The Wood Stove

It would be hard to convince me that there is anything out there that feels better than walking into a house in the dead of winter and being greeted by the warm dry heat of a wood stove. If you’re familiar with the feeling, then you know what I mean when I say it quickly becomes a friend you can’t do without.

Those evenings when the lights are off and the glow dances against the floor and walls in a sputtering, shuttering display that only a flame could choreograph out of sheer spontaneity. After all, the deck lights outside propose a long winter storm, big fat snowflakes illuminated out of thin air in the LED beams, and so you sit on the couch, maybe a glass with something on the rocks in your hand, with enough beech and maple dried and ready for the next day or two – that’s right, you’re in it for the long haul now.

A fireplace or even better (safer?), a wood stove offer up a certain air of authenticity to a country home. Stacking cordwood, splitting it via axe or splitter, the whole process becoming something that sits on the fringes of chore and hobby.

That’s not even touching on the smell. That wonderful scent of burning hardwood that lingers around for hours on end, light grey plumes wander into the branches and boughs so whimsically. Chimney smoke looks aesthetically pleasing no matter the conditions. A sunny November afternoon or a drizzly March morning – frigid February evening? Even better.

Maybe you’re like me in that you have a real soft spot for the old fashioned wood heated household. You remember the importance of a well-made wood stove during times of duress, when winter storms kill the hydro, and conditions don’t warrant a walk out to kickstart the generator. “Good” I say to myself. “I’ll make dinner on top of the wood stove tonight”.

It does, however, take a real concerted effort to maintain one – I’ll give you that.

Sourcing wood, paying for it if you can’t harvest it yourself, figuring out how to get it back as close to where the stove is as possible, all of this reminds me that it’s not as easy as going to the back of the lot and taking down an old elm or maple anymore. That’s even if you have the land to harvest. Some folks keep in touch with different arborists, others have flatbed trucks deliver entire loads of wood to their driveway.

Some just get rid of the wood stove entirely.

Maybe wood stoves are as much a mentality as they are a commitment. Do we really save money by running wood? It depends on your situation. The do-it-yourself types might not have it any other way. A true to form nod in the direction of self reliance and a darn good one at that, because maintaining a wood stove is a lesson in discipline, isn’t it?

Regardless, imagine a Christmas drive to the relatives near, oh, let’s say Cameron Lake, when you turn off highway 35 onto the bumpy concession that leads down to where farmland meets cottage country. Through the vents of the vehicle wafts that old familiar scent coming from a stove pipe somewhere unseen. When it hits your nose, you lean back just a little further into your seat and smile a smile that no one else sees, longing for more of that wood smoky smell.

There truly is nothing else quite like it.

Mike Fitzerald is an avid outdoorsman and knowledgeable homesteader who writes for multiple publications about living off the land. You can follow him on his adventures via Instagram as @onmivore.culture