I often tell people that there are four things you need to get through a New Brunswick winter: a snowblower, a generator (the more wattage, the better, so it can run your whole house), a 4-wheel drive, and a wood stove.
And a neighbour with a tractor in case there is more snow, or the snow is wetter, than what your snowblower can handle (our neighbours are gifts from above on many levels).
The wood stove is arguably the most important of these, as this one has more to do with actual survival than any of the other three. It’ll keep you warm and it’ll allow you to heat up all the things you’ll want to be eating as soon as possible if your fridge and freezer are not powered up, although the actual CSA-approved stoves do not get hot enough to boil water if they are operating at a safe temperature.
In our house, we also use the wood stove as supplementary evening heat once the chill is in the air.
My wife is no big fan of the wood stove because, at her (our) age, she’d prefer an actual big fan to a wood stove. She says she comes with her own built-in heat source that should in no way be supplemented by a hunk of refined iron with a far-flung part of the Devil’s domain crackling away inside inflicting eternal punishment on the tortured souls both within and without.
In contrast, I love the wood stove, partly because it keeps the power bill at a reasonable level (although we do have a central heat pump, too) but mostly because I find wood heat to be so cozy and comforting. In my mind, if there’s a (controlled) fire going, I feel a sense of calm and security that allows me to keep all other concerns at bay. It’s definitely as much a psychological comfort as it is a physical one.
I love all the things associated with fire as a domestic heat source. I love preparing the wood during the summer and fall; I love smelling a hint of fire in the outdoor air telling me that other people are using their wood stoves, too; and I love driving by yards with huge, well-stacked wood piles, suggesting to me that a lot of other New Brunswickers find this heat source to be just as important as I do and that they take pride in the whole process.
My wife and I will never quite agree on the non-emergency use of the wood stove but, if you drive by our house any winter evening and see one or two windows open, you can rest assured that compromise remains at the heart of a good marriage. That is, when she’s not standing outside on our porch with no coat on in below-zero weather…