What made you invent this wool sleeping bag?
I have been an outdoorsman my whole life. I grew up in the Great SMoky Mountains I am especially fond of camping and backpacking. After I got a B.S. Degree with a Major in Outdoor Recreation, I ended up developing MCS. I spent years detoxifying my and I went through the routine of getting all the toxins out of my domestic environment, including bedding.
So then I realized all my modern camping gear (esp. tent and sleeping bag) was toxic. It was contradictory trying to go out and enjoy Mother Earth and bringing all these toxic things. There was no way I could breath. I started doing some research and digging up historical documents showing what people used before modern times. So I started playing with natural fibers.
First it was the tent. I had to figure out how to make canvas light enough and with water-shedding abilities. I figured that out first and started using a wool blanket in the summer. But when winter came, a simple blanket was not going to do the job. So I started looking into sewing my own wool sleeping bag. That lead over the course of time to the products I now have on the market.
What drew you to the outdoors like that?
Nature is the ultimate playground and sanctuary. I feel peace and joy in nature. I also get a lot of healing. So there was a big gap now because I had no way of being in nature with my new non-toxic lifestyle. I HAD to figure it out. How do you get away from the houses, roads, car, civilization? There is a specific art to outdoor living, camping, survival, whatever you call it. You need shelter, clothing, bedding and food.
I looked toward the native nomadic cultures. They used skins for clothing and shelter and bedding. It was always wool. Anything that was put against the skin in a cold climate was wool or animal hides. Wool has the amazing ability to keep us warm even when it is wet because it wicks moisture away from the skin.
What ended up happening was–I invented a whole new style of camping and wilderness adventure. I call it the New Earth Way. It is very different, because the way fabric impacts our biology and health is dramatic. And from a spiritual perspective, we are living a contradiction to go outside and put plastic between us and the elements. What I mean is, we are trying to merge or commune with nature, but we are using things made mass produced in sweat shops in China from toxic materials and from a culture that rapes the earth. And these fabrics do not allow an authentic PALEO experience. I mean, the idea behind barefoot walking and grounding and being naked in the sun. Having some authentic human experience apart from civilization where we feel that primal essence of life. These synthetic outdoor fabrics are not allowing our natural energy and rhythms to balance. Synthetic Materials ere a compromise. I could not bridge that gap. It was a conundrum.
Just how much of a difference does it make? I mean a lot of people enjoy the things you are talking about and they don’t have the natural fibers.
I’m not saying you can’t have a nature experience with synthetic materials by any means. I’m just saying, you aren’t going all the way. Take the example of barefoot walking on the earth. That brings you closer to a true experience. We want to feel our vitality and aliveness. We want to feel the textures of the ground, the wind, the sun and rain on our body.
There is something else that happens. Something deeper and something more healing and more rejuvinating. Part of it is because you go into a deeper sleep. And we all here know how important sleep is for healing. You have a deeper, calmer, more rich experience because your body’s rhythms and balancing with earth rhythms.
As you talk, it seems like there would be some alternative available on the market. Why was it you could not find something already made somewhere?
The outdoor industry has become a multi-billion dollar industry and it has it’s own quirks. Basically there is a credo among outdoor enthusiasts, especially with people who carry their gear backpacking. The first criteria considered is weight. Now there’s a good point for that. Back in the ‘day’–which we’re talking even the 1970’s and earlier–gear was very heavy. There were wool sleeping bags and canvas tents. And they were very heavy. Over the next few decades as NASA developed new technology in lightweight fabrics, this was immediately adopted by the outdoor community. It really changed the whole nature and style of camping and created what we now know as the modern outdoor gear industry..
But they have taken it to the extreme and omitted other important things, such as biology, toxicity, circadian rhythms, the process of respiration that happens with the skin, and micro fibers filling the oceans. And beyond that. There is the Deep Ecology Movement and ReWilding Movement, which approaches the Wilderness from a different place. Instead of a place to seek distraction and entertainment, Deep Ecology is more about being in Nature as a transformative experience. just being with the Earth. And that means welcoming the elements to some extent.
For some of us, there is no way we are going to go out and expose ourselves to those chemicals.
So did you simply re-invent what was already available from that era?
Not exactly. I borrowed some of the technology, but I re-invented the design based on the new lightweight standards. My wool sleeping bag has unique features that shave pounds compared to the ones from the old days.
