FEELING HOT, HOT, HOT! The writer stoking his wood fire. (Submitted photo)

The ink on my Blugold diploma had long-since dried when the new B.A. finally got me my first job: piling lumber at a small, country sawmill. Night shift. Outside. January. I was living then in a century-old farmhouse three other starry-eyed children of the “back to the land” movement and I had rented for $100 a month. The place had electricity and running water (usually), but no source of heat other than a 55-gallon drum that had been converted into a wood burner, hence the cheap rent. On sub-zero nights, we’d stoke it with chunks of elm and oak we’d scrounged until the stove pipe turned bright orange; I still can’t believe we didn’t burn the place down.

However, that winter may have been more transformative than my four years daydreaming through lectures on Ken Kesey and toiling over imminently forgettable poetry. Persevering through a winter of frozen-fingered, knuckle-smashing labor 40 hours a week made me think I might actually be tougher than I had previously thought, and hearing the rough life histories of some of my co-workers made me appreciate how fortunate I had been up until then. But probably the most significant impact was the way I became passionate about wood heat.

No matter where I’ve lived since, whether more makeshift rentals with friends, the first home I shared with my wife, or more recently even our city place in south Eau Claire, the steady heat from a wood fire has always been a must-have for me. I’m not talking an occasional blaze in a mantled fireplace, but a continual, four- or five-month burn in an airtight wood heater, kindling laid in on embers every morning and stokings throughout the day. Sure, heating with wood seems like a quaint throwback to pioneer days, and those who still do it know how much work it demands, but I like touchstones with the past, and the cutting, splitting, hauling, stacking, and stoking always feels like good, honest work.

Speaking of stacking, Henry David Thoreau wrote in Walden, "Every man looks at his wood pile with a kind of affection." To me, there's nothing like the sight of a carefully-built rick of oak, each piece a resolve against my ever-mounting piles of years.

And it’s not just me. It’s estimated about 200,000 Wisconsin homeowners (about 9%) may be heating mostly with wood. In fact, one of the most popular programs in Norway a few years ago was a four-hour show on gathering, splitting, stacking, and then burning firewood in a woodstove. The show is based on the also popular book, Norwegian Wood: Chopping, Stacking and Drying Wood the Scandinavian Way, by Lars Mytting. I have my own copy, but the merits of the “Closed Square Pile” over the “Standing Round Stack” method of wood piling, the best ax sharpening technique, or the BTU ratings of tree species don’t come up in conversation very often.

Speaking of stacking, Henry David Thoreau wrote in Walden, “Every man looks at his wood pile with a kind of affection.” To me there’s nothing like the sight of a carefully-built rick of oak, each piece a trophy of my resolve against my ever-mounting piles of years. Packed loosely enough for “a mouse to run through but not the wily cat,” it’s a little heart-breaking to watch the cords of wood shrink down through November, December, January, February, and even March. My son-in-law regards my finicky stacking to be slightly silly, but my daughter, who grew up piling wedges of hardwood alongside me, knows the shape of someone’s wood pile can say a lot.

When we lived in the country, I could usually scavenge up enough wood from blowdowns and oak wilt from our own woods and from that of kind-hearted neighbors. Now, I have to rely on – I’m embarrassed to say – split firewood delivered and unceremoniously dumped in our driveway. Over my wife’s complaints about the mess and probably my neighbor’s annoyance with the smoke when I fire up, I’ll probably keep using wood heat as long as I can manage my back’s protests and the stairs to the basement. As Thoreau also wrote of heating with wood, “You can always see a face in the fire.” As I stare into the tempered glass of a wood burner, I guess I see my own. 

Ron Davis is the author of Shiny Side Up and Rubber Side Down, available at The Local Store (205 N. Dewey St., Eau Claire), and through most online book sellers.