With machines fuelled and loaded up with ice fishing and outdoor cooking supplies French, Stroh and I headed out over the highway Sunday morning back to Salmonier. Today we will continue exploring this beautiful area French and Stroh in his 2017 Argo Huntmaster while I will be piloting Project 6x6. Slaney would be joining us later in the day with his 2018 Argo Avenger 8x8.

We headed East on the transmission line hanging a right onto the mining road eventually taking a couple much narrower ATV paths deeper in the country.

Even after Saturday's rain the trails were still spectacular for riding. They were well packed and surprisingly smooth.

We stopped on another new (to us) pond, took a guess on where to fish and planted a few lines.

The brooks were running pretty good after yesterday's rain but ice on the ponds was still in great shape as long as you checked them and crossed with caution.

An hour or so later Slaney arrived and we continued our backcountry adventure.

Our adventure took us well back into the country climbing hills, breaking through bog on one of the woods paths and crossing an open river to arrive at a pond near the Avalon Wilderness Reserve. It's very important not to cross into the reserve as it's closed to motorized vehicles all year long, you may loose your machine if/when caught in there.

Around suppertime we put French's Husqvarna T540 chainsaw and my double bit saddle axe to work and gathered up some firewood to build a fire for cooking.

I also had a chance to fully test my GSI Pincacle single burner gas stove today. I used it to boil water making instant rice in the pot from my GSI Dualist Kit, and later boil my Dr.Si collapsible kettle. Even though it was breezy the stove worked awesome. It had no issues blowing out and the windscreen kept the heat concentrated on the pot. It was much faster than my MSR Superfly stove in similar conditions, but the cold really takes a lot of good out of the gas cylinders. All these stoves work better in warmer temps as the liquid fuel boils a lot less at lower temperatures. All in all, still very impressive.

While I was getting moose in the pan and cooking rice French sliced & fried up another pack of delicious fresh fish white puddings on the fire.

I fried up my marinated moose, onion & fresh mushroom dish which was prepped at home, bagged and left to marinate all day while we were in the woods.

Once the moose & onions were cooked I mixed in the rice to bring it back up in temperature and absorb all the juices from the meat, veggies and marinade. It was AMAZING.

As darkness fell on we enjoyed the evening under beautiful stars as we burned off the remainder of our firewood then packed up the machines to head back out of the country.

All in all it was a great day in the woods. We made it back across the river, through the bog hole and down over all the hill climbs with little trouble, and had a smooth run back to the trucks. All machines are running well, who knows where we will end up next!

Cheers, MIKE

Copyright © 2025 Michael Smith