And one of those features is the fact that the sleeping bag is 100% wool, including the fabric that holds the batting. The old ones were sewn in canvas which made them much heavier and also not as warm.
Another feature is the use of flaps that you hold shut with your body instead of a zipper. This allows the sleeping bag to use less batting and still be effective.
Why makes a sleeping bag different than a blanket? Why couldn’t we just go camping by wrapping outselves up in a blanket?
A sleeping bag seals out all the drafts. Now you could potentially take a blanket and wrap yourself up tightly like a burrito…which would be a good idea if that’s all you had. But a sleeping bag cuts out every place the cold could creep in and it does it with the least material and weight possible.
Where did sleeping bags come from anyway? How long have they been around?
The Eskimo were probably the inventors of the sleeping bag. They made them out of seal skins and stuffed them with animal fur. These were really nice because the seal skin waterproof. They weighed about 18 pounds and were carried on dog sleds. You could sleep through the most extreme arctic blizzard on one of these things. Pretty amazing to think something only 18 pounds could do all that. The Eskimo had to be the masters of cold weather travel and living.
But the Nordic Vikings also had a version. They probably just borrowed the idea from the Inuits as there is evidence they traveled there. But the Viking’s version was felted wool sewn inside oil cloth. Oil cloth is linen which has been treated with linseed oil. These sleeping bags were of course heavy and not carried away from the ships and camps.
Can you describe the differences we could expect when sleeping in a wool sleeping bag vs. synthetic.
The way synthetic–including down–bags compromise sleep is:
1–Synthetic materials near or on the skin interrupt the body’s natural electric field which interrupts the flow of chi. This chi- force is also known as piezo electricity. This flow is important for establishing homeostasis and relaxation. It also effects temperature regulation of the body. Temperature and moisture regulation and piezo electricity along the skin work synergistically together. Natural organic bedding thus optimizes cellular respiration as well as temperature regulation to help from getting too hot or too cold.
Due to several synergistic effects, our body temperature, heart rate and blood pressure rise, when we use synthetic materials for clothing or sleeping.
As the body’s metabolism works throughout the night, perspiration is released as water vapor. Synthetic bedding and foam in mattresses trap and hold this moisture because air can’t circulate. The metals in the synthetic material (as well as mattress springs and metal bedframes) actually short out the electrical flow in our body (synthetics come from petroleum). As body heat and moisture build up, and your cells are literally having trouble breathing, your heart rate increases, which elevates blood pressure and causes shallower sleep. Also stress hormones increase like cortisol and adrenaline due to the hidden stress fight or flight reaction going on, which further stops deep sleep dead in its tracks.
Wool allows this gas and moisture to pass freely while synthetics block and trap this process. There is some dynamic happening between the factors of temperature and humidity effecting dew point and condensation of moisture on the bedding. In synthetic and down blankets and sleeping bags, the material can trap moisture and keep it near the body. We all know, it’s hard to sleep when you feel clammy. I have slept through many heavy fogs and dews under the open sky with the wool sleeping bag and wake up feeling perfectly dry.
2–Detoxing Qualities of Cold Exposure
Because the wool allows this comfortable sleep in lower temperatures, we can turn the heat down or off in our houses. The cold has healing qualities. Our body is warm but the cold air is still hitting our lungs. This causes the body to go into a process called Cold Thermogenesis, where the body generates heat. In a nutshell, exposure to cold tells the body to burn fat, which in turn generates heat.
So when the body burns fat, along with that fat goes toxins which are stored in the fat. So exposure to cold helps us detox in that way, in a very powerful and effect way. And at the same time we are stimulating our metabolism and raising our thyroid function.
And also, the benefit of breathing cold or cool air also means there is more oxygen in the air.
3– Synchronizes Circadian Bhythms
The cold helps our body to synchronize circadian rhythms and reduce inflammation. In a nutshell, this is because we are putting our body in it’s natural habitat. So this tells the body which season it is in. If we keep ourselves in warm heated air during the winter, our brain thinks it is summer. This spells out: INFLAMMATION because there is a mismatch in the signals which regulate body function. Part of our brain says to cool down because it is in the tropics, the other signals are telling it to warm up because it is winter. And when our body–basically brain–thinks it is summer and it is really winter–it makes us compound the problem by craving carbohydrates out of season.ct.
rewilding discussion