you should make certain that the source is potable. Wells or clean streams are good sources, as is rain water which is not strained through branches. Do not drink water that is not moving