When I was a kid, it was common to use dry pine cones as substitute charcoal, usually when casually roasting frankfurter sausages on a stick over fire or in a barbecue. More recently, it was declared an unsafe practice due to some volatile toxic compounds (?) present in the pine cone wood.
I see the cover portrays a classic backwoods-style campfire construction known in Finnish as “cleft fire” (*rakovalkea*). My dictionary suggests the English rendering is simply “slow-burning log fire”. Basically, you can keep the fire burning for many hours (for example while you sleep) in a narrow space constructed of massive pieces of firewood.
The open-faced shelter is also a classic backwoods camping solution, designed to collect radiated heat from the fire and reflect it to the sleeping people. According to the dictionary, it’s called “lean-to”, and a tent version would be “Baker’s tent”. I’ve seen some literature noting that various other names were used in Anglo-American pioneer era, such as “long hunter’s shanty”. (The Finnish name is *laavu*, though *asento* has been also used, at least historically).
When I was a kid, it was common to use dry pine cones as substitute charcoal, usually when casually roasting frankfurter sausages on a stick over fire or in a barbecue. More recently, it was declared an unsafe practice due to some volatile toxic compounds (?) present in the pine cone wood.
I see the cover portrays a classic backwoods-style campfire construction known in Finnish as “cleft fire” (*rakovalkea*). My dictionary suggests the English rendering is simply “slow-burning log fire”. Basically, you can keep the fire burning for many hours (for example while you sleep) in a narrow space constructed of massive pieces of firewood.
The open-faced shelter is also a classic backwoods camping solution, designed to collect radiated heat from the fire and reflect it to the sleeping people. According to the dictionary, it’s called “lean-to”, and a tent version would be “Baker’s tent”. I’ve seen some literature noting that various other names were used in Anglo-American pioneer era, such as “long hunter’s shanty”. (The Finnish name is *laavu*, though *asento* has been also used, at least historically).