Improvised boiling water?

[Codger_64]

Water+hot rocks+vegies+meat=soup

 

[Brad "the butcher"]

I have done the bag and hotrock technique a few times and have deduced it sucks big time, have a steel waterbottle or a little firstaid/survival kit in a international coffee tin or something when you are out.

Have had good use packing a flattened mini-loaf style heavy foil plate that takes up no space and weightl, they hold around 2 cups and forget about trying plain foil.

 

[gomipile]

You can get stainless foil that is pretty tough and suitable for this purpose.

 

[kgd]

Thank you all for your very informative posts, the information on other forms of water purification is very helpful although not what I asked for. I agree there are many creative and more efficient ways to make water safe to drink than boiling it, what I was more interested in was boiling water for the purpose of making food sources that may contain parasites safe to eat. Most of northern Ontario hasn't seen civilization since ww2 or the railroad pulled out, well before water bottles were common, hence it could be useful, but cannot be relied upon. Heating water with heated stones was all I could come up with aswell, it is very inefficient and inconvenient but in dire times it could save your life. I was trying to picture what Native Americans would have done hundreds of years ago... probably barbecue their food. wooden carved bowls are possible, or birch-bark containers? or an animal skin sack suspended over a fire? Im picturing all the critters you could find in the bottom of a creek, crayfish, mussels and the like. Thanks again for all your posts.

Honestly - red - I disagree. But I haven't been through much of real north Ontario but I have been through a lot of crown land and you can usually find a glass bottle or two on most expeditions even when going back-country to places you think might have never been been habituated by folks before. But egotism has a way of making you believe you might have been the first to a spot.

Green. POTTERY. Very common, especially in the U.S. Many rivers and soils can be dug into to find clays that can be fired into passable cooking pots. There are great descriptions of pottery available with culture-specific styles and signatures. My wife made a cooking pot with direct harvested clay as part of the Great Lakes Primitives conference last year.

This was the fire used to fire the pots.

Here are the pots

But beyond pottery and cooking - really I don't think the native Americans thought much about water quality. They drank water freely from streams and lakes as their populations were not that large and the act of multi-generational exposures to water sort of helped them with the water-parasite thing a bit. On food - meat - you BBQ it. Popcorn on the otherhand (a delicacy) needs a pot!

 

[RoyalM]

Ray Mears did a video a while ago (about 10 years I think) where he improvised a cup from birch bark. Doesn't take long to do and maybe cuts down on the unwanted added flavour other containers may provide.

LINK

Combine this with the hot rock technique for boiling and you're good to go.