Cama-i Alask #1; Cama-i Dance Festival

. . . . .. .. .. . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Golden rule people should observe and dressing for the cold. Any one thing that they should keep in mind? Well, it's sort of hard to say there's one rule or one kind of thing that you should remember. The first thing, of course, is being covered up enough so that your skin isn't exposed to the cold. I suppose, one of the most important things to remember is that layering is warmer than just wearing one garment that might be fairly thick. Why is that? What's the concept behind layering? Well, layering is the same kind of principle that we use when we put insulation in our house. What actually is keeping us warm is layers of air that is trapped between clothing layers or within fibers.

And it's the air that keeps us warm. And this is what happens when you insulate your house. That pink insulation is all full of air that is trapped. And so if you have one thick garment, you don't have much air in it. But if you have several layers of garments on, then between each of those layers, you have a dead air pocket. And that's going to make you warmer. We hear a lot about people getting too warm out in the cold and starting to sweat. And that causes a deadly situation. This layering effect is this help sort of regulate the amount of heat that you're keeping on your body. It can help because it just, first of all, gives you a chance to take something off, if you need to, if you get too warm. The thing that happens when people get too warm generally is they start to sweat. And then that moisture does not escape. And it becomes so cold that it actually can cause hypothermia, even though you have on enough clothing. Generally, you should have a jacket or a parker that

can unzip so that you can let some of that air out, or you might want to take it completely off for a few minutes if you're working very hard. But it should never be set aside completely because you need to put it back on to keep warm. That's a good point. When people know what activity they're going to go out for, should they dress for that activity, or should they take long enough clothes for any eventuality or? Well, it's pretty smart to take them along enough just in case something happens. If you know you're going to be doing a lot of hard work, then you probably wouldn't want a lot of clothes on. But in case of accident or you get stuck some place, it's good to have something else with you so that you don't get too cold because once you stop working and you slow down and your body slows down, then you just start getting colder. What about things like seams? People get certain. You mentioned earlier, first of all, that you have to have enough clothes to cover your body. And that sounds like an obvious point,

but you can have the warmest clothes in the world. And then if your ankles are uncovered, then you're likely to be in some serious trouble from frostbite. Seems, things like that, the fewer seams, the better? Yes, that really helps. I have a few examples here I can show you that can happen. This is just a lightweight jacket. But the seams on this, you see this is quilted. It has down in it, which has to be quilted or it all falls to the bottom. But there's a seam that goes all the way through. And particularly in an area where the wind blows, that seam, the wind's going to go right through it so that it's going to hit your body and make it colder. So we try to avoid having sewn through seams, particularly for winter parkas. This is another example. You can see on this side, here is the quilting. Here are the seams. But this part of it is separate from the rest of it so that when you see the outside, there are no seams coming through. The only place it's joined is at the bottom

and, of course, around the neck. Now you mentioned about your ankles getting cold. You should have pads that can be tightened around the ankle or you have boots or mucklucks that come up over the pants so that it can be closed off. Another thing that you want to look for in a park is if it might have a center tie or a belt of some sort, that can pull it around the waist because air comes up under your parka and can get you pretty cold inside your coat. Here you have this heavy coat on and you're freezing because this air is coming up. And that often happens when you're on a snow machine because you're going fast and it's coming right up under the parka. It's better too to have the tie inside where it's just tying this part against you because if you pull a whole part of the parka around you, then that makes almost the seam effect again. You've got that tight against your body, no air pockets there and you'll get cold around your waistline.

Let's see. So, number one, general rule is look for as few seams as possible on the outside of the garment. Well, it can be either way. You might have the lining separate on the inside and the quilting on the outside or it could be just like the— No sewn through seams. Right. For a warm winter parka, you want to have that extra air space in there and try not to have sewn through seams. There are a lot of clothes that people might buy and the stores might come up from California that look the right part that maybe don't actually, don't actually accomplish the facts of life that we need up here. Do you find that that is a real danger that there are certain clothes that maybe should really be avoided because they are dangerous? Well, they use the right way. They're not dangerous. I think the problem with them is that some people forget that they're not meant for real cold weather. They're fine in the spring and fall and even during the summertime. But as far as being useful and very cold weather, a lot of our ski jackets have no hoods

