Lunchtime Friday Mark French, Michael Stroh and I headed out over the highway to Central Newfoundland to do some work on a beautiful backwoods camp recently purchased by good buddy Terry Slaney.

The cabin was built in 2014 and is completely finished outside, while only 1/4ish of the way finished inside. The camp needs insulation, electrical, wall finishes, cabinets, plumbing and flooring, so we are going to get some of that started this weekend.

French's trailer was jammed full with Project Foreman and his 2017 Argo Huntmaster fitting with just inches to spare.  In addition we had a huge load of gear, food, tools and equipment needed to get a bunch work done on the camp while Slaney is away working.

The main focus for this weekend is to get the bulk of the new electrical installed. This will include sheeting up a utility room with plywood, installing a generator cord, disconnect and breaker panel. The installing all new wiring and mounting devices such as lights inside & out, switches and electrical outlets so we can let the lightning flow!

Spring thaw is in full swing here in Central NL which meant there was a lot of open water on the marsh. Quite a bit of snow remained in the woods which was peppered with deep mud, the final stretch of the ATV trail saw some tangly shoreline riding for the Argo which wouldn't fit up the bike path on shore.

The first load in was a stout one as we carried in the generator, power tools and electrical supplies, both Project Foreman and Mark's Argo certainly worked hard and earned their keep on this run.

Slaney's Camp is just beautiful, nestled right on the bank of a beautiful Salmon River amongst a grove of tall silver birch trees.

With the first load dropped off at camp, we hooked Terry's walking beam trailer to Project Foreman and headed back to the truck for the rest of the gear.

Some of the path was still ice covered which got more and more tangly with each trip! As the ice broke up the ride got a little spicy especially with a heavy trailer in tow!

The second load was also heavy and quite bulky with the rest of our supplies, hand tools and gear bags. Full loads only!

Five sheets of 1/2" plywood and a steel burn barrel were loaded aboard Terry's heavy duty walking beam trailer, I had my storage box full, then strapped 2 cases of water to the front rack for extra traction on the front end.

As we were getting ready to head back in we discovered a flat tire on Mark's Argo.

We found a small puncture hole in the sidewall, so we threw in a plug which will do the job just fine for this trip, especially in a low pressure bias ply ATV tire.

The trip back in was tangly especially on the flooded section but uneventful with noone getting stuck. Both machines certainly worked for it this trip, the loads again were heavy which really put Project Foreman to work dragging the trailer. The High Lifter front diff locker certainly earned its keep in the bog and deep snow on the wooded section hauling this in.

We had a bit of a traffic jam of gear, tools and grub as we got it all dropped off and moved indoors. Next we sorted our personal gear into one room, tools in another and equipment to install laid out in the main area for easy access.

While French settled into electrical work & Stroh setting up the outdoor burn barrel, I started getting supper started as it was going for 7pm. On the menu tonight was Fresh Fish Stew, the same recipe French and I enjoyed earlier this winter in his ice fishing shelter.

First up was frying and rendering out some bacon trimmings, these are the burnt ends from smoking and slicing our homemade applewood smoked bacon.

I forgot my hose & 5lb propane tank so we ran my Coleman Hyperflame stove on a couple 1lb disposable bottles this weekend.

Stroh's priceless expression after reading the MSDS sheet for whatever used to be in that barrel!

Terry's cabin came equipped with the venerable and renown Acorn Ranger woodstove, which can take one massive load of wood. We had one of these at our old scout camp on Dog Pond in Foxtrap and they certainly throw out the heat!

With bacon rendered, and some of the grease removed, I threw in the chopped onions to brown up which is key to this recipe.

By now the Acorn Ranger was good and hot so I took the Fish Stew off the Coleman stove, added the water & potato, and set it to simmer while I gave the boys a hand with the utility room work.

When the potato was probe tender I laid a few pieces of cod fillet right on top to boil/steam.

Insulation finished, and inside corner studs installed to catch the ends of wall board.

By now our very aromatic fishstew had simmered long enough and it was time to eat!

A meal fit for royalty, it was well appreciated after a long day driving, riding, hauling in gear and renovation work!

Seconds? Thirds? Yes please!

Insulation complete now onto vapour barrier and plywood for the walls of the utility room.

Our plan was to get one sheet of plywood up for now then start mounting the main disconnect & breaker panel. Meanwhile Stroh did a fantastic job of metering out the little bit of existing wiring, deciphering it, fixing it and tearing out what was no good.

He mounted fixtures in the finished section of the cabin mainly the living room & two bedrooms.

The electrical system is wired to run on a 110v generator, but is future proofed and will be capable of being re-configured to run on 240v from a larger generator or perhaps solar if necessary in the future.

We had a late night Friday night, finally hitting the bunk at 2am after a tremendous start to our weekend's projects.

Saturday morning brought strong winds but fairly mild spring temperatures to Central NL.

While cooking breakfast, I got Slaney's temporary kitchen organized and added some new basic cooking utensils for the new shack!

Breakfast today had the Acorn Ranger back at work frying up my homemade Applewood smoked bacon, eggs, and the small amount of leftover fish stew from last night.

While I cooked, the boys continued on with our electrical project while at the same time keeping the outdoor burn barrel loaded up with scraps & garbage front.

Some tea & coffee finished out this awesome breakfast.

Load Part 2

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