Olive oil lantern will it attract bearsJust

No hard feelings Bruce, I didn’t want to derail things too much.

My main thought was having friends and neighbors who bring bears in with bait has broadened my perspective on their behavior and smelling ability.

But you asked a fair question so I’ll give the best answer I can. It’s not considered particularly unsportsmanlike at least locally.  There is actually a fair bit of work and some expertise involved.  If you just dump a pile of bacon out in the woods you probably won’t see a bear. The bears tend to be in the thick timber in the spring where finding them other ways would be very impractical.  I’d argue it’s as fair chase as most other hunting but less exciting then chasing game on top of a mountain.  The upside is bait hunters typically have a game camera. That gives you the ability to study a bear and figure out whether its male or female or whether there are cubs around. So when you do pull the trigger it’s a more sustainable kill then shooting the first one you see up on a mountain.  And bears do figure out that hunters are dangerous and avoid a bait when people are around. I know of a massive bear that was seen on cameras but not by people to my knowledge.

I got slammed for spraying pepper spray outside the tent to try to stave off a marauding bear.  Even when I knew it was the blueberry Kool Aid that attracted it.  Now it’s olive oil.  Granted, it’s got to be no food products whatsoever, even (especially) salt or pepper.

Now can someone tell me what will make the @&*# bear go away?  (WARNING, deliberate thread hijack!)

It does sound like petroleum products are safe.

Luke. No problem. thanks for the context.

Most of the Alaskan hunters I know are not “sports” hunters; they want to eat the bear.  Whatever.

I wonder if the olive oil might also attract other animals, which might be a nuisance, rodents, raccoons, skunks, depending on your location. It’s yummy fat. Why not investigate a food source? I keep all food out of my tent as a general rule. Not worth even a chew hole in a pack.

Karen you have a good point too. Some of those little guys are way more bold then most bears.

Given enough time bears or ther critters will taste pretty much anything. I found an old sleeping matt with chunks bitten out and chewed by a bear once. So a fatty food product would get checked out – eventually.  On the other hand, if its one night and you are the only one burning that type of oil you might be okay.

Interesting enough the person who felt that olive oil would impregnate an odor in my tent suggested Beeswax candles. I read online that olive oil burns clean and odorless but when I check out beeswax everything out there says beeswax burns with a sweet odor even the candle lantern ads

I’ve eaten bear before; not my favorite…and I’m not a fan of bait-hunting either, but that’s an argument for another time.  Elk or red deer, on the other hand…nomnomnomnom….

After doing some research on oils, it looks like olive isn’t a bad selection because it (supposedly) gives off very little odor or soot if you trim your lamp correctly.  I can’t speak for it personally because I don’t use oil lamps, but after some googling and reading, that’s the best answer that I’ve found.

A clean burning alternative would be a beeswax tea light; those I do have experience with, and they give off exceptionally little soot or odor when burning.  You also gain the benefit of having spill-proof fuel, which I believe someone else mentioned.  The downside is that you’re also bringing the scent of a beehive with you into your tent if you use a beeswax candle; that could be very tempting to a bear.  Especially a pooh-bear.

Anyone tried a soy candle?

Are soy candles actually a thing?

Bonzo ditto for caribou. I cooked some up and a 10 year old said it was “more addicting than Fortnight.” Haha high praise from a video game addict!

I make wax fire starters,  (One egg’s worth of an egg carton, put in 1/2 ounce wax, melt in oven to saturate cardboard and melt into a solid piece)

The last time I got some soy wax pellets.

They have very little odor.

I think soy wax or paraffin are interchangeable, whatever’s convenient.

Beeswax maybe has some odor which might attract critters?

Wait this is for a JANUARY trip. I think we’re overthinking it. Just do it. Then air the tarp out and wash it before summer.

Soy candles are totally a thing, man.  Supposedly they burn cleanly, but I haven’t tried them; we have lots of beeswax so we use that.  Same for paraffin; I think the old stories about it being dirty-burning are just that: stories.  In my experience, a correctly-sized and trimmed wick is more crucial to clean burning than the wax type.  That’s why I don’t use paraffin tea lights, incidentally: the wicks are usually too small.

Hey, wait a second: how about the little Snow Peak lantern that uses canister fuel?  I’ve never used one, but that would be no more pungent than a canister stove when running.

I’ve been following this thread through its twists and turns.  I live on Kodiak Island, Alaska, and we have more bears per square mile than probably any other place in the world.  Our bears, however, have abundant food sources so are not generally attracted to food odors.  I have done numerous hunting trips in the archipelago where we’ve kept meat in a ‘mid for several days and never had any problems.  We always enclose camp with an electric fence, but we’ve not had any incidents of bears coming around to check out our camp.  My thoughts are that if an olive oil lantern attracts a bear that is A) one feckin’ hungry bear and B)a bear who has learned to associate humans with food.  In the case of B, I wonder if your human scent is more likely than any food scent to attract bears.

