We looked at a few that would work and ended up getting an Alaknak from Cabela’s. It is 12 X 23 feet and has the capability of housing a wood-burning stove.
While first setting it up in the backyard for a sleepover with my grand-son Josh, he exclaimed “This is as big as our first house”.
Gary helped me set it up. He said it reminded him of the tents in the Hobbit. You approach it from the outside and it doesn’t look like much. Then you go in and it’s humongous with all these cool features.
Josh was able to put his various toys in all the cup holders spread throughout the tent. There are four windows on each side.
The vestibule itself is plenty big enough for two cots which serves well to store and protect supplies like waders and coolers. With just the two cots, we felt like the area with the wood stove was perfect as a dining room; room enough for table, chairs and everything. One thing I liked the most was how easy it is to set up. Easy enough for one person, although it helps to have help.
After the practice at setting up the tent with Gary in the
backyard, I was ready to take it out camping for real; in the fall with
freezing nights. Nick called and said he
was going to be in Yellowstone and could meet me for a few days on the Green
River below Fontanelle.
I invited Gary over again to help me “burn in” the stove so
there wouldn’t be paint smell and smoke inside the tent the first time it was
used. We burned through a bundle of wood
in 2-3 hours which served perfect for the burn in.
Loading the SUV with all the additional camping supplies
like wood and the wood burning stove along with a disassembled pontoon boat
proved to be challenging but doable.
Going straight from work, I met Nick and Alex at about 6:00
at the Weeping Rock campground. We found
a site with a tent pad big enough for the Alaknak and had it set up by 7:00,
right when it got dark. The evening was
gorgeous and we set up a campfire for Alex to fix us bratwursts for dinner. With the clear skies we took a few moments
now and then to look at the constellations.
We set up the three cots, table and stove. Since it was so warm that evening we didn’t
start the fire in the stove, although it was cold the next morning.
Inside the tent we used the propane heater to
take the chill off and used the propane stove to boil water for the
oatmeal. The next evening we did start
the fire in the stove, even though again it was a warm evening.
The stove did a wonderful job keeping the
tent nice and toasty. I checked on the
spark arrestor a couple of times and it did the job. The roof protector also worked well and there
wasn’t any concern about the safety of the tent.
We were able to cook dinner, cans of stew,
right on the stove. It took about the
same amount of time to get the stew boiling as did the propane stove. The tent
was nice and warm in the morning which made it so much easier to get up and fix
breakfast. The only downside was that
the fire needed attention quite often during the night to keep it going. We boiled water right on the stove for the
oatmeal. The following evening, since it
was warm again, we didn’t keep the fire going all night but rather, got the
fire ready to start so that in the morning, before getting up, someone could
easily start the fire, go back to bed and the tent would be warm by the time we
got up.