and in our cold winters, we definitely need some type of a hood. They also are not the insulating materials that you might want to have. They're not really thick enough. They're very short sometimes and a winter parka usually should come down around the hips. And so they're not bad if they're used in the right way, but they're really not intended for very cold weather use. Let me, let's take a typical day, well, let's take a day like today here in Bethel, it's about 20 degrees below. There's about four or five mile an hour wind outside. And you're talking about layering, say a person has to walk, go half a mile to work. What sort of layering should they have on to be safe? Well, I'll just give you an example of what I wore because I do walk to work. I had on just my regular clothing and then a sweater and the sweater is wool and wool clothing and cotton clothing will be warmer than synthetic clothing

because it also creates air pockets in the fibers. Then I put on a parka over that with a hood. I had a wool hat and mittens and then I had boots on which have liners on them and a pair of padded pants. And so you sort of get dressed with what you're going to wear indoors and then you put on a whole set of outer gourments that you're going to wear outside. And that does give you that layering effect. Sometimes people will put on three layers because they'll have on a shirt and a sweater and they might have a vest over that and then a jacket on the outside. So it does help to have those extra layers. Another thing people have to remember is that the rooms that they're in are not nearly as cold as outside. So you almost have to have lots of layers of things because when you get inside you want to take part of it off. You don't want to wear in the room what you had on outside.

It's just too warm. We hear figures like, you lose 50 or 75% of your heat through your head. Is that true first of all? That's true, okay. So hats is important, right? Hats are very important. And if you're getting too warm, you fill your body getting too warm. One of the first things you can do is take off your hat. Now you may not want to leave it off too long because your ears, of course, are exposed and they can start freezing. But it is one way to let some of the warmth out of your body. The other thing is if you feel really cold, you should put on a hat and we've laughed at the old pictures of someone sleeping with a night cap on. Well, there was a reason for that because bedrooms were not heated at that time and it helped you feel warmer with a cap on your head. So it is important to wear a hat but it can be used as a means of ventilating the body. I'm told we got about a minute left. Let's give you 30 seconds of that. Why do the highlights? Why do people need to know about dressing warm? Okay, they should choose clothing

that's meant for Arctic wear. They should look at layering to keep the warmest. They should definitely have a hat or a hood and we didn't mention our hands but mittens particularly that all of your fingers are inside are warmer than gloves would be and you might even want to wear two pair of mittens which layers your hands. So those would probably be the most important things to remember. Thanks, Pat. We're going to be talking more with Pat Barker about cold weather clothing and they're insulating properties but first here is John Catcher with safety cents. Hypothermia, it's the number one killer of people in the outdoors. What is it and how does it kill? Tim Heakin teaches about hypothermia for the Yukon Cuskakwim Health Corporations accident and injury control program. Hypothermia is a word that means low heat or low temperature and this refers to the body core temperature and when somebody becomes hypothermic

when they're exposed to cold for a long time an interesting thing takes place and that is that the blood is shunted from the extremities back to the body core and in essence what happens is that the body's extremities, the arms and legs are sacrificed to save the body core where the vital organs are the brain. He can says that the most common causes of hypothermia are going out without proper insulation or warm clothing and getting wet. A lot of times people get wet or they perspire too much and don't ventilate their clothes and or they get wet or get caught in the situation where they're exposed to high windshield and their body is unable to produce heat fast enough to cope. He says that the first symptom of hypothermia is uncontrollable shivering. If the core temperature continues to drop the victim will lose brain and muscle coordination

and also at this point a lot of times the victim will cease to shiver and will have a feeling of euphoria or well-being and even warmth. A lot of times hypothermic victims are found without any clothes on tilt actually take off their clothes because they have a false sense of warmth. He can says that exhaustion is a contributing factor and that a person that is hypothermic may also hallucinate. A lot of times hypothermia victims are mistaken for being intoxicated because though, as I said earlier, they'll lose brain and muscle coordination or speech will be slurred and the stagger confused and sometimes eventually become unconscious. Once someone has become hypothermic it is most important to begin treatment immediately. Once you realize that somebody is his hypothermic

