Jetboil

Title: Jetboil

General Information about Item:

  • Material Lore
  • Informant: John T. Brady
  • Origin: United States
  • Language: English
  • Country of origin: United States

Informant Data:

  • John T. Brady is Dartmouth student in the class of 2019. John is from the suburbs of Chicago, IL. He grew up north of the city in a nice suburban town which he described as very “bubbly.” John was part of a boy scout group growing up in the Chicago area. Every summer for about one week, John and his fellow boy scouts went backpacking. They backpacked all over the United States. His scout troop went to New Mexico, California, Wyoming, Wisconsin, and other places. One of his earliest backpacking trips was actually a section of the Appalachian Trail in North Carolina and Tennessee. The trail started out of Hot Springs, NC. His early experience with the Appalachian Trail sparked an interest for John to conquer the entirety of it.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context: The Jetboil is a piece of cooking equipment that is used by almost every hiker on the Appalachian Trail. It can cook water in less than two minutes which is very important for hikers that need a quick, hot meal after a long day of hiking. This piece of material folklore is used by nearly every hiker and could be considered essential. Hikers pass down suggestions and tips to people starting to hike the trail. One of these suggestions surrounds items like the Jetboil which makes cooking along the trail easier.
  • Cultural Context: This type of cooking equipment is common among all hikers around the world. The Jetboil is not simply used in the United States but is most commonly seen amonglong-distancee backpackers that need a reliable source of heat to cook food.
  • Overall Context: John Brady’s early experience hiking a portion of the Appalachian Trail encouraged him to later attempt to complete the whole thing. With his boy scout troop, he hiked a 40-mile section of the Appalachian Trail (AT), but he knew that the trail consisted of over 2,000 miles. He said that he saw some “weird looking Hippie dudes” as he described them, and thought that he may want to hike the entire trail between high school and college. John said that people are on the Appalachian Trail because they are in between things in life. “You are either in between school, love, or jobs,” John said. For him, he was in between graduating from high school and starting his new life at Dartmouth in Hanover, NH. John hiked the Appalachian Trail from March 5th until July 29th. Starting on March 5th was early in the season, but not too early where it would be uncomfortably cold. He also started early to avoid the large crowds that start the AT between mid-March and mid-April. It took John 149 days, or just under five months, to complete the AT. John’s preparation consisted of “googling” and asking knowledgeable backpackers about how they prepared for the trail. John did not spend a lot of time physically training for the journey but instead made sure he had a good plan of attack for the first month of the trail, which is most important according to him. Some people try to get ahead and complete many miles quickly but end up hurting themselves. John made sure that he set a pace that would allow him the most success. John starting hiking the AT with a lifelong friend of his that was also in his boy scout group. His friend was from the same hometown in Chicago, IL. His friend hiked for about three or four days before he got sick with a stomach illness and had to stop hiking. He hiked with many different groups of people going Northbound. The most prominent person that John hiked with was a man with the trail name “Werewolf.” Werewolf was from Tennessee. He was a grocery store manager and recently divorced from a long time wife. John and Werewolf got along very well given that Werewolf was around 40 years old. He also hiked with a mechanic named “Macgyver” from one of the southern states. He also hiked with two brothers named “Link” and oddly enough “Folklore.” the brothers were twins and were known on the trail as the “Arkansas twins.”

Item:

  • Jetboil (cooking)
    • The Jetboil is a lightweight portable stove. It is easily packable which is important for long-distance backpackers. The Jetboil can boil water in just over two minutes and is used by many long-distance backpackers.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

 

Informant’s Comments:

  • “I used a Jetboil minimo while I was hiking the Appalachian Trail. It uses isobutane or some sort of canister fuel. They call it the ‘minimo’ because it is fatter and shorter than the original Jetboil, which was too tall to cook things in. It is the stove I used for pretty much everything. I was one of the few people who consistently had hot breakfasts and I attribute that to me using a Jetboil. It made boiling a half of cup of water for oatmeal and hot chocolate very easy. One of the problems with the Jetboil is if I was feeling a starch-heavy night I would cook ramen and put a thing of instant mash potatoes into it. And occasionally I would end up with too much food for the Jetboil. I would try to add water because the potatoes would be dry and the ramen would be hard. It was very easy to clean and made eating on the trail a whole lot easier.”

Collector’s Name: Colton French

Tags/Keywords:

  • Jetboil

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