On bear hunting and hunting in general, as a hunter I feel that baiting bears is not fair chase.  I should mention that I oppose bear hunting unless it is for food.  Kodiak gets many trophy hunters who want to shoot a bear for a rug or a mount in their living room.   I’ve had black bear and it was pretty good and I would probably hunt them if there were any on Kodiak.  Deer, elk, caribou, and mountain goat are my favorites.

Oh, and lanterns.  I get the heat bit, just KISS.  The less fuss, the fewer parts, the easier the storage, the better.   I’ve used a SnowPeak canister lantern – great light, great heat, kinda heavy.   For me, the heat thing is unimportant so I’m Luci Lites all the way.

Making popcorn, carry on lads.

“Given enough time bears or ther critters will taste pretty much anything. ”

Yes!

At the Whitney Portal, California backpacker trailhead parking near the bear lockers there are photos of all the items bears have attempted to eat or taste to encourgage you to remove them from your cars.  In addition to the expected sun block cremes and first aid kits, there are photos of cans of motor oil, cans of propane, cans of insecticide (Raid), 1/2 gallon bottles of engine coolant, and other non-food items and possibly toxic items on display.

I can only conclude that the bears who are habituated to foraging in human automobiles and human camper trash are attracted not only by things that smell like food but by packaging that looks like food.  And there is their memory of past tastes and discoveries. I imagine a few snorts of propane and other spray can propellants might have them come back looking for more.

“Olive oil can leak.  A candle lantern might be better.”

+2

Another option for candles is to make them yourself–out of Crisco (vegetable ‘shortening’).   These burn w/o smoke or scent…at least from my experience…and are inexpensive (compared to soy or beeswax versions).   Also they’re “dual-purpose”.  Worse case, you can always eat the candle.    :-o

YMMV

“I’ve eaten bear before; not my favorite”

You are what you eat.  A fall bear, eating dead salmon, tastes like dead fish.  A spring bear, eating new grass shouts, tastes like a cow.  You couldn’t tell my bear stew from beef stew (and I’ve learned to not tell Californians that they’re eating Yogi).

Similarly, caribou tastes just like beef.  If you feed the cow nothing but lichen.

Mountain goat and sheep are my favorite – the alpine berries and  ground covers they eat make for a tasty critters.  In September, their flesh can be distinctly sweet and colored somewhat purple from all the berries in their diet.

I’ve only had black bear once, but to me it tasted more like pork than beef, very rich. I thought it was delicious. I like caribou too, and moose is ok but caribou is better. I don’t like any of the sausage I’ve had made of game; way too chewy, like a shoe maybe. Since lamb is one of my favorite meats, and I also like goat meat, I’d probably like wild sheep and goat. Way too darn much work!

Total thread drift.  Back to the topic, not sure I’d bring any burning device inside my tent to stay warm. I’d wear more clothing. Unless it was winter, and the tent had a wood stove built into it. Is your winter tent ventilated? I’d worry about spilling a liquid fuel too.

Karen,  yes it is ventilated as it’s a floorless pyramid and has a peak vent I’ve been using a candle lantern and northern lights oil lamp in it. I keep the bottom of the door clear as the snow is packed down there from entering and exiting and is hopefully still on the down wind side,  the rest of the tent is pretty much sealed with snow around the bottom. I usually don’t burn lamps all night but it has happened before. Once when I fell asleep with them burning it was 45 F in the morning low 20s outside. After boiling water inside for tea and oatmeal it was over 60.  I did consider the possibility that if it snowed overnight my fresh air vent could be blocked and maybe I would not have woke up. I do not plan on leaving anything burning at night again

As far as spills olive oil won’t burn without a wick fairly close to the surface it’s actually hard to light initially you really have to hold the flame to the wick for quite a while. If knocked over it just goes out.

Wow I did not realize how much warmth that could put out. I might try one myself.

Back to the original question. I would not worry at all in January that far north. I don’t think anyone worries about food storage then. Wash the tarp off (gently) and air dry it. By bear season I would imagine any residual odors would be overwhelmed by the smell of your dirty socks.

You are what you eat. A fall bear, eating dead salmon, tastes like dead fish. A spring bear, eating new grass shouts, tastes like a cow. You couldn’t tell my bear stew from beef stew (and I’ve learned to not tell Californians that they’re eating Yogi).

The only salmon we have in this particularly-uneducated vicinity is the salmon that’s on the expensive bags of cat food.

Hyperbole, yes, but with a grain of truth: salmon just isn’t a thing in my corner of the world (note to self: change corners).  Bears around here are still somewhat rare, but we have plenty of them just a few hours away in a different part of the state.  Whatever those bears are eating doesn’t usually turn into happy-tasting meat.  It’s still not as bad as late-rut stringy venison, but it’s still pretty bad…but I’ll take acorn-fattened venison from a barrel-shaped doe any day of the week.  Noms!

Thread drift complete.  I’m still preferring the solid-fuel idea, but that’s because I would end up spilling oil everywhere.  Container: I have an old screw-top container of mink oil that would be perfect.  Pastes and waxes might be your best bet for that kind of thing.