the thing to do is to try to warm their body up. Once a person has become hypothermic it doesn't do any good to put them into a sleeping bag alone because their body is incapable of bringing its own temperature back up. So the accepted method, I think, is if you have a sleeping bag to put that person into the bag first to take off their clothes, especially if they're wet, to take off all their clothes and take off your own clothes and to get into the bag and warm their body by skin-to-skin contact. If the person is severely hypothermic and clothing is not removed it will serve as a reverse insulation and actually keep that person's body from getting warm. As soon as you recognize the first symptoms which are uncontrollable, she'll bring its time to stop, make camp, build a fire, drink some warm liquids and get that person warm back up.

Giving warm liquids to a hypothermia victim will help to raise that person's body temperature. Do not try to give fluids to an unconscious person and do not give a hypothermia victim any alcoholic beverages. Coffee, tea, or cocoa are sufficient. Once the body temperature has been brought back up to normal it is time to get that person to a hospital to be checked. Hypothermia can occur in most weather conditions but it is most prevalent in the milder temperatures. Most documented cases of hypothermia occur in weather ranging from 30 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit which is, that's above zero. And I think the read and for that is that in mild weather such as that most people tend to go out unprepared and don't take extra clothing, sleeping bags and even rain gear on nice days. Whenever you travel and winter

by whatever means of transportation you use always be prepared to make camp and start a fire and always dress properly so that you can walk back if necessary. Remember just a few simple supplies can be the difference between a safe trip or a sorry one. This is John Catcher for Chime. Now back to the studio with Brian and Pat. And thank you John for that heart hitting report. Certainly made me want to go out and get prepared for the cold. We're here with Pat Barker again from the Cooperative Extension Service. I'm going to be talking some more about clothing and specifically the economics involved with it. First of all we might want to talk about the options Pat starting with the outside covering of clothing. What's available to the chopper for? Well there's a wide variety of materials available but there are certain kinds of fabrics that you'll see more often than others and I have some samples here that we'll just look at very quickly.

We often will find a poplin cover and it's sort of rattles this is a taffeta type of thing but it's pretty wind resistant and often is downproof so that if you have a downcoat the down isn't going to come through. What's poplin made out of? This is either nylon or polyester. It's a synthetic fabric. It can be made of cotton but you usually don't see that in coats. Then we often find this heavier fabric called 6040 cloth and it can be either way 60% synthetic, 40% cotton or it'll be 60% cotton and 40% synthetic just depending on how it's been made. It's used for lightweight jackets for summertime but also makes a very nice covering for a winter parka. It is not downproof however. You'd have to have something. That means the feathers will fit there. That's what comes through and okay. Then for your lightweight coats we usually see rip stop nylon used and this is a downproof fabric and is used

because it has very little weight to it. People who do a lot of camping and backpacking right to use it because it doesn't weigh very much. So it's later weight. And it's called rip stop, it will tear but it has little lines that have been... See little cross hatch pattern there, right? Woven in so if you do tear it it just tears a little bit and it won't tear a long ways. But you'll see this quite often in your real fat puffy downcoat. Notice that some of these jackets will particularly when they're working out in the cold. They are ripped and as they're one fabric it's better to repair it in another. They're all hard to repair once the coats being put together. You see people with tape on them and my duct tape and things. There is a nylon kit that you can get that sort of blues on because you have to be careful with the nylon fabrics if you try to iron anything on them you can melt the fabric because they're very heat sensitive. So that causes a real problem with the nylon fabrics

and repairing them is pretty hard. You can sew them up sometimes but eventually you probably get to the point where you want to put a new cover on them because you just have too many tears. This is an example of a rain proof fabric and really should not be used in a winter parka because you get no breathability through it. It is coated and you want to get the air in and out and to let moisture come through too. So if you're going to wear or going to be in a place where you have on a winter park and it's going to rain, you will probably should have a rain coat that goes over that and not have your fabric on your parka, the waterproof itself. And then here's a couple other examples of other kinds of fabrics. This is sort of a popcorn again and this is water repellent but not water proof. So it could be used in a wetter situation. This is the old fashioned Milton cloth, the lumberjack shirt is wool, 100% wool

