One slogan almost everybody knows is, “Takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’.” Not everybody can identify the product – Timex watches – but the sentiment is popular; for almost nothing else counts as much, in the middle of nowhere, as dependability in equipment. We’re redundant in most small items, like fuel funnels; but butane lighters must light, stoves must cook, tents must keep out the rain and wind, and zippers must not fail.

An item of particular interest is our cooking stove. We’ve tried several different types – alcohol-and-kerosene Primus; white gas Svea; MSR Whisperlite white gas or multi-fuel; Coleman Peak 1; and two-burner Coleman camp stove. Each has its virtues and drawbacks. The Primus we retired after one trial; it was funky and 19th century-looking, but fussy and smelly. I polished its brass and use it as an antique decoration. The little ones were light to carry, simple to repair, and hot as firecrackers. I used to win water-boiling contests, back in my college outing club days, with my little Svea 123, nicknamed “Sunshine of the Night.” But they were too easy to tip over.

The Coleman Peak 1 is a great stove, descended from the famous World War II “GI Pocket Stove” produced by Coleman for the military. Reliable, tough as nails, and efficient, they fit inside a two-pound coffee can, which makes a very nice package. But again, their three little tabular legs tend to dig into sand or slide off pebbles, dumping a whole supper onto the ground.

At some point during our travels I noticed that the Inuit of the Canadian Arctic used, almost exclusively, Coleman two-burner camp stoves. And the abuse they gave them was an incredible argument for their sturdiness. Ramming into a rocky shore in their outboards (again, almost exclusively, Lund aluminum boats, built like tanks in New York Mills, Minnesota, and treated as such by northern natives), they then reached into the bilge and began heaving their gear ashore. An unbelievably battered two-burner Coleman typically flew from ten to twenty feet before crashing to earth. Then its owner splashed ashore, opened it, pumped the tank, and touched it off to make his tea. That was good enough testimony for me; and when I discovered that the stove would fit neatly into the bottom of our yellow plastic waterproof wanigan, it became permanent equipment, along with an assortment of spare parts, just in case.

I once came across a gang of campers in the White Mountains – a Dartmouth freshman trips group – who were in deep distress because their leaders couldn’t pump any pressure into their Coleman fuel tanks. Nobody had thought to check them before packing them. It was obvious what was wrong: the little leather cones in the pump cylinders had dried out and shriveled. “You got any oil?” I asked. They shook their heads. “Isn’t that salad you’re making for dinner?” They nodded. “What’s the salad dressing?” A couple of minutes later the little pumps were busily raising the pressure in the tanks. The pasta would be hot that night.

Another time, in the Arctic, our crew lost both our Peak 1 stoves at the bottom of a river in an upset. After heroic recovery efforts, we got them out. I pumped them up, held up a lighter, and they began roaring instantly. The technology is as simple as it is amazing. Like the Navy, the stoves were designed by geniuses to be operated by idiots. We’re committed to them.

In recent years, propane-fueled Colemans have come into vogue, but only for car camping. They’re too heavy to carry on a long trip, and the empty canisters have to go along all the way. Then there are multi-fuel stoves, which burn either white or unleaded gas. This is very handy, because you can’t carry flammable liquids on airliners; we have to buy our fuel at the town where the airline ends and the charter begins. The last time I bought white gas, in Kuujjuaq, Nunavik, it cost me $25 for a four-liter can. Unleaded began to look pretty good, so I bought a new multi-fuel.

A Twin Otter dropped six of us off at an abandoned sporting camp three weeks by canoe from the nearest village. I fired up the new stove (which had worked fine in a trial run at a church pancake breakfast) and immediately began to get a bad feeling. It looked, smelled, and sounded kind of like a Coleman, but it wasn’t cooking like one, and it was going through fuel like a cow through corn. Al, the designated troubleshooter, took it apart and fiddled with it. He found a discarded old Coleman amidst literally tons of derelict equipment in a storage shed and scavenged some parts, which were clearly made better than ours. We began to discover other compromises: lighter-gauge metal, pressed-steel welds, thinner, less rust-resistant paint. Very discouraging. He got it going all right, and we nursed it down the river for the next couple of weeks, but that’s it. From now on it’s not going more than thirty feet from the tailgate of the truck.

Old Bill Coleman gave his name and genius to the company. I can’t help but wonder what he’d think if he could read, as I have (now that it’s too late), the Internet critiques of the new stoves. Very sad. It seems to me the country that put men on the moon so long ago could do better than this. I’m going to have to start haunting yard sales, I guess.