and wool is warmer than synthetics. Probably too heavy to be used for a parka cover but would make a nice inner layer. You see that used, I believe, a lot with a 60-40, all right. Right, that's correct. They'll put this inside as a liner and it will make a nice coat but not heavy enough for below zero weather, it's sort of. Now among these outer things that you've shown us, what would you say is the best under wet conditions for extremely winter, extreme winter type weather? Well, we have two different kinds of conditions that we run into, usually we have a wet cold where you have very damp weather but it's very cold and then you have a dry cold and you don't need to worry about getting your things damp as much. If you have a water repellent fabric, it usually works pretty well as an outer fabric. And those are which ones that we've seen several. Well, this 60-40 can be made water repellent by coating it with Zeppel or scotch guard spray it on yourself. The rip stop usually is not water repellent.

Actually, we have more trouble with the insulation materials with wet cold. Well, why don't we talk about those and we've got how many major types of inside stuff that actually keeps you warm? All right, one of the major insulating things we have is down and here's some down in a little packet and it's very, very compressed. It probably would go in a space this large and puff all up but I'm not going to take it out here. We'll have a mess on a little bit of place. This is one of the packets that comes from the naked yourself kits and this is how it's packaged. Down is a very good insulator. It's also very expensive because there is so much supply and you can't get any more. So it costs quite a bit. And in wet weather. In wet weather, it's lousy. Okay. The thing that happens with down is once it gets wet, it packs and it just gets all together in a big lump at the bottom of the coat. And so you'll find that you have no insulation left once it's wet and it's very poor for wet weather.

It should never be used in a wet climate because it just isn't good when it's wet. Okay. Now we have some synthetic choices. These three things are all about the same. They're not very thick but they hold a lot of air and they would be good insulators in a lightweight coat. But generally your synthetic insulation is not as good an insulator in the long run as down except for some of the new things that have come out. One of the newest ones is thinsilate and that is a brand name and it has sort of a papery looking piece that goes on one side. And then the other side is sort of fuzzy but it's all in one piece. You see if I lift it up. There must be equivalent to the vapor barrier that you see in a house or is that what that's going on? No, it's more to just hold it together. I think it really, there is no vapor barrier in this. But the value of this is with tests an inch of this has been shown to be just as good

as an inch of down in insulating factor because there's lots of little microscopic pieces in there and it holds air. The problem with it is that it is heavier than down. So if you want a very lightweight jacket that's good insulator, then you would not want to use this. But people like about this is you could put this in a coat and put it next to your body and you don't look like a fat teddy barrier. Yes, let's bulky them down. It doesn't compact as well. If I want to roll my coat all up like this, I'm going to have a fatter bundle than I would with the down. Oh, okay. We're getting the wind up saying that we're out of time for this particular segment very quickly. What's, in your opinion, is the best overall by four cold weather for dry cold weather. Let's say like we're having them. Well, it's sort of give or take. It's hard to say what is the best you want to get. I would say look for a windproof outer fabric that the wind isn't going to come through too badly.

If you want down and want to pay the price, it's a very good insulator. If you want a little less expensive coat, look for a good insulator synthetic. It's sort of a, you have to pick and choose. They all will be expensive. But look carefully for the way it's made and for the types of things that are in it, read the labels and I think that's the most important thing. Okay. Thanks again, Pat. We enjoyed having you here tonight. We have one final tip before we leave you. Cold weather time is, of course, the darkest time in Alaska and bright colors and reflective tape are things that you might want to consider when purchasing and preparing your winter clothing, reflective tape stitched into the back and or the shoulders of your parka can be readily seen by motorists. And of course, reflective tape sewn into a parka may help you or your children avoid accidents. Good night. I'm Brian Murray for Chimaay. Next time on Chimaay, Alaska, you'll find out about looking for firewood,

care and maintenance for oil and wood stoves, fire prevention and more special Alaskan ideas all on the next Chimaay Alaska. We'd love to hear from our viewers. If you have any comments, questions or ideas, please write to us at KYUK Chimaay Alaska, PO Box 468 Bethel Alaska 995-5-9. iPod 3.9. .

... .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..